She was the first person he trusted with his secret. His safe place.
He was the first guy she let all the way in. He could ground her when nobody else could.
-
"𝐓𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲, �...
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"Kat! Get up! Everyone else is here so move your lazy butt."
"Ugh, P." I say groggily. "I was sleeping."
"I know, get up." I roll over, so I'm facing him. "Come on."
I pull the blanket off of me, climbing out of bed. "Okay, get out so I can change."
I climb out of bed and grab some clean clothes. I pull on a t-shirt and a pair of jean shorts. I pull my hair up into a messy ponytail before I head outside to where all my friends are. I sit on the couch next to Pope.
"Morning!" Kie calls out as I sit in a chair.
JJ continues to yell and dramatically tell a story. He pauses a split second when he realizes I had come outside. A small smile dances on his lips as he proceeds to talk.
"And we were right outside like this." He presses himself against the chimney. "And all we hear is just: 'Bam! Bam! Bam!'"
I look over to Pope. "What is he talking about?"
"They went to talk to Ms. Lana and apparently there was the same guys inside that attacked us."
I tune back into JJ as he tells the story. "Knocking paint off the wall, G. From the inside. All right? And I'm just lookin' at him like- Wait." JJ steps into the middle of the porch. "Look at this shit." JJ bends over shaking his hair out in front of us. White flakes of paint fall to the ground. "Look at it."
"That's dandruff, disgusting." Kie says, a disgusted expression crosses her face.
"Okay, thank you." Pope says having enough of JJ's antics.
"Look at all that. All right? That's paint. At that point, I was just like... I'm waiting for death."
"Oh, okay, so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?" Pope confirms.
"Yeah."
"Did you get a good description of them? What did they look like?"
"Yeah, anything." Kie adds.
"Anything we can bring to a police report?"
JJ stares outside before turning around. "Burly."
"Burly?" Pope asks.
"Yeah."
"You know, like-"
Kie cuts him off. "That's not very helpful."
"Okay, well, no, like the type of guy at my dad's garage. I mean, you guys know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers."
"Yeah, yes, we know." Kie says.
"I can tell you guys with full confidence, these boys, these killers.. they're square groupers." JJ lights up a cigarette, popping it in his mouth. I get up and take the cigarette out of his hand. I drop it on the ground before stomping it out. "Hey!"
