𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐃𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒, 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬

SIX| redfield

EDEN and John B. had always been there for each other.

She still remembers the two met—that one fateful recess in the middle of third grade.  Eden had just gotten into making bracelets and decided she could make a few extra bucks—as if she didn't have enough money to begin with—by selling some.

She'd been sitting out on the bench for almost half the recess, and had nothing, nada, in her money box.  Depressing, right?  Her little eight year old heart was shattered—because, little ol' her didn't understand the way of business—and she was about to sulk away when a scrappy looking kid came running up, a five dollar bill in his outstretched hand.

Of course she already knew who John B. was, but that day was the day that a true friendship started out between the two.  Where John B. and Eden became John B. and Eden.  A few days after that, JJ was in the picture—it was hard to just get John B.,  JJ was a package deal—but the blonde and her would never have the bond that her and the Routledge shared.  He was her first real friend, and that would always mean something.

He was the one to help her to the office when she broke her arm playing soccer in the seventh grade, or to cheer her up when her boyfriend at the time—Atlas Henderson—broke up with her for some Kook girl in the tenth.   

And Eden showed the very same amount of support to him.  She was the one who gave him advice on which girls liked him—John B. never knew when to make a move—and who he should go for, or, more recently, to comfort him after the death—disappearance—of his father.

Now, at first, Eden had hope that Big John was truly just lost at sea.  But, after nine months of virtually nothing, she was almost sure, and she hated to say it,  that he was truly gone.   Her and the Pogues had tried to get through to him that his father, if not dead, was long gone, but they were always met with John B.'s denial.

He always denied any sort of saying that Big John was gone.  Somewhere, even if he knew there was only a small chance of it being true, John B. believed his father was alive and would find his way home.  So, at the sight of Redfield carved into his father's belongings, John B. could only hope for the best.

And who was Eden to tell him to stop?

"I mean, it's obvious, right?" the brunette boy questioned from the drivers seat of the Twinkie, "A family heirloom.  I mean, what better place to hide a message? He had to know it was gonna get back to me, right?" 

Eden looked at her friends, all three of which having a weary look upon their faces.  They'd tried to keep believing in the dream that Big John was coming back, but it was getting rather difficult now.  

Kiara spoke up hesitantly, "Yeah. It's possible."

Pope was next, with a less positive answer, "It could also be possible that you're concocting wild theories to help, you know—" The boy he'd been speaking too spoke his name in a warning tone, but Pope ignored and finished his sentence, "—deal with your sad feels."

"Thank you, Pope." Eden muttered, looking over at the boy who'd just spoken her own thoughts.

"Bro, you know how I process my sad feels. Dank nugs and the stickiest of ickies, thats how I do it." JJ stated with a small smirk on his face.

Eden shrugged, "I usually put on Titanic and just make bracelets for three hours straight.  But, I did dye those strands of my hair out of impulse that one time—"