latibule [jj maybank]

1.1

Chapter 37

There was nothing that prepared someone for the death of a loved one.

Nothing.

You could see it coming, or try to make peace with the fact that the person would eventually die, but nothing was close to feeling the actual death; of the void that followed when the person was no longer there. 

As JJ stood there, wrapped in a hug by his girlfriend of barely a month, surrounded by the rest of the Pogues, he didn't know how to act.

It shocked him, the fact that John B could be gone just like that, lost at sea. Dead. 

But it angered him more than it hurt him. He was livid. How could his best friend just leave like that? So suddenly? Didn't he know that JJ needed him?

Didn't he know that apart from India, he was the only one who could actually keep him in check?

Sure, John B had already planned on leaving, but being apart by death and distance were two completely different things. 

In JJ's mind, John B was still on his way to Mexico or whatever place he was going, happy that Sarah Cameron and himself were together and happy that in less than a month the Pogues would get to be reunited again.

That reality felt so far away now. That version of the future had cracked into a million pieces and shattered right at JJ's feet. 

When his mind began pulsating with a strong headache, the blond boy looked up from India's shoulder, confused about his feelings and emotions. 

His gaze shifted from her to Kiara, who was silently crying and then to Pope, who was crying as well, all of them devastated for the loss of their best friend. Their brother. 

For JJ, John B was more his blood than his own father. 

He took a deep breath, his lungs filling with the humid Outer Banks air. It was still summer, and it meant that the heat was still everywhere. For him, it was suffocating. He struggled to take another breath, his heart skipping a beat as he remembered everything that had happened in the past 24 hours. 

Just as he felt himself spiraling, he looked down to the small girl in front of him that was wrapped in his arms so innocently. 

Tears brimmed her eyes at the sight before her, emotion washing through her like a wave. The pogues had become the family she'd always wished for. 

She stared back up at him, trying to figure out the jumble of emotions hidden behind his eyes, and while JJ loved her, he didn't want her to see how broken and messed up he really was.

India stared at him, her eyes wide and vulnerable. She knew what he was going through. Losing a friend wasn't easy, and she knew how much John B mattered to him.

As he finishes, Pope stands back to look at the job he's done. 

The group had gathered near the Chateau. They'd decided that if no one was going to honor John B's death, that they were going to do it themselves. 

And that's what they were doing. 

It had been Kie's idea. She'd shown up with the torch and the axe, eyes bloodshot and puffy. It hadn't taken much convincing to get the group on board. 

They stripped a side of a tree bare, burning John B's name and information. 

No one said anything as they looked at the final piece before them, there was nothing that needed to be said anyways.