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“There you are.” Sarah entered The Wreck and sat down beside Kie. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”, her best friend asked with a sigh.
“John B, Pope and me. We wanted to go surfing. The waves are pretty high today. Do you wanna come with us too?”
When the girl didn’t react, Sarah carefully put her hand on Kie’s back. “Hey, are you okay?”
Kie let out another sigh. ‘Don’t cry’, she thought and held back the tears. “Things aren’t that great between me and JJ lately.”
For a little while, both girls didn’t say anything. Kie stared at the empty tables. The restaurant wouldn’t open until seven in the evening today since her parents helped Anna’s sister Louise with something. So, sitting here in The Wreck alone gave her an almost homey feeling – she couldn’t explain why.
“What do you mean?” Sarah finally broke the silence.
Kiara swallowed hard. “I feel like we’re slowly drifting apart. Sometimes it’s almost like we’re strangers. We want different things, you know? I want to graduate successfully next year and also travel the world, while he just wants to stay in the OBX forever.” She took a deep breath. “And whenever I try to talk about my worries with him, he just laughs and tells me to stop being such a worrywart.” Kie felt tears streaming down her face and immediately hated herself for that. “And we also don’t really hang out as a couple anymore. It’s like we’re speaking two completely different languages and can’t understand each other anymore.” She wiped away these nasty tears. “Sometimes I think it would’ve been better if we just stayed friends.”
Sarah took Kie’s hand. “Kiara, listen to me”, she whispered. “You love JJ, right?”
Kiara hesitated. A couple of weeks ago she would have been outraged at Sarah for asking such a stupid question. ‘Of course I love him’, she would’ve answered with a laugh.
But right now, Kie had no fucking idea what to say. Did she still love JJ? Was she still in love with him? Or was it time for them to break up after almost a year of dating?
The last months had been hard for all of them. JJ’s father hit him again, and Kie and the others finally had told the DCS about Luke Maybank’s problems. After that, they’d brought him into a clinic where he was starting an alcohol withdrawal. Heyward was JJ's and also John B’s legal guardian now.
“Do you know where JJ is?”, Kie asked instead of answering her friends’ question, but Sarah just shrugged. “He just texted John B he wouldn’t be here today.”
He texted John B.
Not her, his girlfriend.
He didn’t even tell her he had any plans for today. They hadn’t kissed goodbye after school, they also hadn’t held hands on their way home like they usually did. Their relationship had a crack and Kie had no idea how to fix it.
In the evenings, the two of them normally went to the beach to dance in the open waves; or they spent the night tangled up in each other at the Chateau, having breakfast the morning after together. Sometimes, JJ had dinner with her and her parents and the couple danced in the restaurant later. But they'd barely even talked in the past days.
Sarah stood up and pulled Kie with her. “Everything’s gonna be okay. Trust me.” She grinned. “And now come on, let’s go surfing. John B and Pope are waiting for us.”
...
A few days later, Kiara realized that her period was over a week late. And since her period usually came very regularly, she immediately noticed.
Nervously she wandered through the school hallways while Pope and John B argued about some “boys-shit”, like Kie always called their nonsense less talks.
She forbid herself to think about what could possibly be or what could possibly happen. She didn’t want to talk to anybody about her problems right now.
But what if she really was …?
That was impossible. Kiara shook her head to get rid of these scary thoughts.
Pope, John B and her stepped out of the school building, and suddenly the two boys froze next to her.
Kie looked up and when she discovered the reason why her friends stopped walking, it felt like her whole heart shattered into thousands of pieces.
JJ was standing only a couple of meters in front of them with a huge smile on his face, and he was talking to a thin girl with long blond hair. Kie couldn’t see her face, she only saw her back; but she saw JJ’s face. He was smiling, and this smile only got brighter and brighter. She heard the girl say something, and then JJ laughed out loud.
Somehow, Kiara’s broken heart continued beating. Maybe it was because the happy look on JJ’s face still gave her butterflies, even though it wasn't meant for her; maybe it was because she just didn’t want to give up on him, on them.
Pope said something, but it simply wasn’t possible for Kiara to listen to him. The way JJ looked at that girl right now was the way he used to look at her.
Used to. He hadn’t given her a single glance like this in weeks, even though they’d been together since last late summer. Maybe it really was time to end their relationship now. Maybe it already ended and Kie was just too dumb to notice.
Finally, JJ noticed her, Pope and John B staring and waved at them. Then he wrapped his arms around the blonde girl and hugged her for a while that felt like eternity. He pulled away, his lips formed words and this huge stupid smile didn’t leave his face.
