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The chateau, well the hammock of the chateau, was glowing in the late afternoon sun not long after they all got back from El Dorado. Even though the house was nothing but burnt wood and ash, JJ and Kie always seem to make their way back to their favorite hangout spot. After everything they went through, admitting their love for each other, flying on a drug cargo plane that had seen better days, watching their friends almost die and then seeing Big John and Ward actually dying and having to lay them to rest before they even came home had been a lot to process. So here they both were, lounging side by side like they used too, but this time with JJ’s arm around Kie’s shoulders and with her head laying on his chest.
“I don’t know what it is with Ricky’s weed but it’s always been so calming to me” says Kie. She’s passing the joint back to JJ when he laughs “that’s that hydroponic crap that’s in it Kie”.
After coming back home, things have been a little weird at times. Seeing her parents for the first time after getting broken out of the camp by JJ was an experience for sure. She was expecting yelling and telling her she could no longer see her friends especially her boyfriend, if that’s what they’re calling each other, but it wasn’t as bad as she thought it was going to be. Mike by far was more angry than Anna about what happened, he had a yelling match with JJ, because of course he came with Kie to see her parents the week after they got back. Anna was actually trying to calm everyone down, which was pretty surprising to Kiara.
“Mike just stop yelling” said Anna. “Don’t you think we have put Kiara through enough? We can’t keep doing this, threatening her and punishing her and sending her away. One of these days she’s not going to come back, but so far, each time, she has! I want a relationship with my daughter and if that includes JJ, and the rest of the pogues, then so be it! Just look at her, she’s so happy with them.”
“But Anna”, says Mike, “she’s just barely 17 years old, she needs structure and stability and rules!”
“Mike! She can still have that and we can let her live her life at the same time” Anna says, “just think about it, give her some space, we raised her to be responsible and so far she has been, she’s always let us know what she wants to do, she could have just left to go to Charleston that one time without saying a single thing but she didn’t! She even told us about Ward not being dead and about the cross and we didn’t even believe her, but yet she told us!”
The whole time her parents were going back and forth Kiara and JJ were just standing there in awe. They both just couldn’t believe Anna was saying these things to her husband. Eventually Mike agreed to let Kie stay with the pogues for awhile at Sarah’s condo as long as she started back school when the semester started. Anna and Mike both listened and even believed them when JJ told the amazing and sad adventure about El Dorado. Of course he left the breaking her out of Kitty Hawk part out.
“What are you so deep in thought about?” asks JJ. “You get this little line right here in your forehead when you’re thinking” as he rubs his pointer finger over her forehead after passing the joint back.
Kie swats his hand away, giggling and says “oh just how weird things have been after getting back home. You know with the parents and everything.” JJ nods his head at that and smirks. “You know what else weird?” Kei says, “that time you said you didn’t know how to read cursive? Really? How? We learned it in school and we were in the same class.”
JJ feeling light after finishing off the weed laughs and says, “Don’t you remember? I was out for 2 weeks that year with mono or whatever my dad came up with on the note for the school.”
“Oh shoot that’s right!” says Kie, “I forgot all about that, and when you came back you left early a lot too, right after lunch, and didn’t even hang out after school for another whole week.”
Getting a sad far off look on his face he responds with “Yea, I had to come back cause I was just so hungry. Not much food at the shack back then, even if I wasn’t 100 percent better.”
Kiara turns her head up to look at his beautiful blue eyes and notices that they’re closed as he is struggling with emotions of the memory. “Oh JJ, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up if it was going to be a bad memory for you. You can always count on me to read any cursive to you” as she tries to laugh and lighten the mood a little.
JJ opens his eyes to stare in her soft brown ones and just smiles with his dimple coming to the surface and says “No, it’s ok, I want you to know everything about me, I’m tired of hiding stuff from everyone about my dad and what he did, especially from you.” Kie takes her hand and softly brushes his cheek and goes in for a sweet soft kiss to let him know she’ll always be there to listen to him.
