𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗢𝗠𝗬 [jj maybank]

chapter 19

back from the dead, baby
🎶 this is me trying - taylor swift

Aubrie sat staring in the mirror for awhile. It was strange to get ready for school in a room that wasn't hers. She loved Liv, and she wouldn't want to live with anyone else, but it was getting exhausting to not really have anything that was just hers. She just wanted to go home. She wanted to walk in and everything would be as it was. Rose would be bringing her shopping bags upstairs, Sarah would be playing her music way too loud, Wheezie would be following Aubrie around asking her to take her somewhere, Rafe would be working on his bike, and her Dad would be in the kitchen telling the siblings to appreciate each other while they still could, and Aubrie would have been thinking that the day where she would miss this was so far off in the future that it didn't really matter.

There was a knock on the wall. "Come in," she said, turning to face the beaded curtain Liv had in place of a door. Her real door, which Aubrie had never seen, broke off the hinges in one of her mother's fits of rage. Liv just never found it appropriate to replace it. She claimed that it allowed for a better flow of energy in her home. Aubrie thought that it was because her mother left that night, and putting the door back on felt like closing the door on her mother.

"Hey," JJ said. He had decided to move in, so now Travis Blue had not one but two blonde orphans under his roof. "Kie's here," he explained, "you ready?"

"Yeah," she lied. Aubrie had never stepped foot in Kildare County High School, the only reason she was going was because Travis had a friend in admin that allowed him to enroll her. She didn't have to go, but she found it unfair to send her friends without her.

Kiara pulled her car into the student parking lot and JJ pulled out his flask. He offered it to Aubrie and Liv. Aubrie shook her head. Liv took it, taking a long swig that made her cringe as she swallowed it. "Hey, chill out," Kiara warned.

"If we black out, just don't remind us," JJ replied.

"Agreed," Liv nodded as she stepped out of the car.

"That's not funny," Kiara scolded.

Whispers surrounded them, 'I heard they got arrested', 'I didn't think they would show up,' 'do you think they had something to do with it?,' 'what is a Cameron doing here?'

They stopped in front of the memorial made for John B, and Aubrie wondered if a similar one for Sarah awaited the students of Kildare Prep today.  "I feel like everyone is staring," Aubrie said.

JJ looked around at all the eyes around them, "oh yeah."

"Guys I can't be late," Pope said before walking away.

Kiara followed him, "hey, hey. We got to stick together." She took Pope's hand, and they all fell in line. They were a united front, linked together as they went into the building.