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LIFE ON THE ISLAND WAS ambivalent.
After a day or two the Pogues had settled down; Pope and Cleo, John B and Sarah, Kiara and JJ, Atticus and Renna. They were together, and they'd always said that was all that mattered, but was that true? Really, did they truly only have each other?
Sure, all JJ had waiting for him was a house empty of joy and full of strewn beer cans. He had no other family, no other friends - nothing. Sarah had an untrusting something-of-a-family, with no house, no refuge, no father, no brother - only a little sister who followed after everyone who looked her way. John B had a missing dad, a runaway mother, no other siblings, and the DCS chasing his disappearing tail. Cleo had absolutely nothing at the Outer Banks, not having even stepped foot on the island before, and all Kiara had were two parents despising every minor decision she made and a traumatic reputation. Pope, while he did have a family - possibly one of the most supportive - his thoroughly-planned future and academic excellency had been kicked down the ditch.
However, among this negativity, was just a sprinkle of hope. Atticus and Renna.
Atticus had the most playful and ebullient younger brother on the planet who'd grieved his death more than once - which is odd and glum enough in itself. His mother had faced too much difficulty one should have to bear, and loved her son like Icarus loved the sun - too close, too much. He could still race cars and travel to Europe with the love of his life, meeting his superstars he'd seen only in his deepest dreams. He still had everything and more to live for.
Renna was different but the same. She was diaphanous as a person, inwardly evocative and outwardly ethereal, but she bore as much sadness as Eeyore. She never showed it, only to Atticus on the mere occasion, but it was never enough. She had screamed when he was ripped from her, sobbed when the bodies in her vision piled up into her memories for the foreseeable future, shuddered when her father exploded before her very eyes, cried when she'd been told her three friends were flying, stopped breathing when the man she'd grown up with shot another in front of her innocence, and shouted with every ounce of emotion at her father time and time and time again - only for him to return and try to kill her one more time.
Each time she was close to the end - drowning in the marsh, drowning in the sewer, held at gunpoint by a teenage psychotic and choked twice by her very own father - she realised how much she really had to live for. She had a life, a house, a running wage, a running family. Her mother would be waiting, her brother would be waiting, and Victor, Cameron, and Parker would be waiting. People would wait and wait for her to return, one day knowing that she really wouldn't come back. That's what made her cry every night, as her friends fell asleep on the island's beach, blissfully unaware of the girl's grief for nothing.