Closing his eyes once more as she places a sweet loving kiss on him he still has to wonder how all this is really real. He really got his dream girl and this is reality. He starts to close in on her lips once more as she pulls back but she just looks at him all softly waiting for him to continue. JJ sighs and runs his hand through his hair while his other one is lightly brushing up and down the top of Kie’s shoulder, not sure if it’s the high or love making him want to continue.
He starts off with “Well Luke got mad at me cause I let it slip to the neighbor, Ms. Jones, that I was hungry. It had been 2 days since he had even been home and he didn’t think to leave any food for me. I was only 9, not like I had a job or money to buy stuff.” JJ rolls his eyes “He got home later that afternoon and when he found out, because of course Ms. Jones had to come over and give Luke a piece of her mind” sighing again as he said it “he messed me up pretty good that night.”
* 8 years ago *
Luke busts through the back door and yells “JJ! Where are you, you little tattle tale! Running off telling all the neighbors how I don’t feed you and shit?!” He’s storming through the living room and down the hallway looking everywhere. “I know you’re here, you little shit!” Luke makes his way to JJ’s room and slams into it to get it open. JJ is on the floor with his knees to his chest with his head laying on top trying to look as small as he can at the foot of the bed. “Dumb shit, I knew you’d be in here cowering.” Spits Luke.
JJ is shaking and barely makes a sound when he says, “I’m sorry dad, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything to Ms. Jones but I was so hungry, and when she offered me a piece of her bread she had just made, it just slipped out that I hadn’t had anything in a couple of days when I went to take it from her.”
By this point Luke was steaming, he reached down and grabbed JJ by the arm and dragged him through the hallway to the kitchen. “Don’t you see this?” Luke asked pointing to the refrigerator which held only beer and moldy cheese. Then he pointed to the cabinets that held nothing. JJ knew, because he searched everywhere for food the night before, even questioning whether to drink the beer and eat the who knows how old cheese that was in the very bottom drawer of the fridge. “All this in here and you can’t figure out anything to make for yourself.” Luke pushes him into the counter top and JJ hears something crack when his side hits the corner of the counter.
JJ falls to the floor and wonders if his dad is hallucinating because there is no food at his house. He starts to stand up but Luke hits him in his face.
JJ is only nine years old, but this isn’t the fist time his dad has “lost it” on him, although, he’s never had his dad hit him in his face or anywhere he couldn’t cover it up with a long sleeve shirt or pants. He reaches a hand up to touch his nose and feels the stickiness of the blood coming out of it. Before he even has a chance to turn away or even look up, his dad is hitting him again. First the left side cheek, then the right jaw, back to his nose and repeating. JJ is starting to cry and trying to beg his dad to stop but it’s so hard to get words out when Luke is just hitting him over and over saying terrible things a young boy shouldn’t have to hear.
Luke finally stands up and gives JJ a kick in the knee yelling “how do you like that? Is this better than your stomach grumbling? Huh?”
By this point JJ has turned on his side hyperventilating from crying and trying to tell his dad to stop when he gets yanked up yet again from the floor.
Luke throws him towards the living room where he collides with the coffee table and it cracks under his weight. “Piece of shit!” yells Luke, “look what you have gone and done now!”
JJ is trying desperately to crawl away towards the door when Luke grabs his foot and pulls him back, cutting his arm on a piece of wood sticking up from what’s left of the table.
Flipping him over on his back, Luke begins to kick JJ’s sides over and over saying, “Are you hungry now?!”
Ragged breaths are coming from JJ’s mouth and blackness is starting to take over the edges of his vision as he croaks out, “please daaaadd, sstttoopp. I proommise I wwwon’t ever saay anythiiing again.” The last thing JJ hears before succumbing to the darkness is his dads voice saying “I know you won’t, not after this”.
After seeing his son pass out, Luke stops the kicking and picks him up by his arm and drags him to his room, shoving him in and slamming the door shut. Not even caring how badly he’s bleeding. He’s so high on all the drugs he’s been doing the past two days, it doesn’t even register that his only son may need medical attention, only caring how snooty Ms. Jones talked to him and threatened him with the cops if she ever heard of JJ being hungry again. He wasn’t going to jail because of his son, he knew that for a fact.
