It'll Always Be You - JJ Maybank

Spiral.

Trigger Warning: Emotional Breakdown, grief, self-harm/suicidal thoughts/gun involved, mentions of death, murder and rape. 

"Baby," Mason kisses my shoulder, "are you awake?"

"Yeah," I roll onto my back, my face feels puffy from crying for so long, "are we home?"

He nods, "Do you want me to carry you? We're parked at a dock in between everyone's houses so we all can walk home."

"Yes." My arms wrap around his neck after he picks me up, "I love you."

"I love you too." He sighs after opening the door, I twist around to see JJ staring at us, his face is red and swollen from crying, his eyes empty while they search my face.

JJ clears his throat, "Can I come home after I go by my dads to check the house? Or.. should I stay there?"

"You can come home." I croak, my eyes fill with tears again when the kiss comes front and center in my mind. 

JJ quickly wraps his arms around us, burying his face in my hair at my neck, "I'm so fucking sorry. I promise I didn't kiss her back." 

Mason holds the back of JJs head, his fingers in his hair, "You can't keep freezing up with girls kiss you, baby, you have to pull away and tell them to fuck off."

"I know." He lets out a strained laugh, "I had flashbacks of the kegger, it was horrible."

I peel JJs head back and kiss his lips, "I'm sorry she keeps forcing herself on you."

He sighs, "It's shitty but I think she's going to back off now. I hope so at least."

"Come on, lets go home, we can talk about this later." Mason caresses JJs face before pulling away to head up the stairs.

I hide my face when we get to the top and all of our friends are watching us. I really don't like being the center of attention all the time, it's not my thing. I thought we'd go straight home but that would be too easy, instead we're all walking together, and our first stop? Kiara's house. 

"So, Riles," Pope breaks the silence, making me stop focusing on the raps of everyone's shoes on the pavement, "what did Singh tell you about this other treasure hunt?"

I pull away from Masons neck, sniffling a few times, "Um, he said that there's a hidden city of gold called El Dorado. I guess people have been looking for it for over 450 years, he needs Denmark's diary and something else to get there, but my dad stole whatever he needs and he can't find the diary."

"Big John stole from him?" Sarah asks in disbelief, "How?"

"I guess he--"

"Well this is me." Kiara cuts me off, her hands come up to gesture to her house, "I'll see y'all soon, it my parents don't lock me away."

"Bye, girl, good luck." Cleo pats her shoulder.

Kiara goes up her porch steps, but her feet faulter, she stops and slowly turns, "Bye, Jayj."

He forces a smile and awkwardly salutes her, earning a frown from her before she quickly runs up to her front door. 

Mason chuckles, "That was hard to watch."

"She could have said bye to us too." Pope complains while we start down the road again, "But I guess JJ is her only concern these days."

"The love of her life." Sarah coos sarcastically, making everyone laugh, "I don't know why she's so fixated on you, JJ, she was obsessed with Rafe before he started focusing on Riley, he started asking about her all the time and talking about her like she was the light of his life," She sighs, "Kie stopped talking about liking him after that, I never put two and two together but I think that's the real reason she started this whole everyone should hate Riley bandwagon."