The next day JJ finally comes to fully and everything on his body is aching. He can’t even open his left eye and breathing is hard to do with the pain in his ribs and abdomen. He struggles to get up and once he does he’s so tired that he passes out on the bed for who knows how long. When he finally wakes up again, he wobbles to the door and goes out of his bedroom to the bathroom across the hall. He doesn’t see his dad anywhere when he glanced down the hallway and he’s thankful for it. Shutting the door and locking it behind him he finally catches hisself in the mirror and he’s shocked. His whole face is swollen and different colors of black and blue and purples. There is no way he can go to school, hang with his friends or even leave the house without someone asking too many questions. He strips his clothes off and notices his body is the same as his face, he wonders if his dad broke ribs this time because he’s never hurt as bad as he does now when he breathes. Cutting the shower on as hot as it will go, he steps in and tries to wash away all the pain he’s feeling and tears just flow. “Why does my own father treat me this way” he asks out loud still sobbing.
After returning to his bedroom and dressing in sweatpants and breaking out in a sweat trying to get a shirt on, he falls onto the bed once more and lets the sleep take him away.
JJ thinks it’s the next day when his door bangs open loudly followed by his dads loud voice, “I wrote a note to school saying you had some kind of sickness, like mono or strep saying you’ll be out for a couple of weeks so no one will come asking questions. You better remember the story when you do go back out.” After that he throws something at JJ and it lands on the bed, it’s some kind of sandwich. “Don’t ever say again I leave you hungry.” says Luke as he walks out the door and back down the hallway.
It got better for about a week and a half. His dad would make sure he had at least one meal to eat a day, and JJ never talked about it again to anyone how hungry he got sometimes.
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“I had to stay away from school or anyone, even John B for two weeks till most of the cuts and bruises on my face were faded or gone.” Sighing, JJ ran his hands through his hair again. “By that third week, I looked better but my ribs were still aching so bad I couldn’t last all day at school, but I made sure I could make it past lunch to eat.”
Looking down at Kie, I notice she’s on the verge of crying. I hate how telling her my story has made her sad but it feels like a weight has lifted off my shoulders in a way.
“So that’s my story on why I don’t know how to read cursive.” JJ takes his hand and wipes a fallen tear off of Kie’s beautiful face while he says “You know English was last period and that’s when Mrs. Spring taught cursive, how to read it and write it. So almost the three weeks I missed in her class was the time every other third grader was learning it.”
Kie doesn’t know what to say. She’s shocked at how a father could treat his son, she’s saddened by how JJ had to grow up, but she’s also in awe of the man he became despite the life he was dealt. So instead of saying anything she just kissed him like their lives depended on it. Of course JJ is shocked at first but then just kisses her back like she’s his lifeline.
When they finally break away, Kie tells him “thank you for telling me your story. I’m sorry Luke was like that and you had to grow up that way, but know I am here for you now and you’ll never have a life like that again.”
JJ smiles his dimple smile she loves so much and squeezes her tight with both arms and whispers “I know” in her hair. “Maybe since we’re gonna be rich now and will have so much time on our hands since we don’t need to work, you could teach me cursive?”
Kie looks at his baby blues and smiles so bright, “of course I will! Then we can write love notes to each other!” That makes them both laugh out loud.
* 2 months later *
Kie is walking to the kitchen to get something to eat for breakfast before her senior year of school when she sees a card with her name wrote on it. Glancing around the condo looking to see where everyone was and noticing they were either not up yet or getting ready she reached for it. Opening it, she lets a little gasp come out of her mouth as she smiles and starts to read in cursive a love note from JJ. After seeing only one mistake, she runs up to their room they’ve been sharing and throws herself in his arms.
“I guess you got the card and could read it” laughs JJ. Kie pulls him into a kiss then drapes her arms around his neck pulling his focus on her and says “I love you JJ”. After JJ pecked her on her nose with the softest kiss possible he grins and says “I love you Kiara”.