Eventually, he went to the other Pogues, greeted John B and Pope with a high-five and pulled Kiara into a hug which was so short that she couldn’t even react. He right started to talk with John B and Pope and ignored Kie completely while they walked to the Chateau.
They spent the whole afternoon there on the porch, but nobody seemed to notice how distracted Kiara was all the time. She was sitting on the couch in silence while JJ wandered up and down; talking to the others constantly but he never even glanced at her. When she finally got up and announced to go home, he pressed a quick kiss onto her cheek. Kie wanted to make eye contact with him, but he had already turned away to continue telling stories to John B and Pope.
...
‘I am not pregnant.’ Kiara held onto this thought while paying for the pregnancy test at Walmart’s two evenings later. The middle-aged woman sitting at the cash desk gave her a weird look, so Kie tried to smile back, but she failed miserably.
She went right to the Chateau, but then she hesitated. Was it a good idea to take the test here? Plus, she wasn’t alone – she could hear Sarah and John B’s laughs from the kitchen. Something sunk in her stomach. They seemed to be so happy. And even though Kie knew they deserved the world after everything they’ve been through together, she felt kind of jealous.
After having a little small talk with them, Kiara went into Big John’s old room, in which JJ and her slept in sometimes, and put the pregnancy test into the pocket of her jacket. She let herself fall onto the mattress and closed her eyes.
Kiara didn’t sleep in, she just lay there and thought about the last summer. She always called it “The Gold Summer”. She remembered Midsummers. The exact day she knew she had fallen in love with JJ. She’d had a little crush on him before, but when he told her to run away with him and the others at the party, something had kind of exploded inside of her and she started running towards him. She remembered thinking about how crazy in love she was with JJ before finally running into his arms.
Suddenly, Kiara heard JJ’s voice outside. She turned to the side and looked at the clock. It was eleven p.m. already.
Shortly after, the door opened. “Kie?”, JJ said quietly.
Kiara closed her eyes again. She didn’t want to talk with him right now. She didn’t even want to see or hear him.
She could feel JJ carefully laying down beside her. His hand brushed against her cheek.
“Kiara?”, he whispered. She didn’t react. He should think that she fell asleep already.
After a couple of seconds, JJ slowly pressed a kiss against her head before he turned away to lay on his side of the bed.
Kiara stayed awake for a long time.
...
Kie woke up after having terrible nightmares. She looked out of the window to see dark clouds in the sky. With a sigh she got up, brushed her teeth and put on a pullover, since it was a little cold in the Chateau.
Then she remembered the pregnancy test.
Fuck. She was scared. Not only a little bit scared – she was completely terrified. She hadn’t told anyone about her fear, not even Sarah or JJ. Especially not JJ.
Her hands were shaking when she grabbed her jacket to put the test out of the pocket.
But it wasn’t there.
Kiara froze. Did she put it somewhere else and just forgot it?
That was impossible. She clearly remembered putting it in this exact pocket in this exact jacket last night.
“Are you looking for this?”
Kiara forgot how to breathe for a second. Quickly, she turned around to face JJ, who held the pregnancy test she was searching for in his hand.
She knew she had to say something. To explain everything. But she just felt extremely tired and way too powerless to do that.
JJ walked towards her. Only now she noticed how much he was trembling. He gave her the test and then stared at his feet. Kiara didn’t move.
Suddenly, the blonde boy looked up again with tears in his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Kiara swallowed hard. “I don’t even know if I’m pregnant or not.”
“So? You should’ve told me. You should’ve told me about this. It doesn’t matter what the result is going to be, you just should have told me you were thinking about …” His voice cracked, he sat down onto the bed and buried his face in his hands.
Kie watched him for a minute before she finally said something. “I know.”
JJ took a deep breath. “So why didn’t you tell me?”
It was hard for her to hold back the tears when she finally let these freaking words out. “We both know that our relationship isn’t like it used to be anymore.”
“I just felt like you needed some space”, JJ mumbled.
Neither of them said something for a little while until JJ started talking again. “So … are you gonna take the test now or …?”
Kie swallowed again before she nodded. They needed certainty now.
...
They had to wait three minutes until the results would be shown clearly. Three whole minutes.
JJ nervously walked around the room while Kiara sat down on the bed.
Finally, JJ let himself fall onto the chair standing at the desk in front of the window. “What are we gonna do if – “ He didn’t continue talking, but Kie knew what he meant anyway.
“I really don’t wanna have this conversation right now”, she just said and focused her gaze onto the test lying in front of her on the bed.
“Usually, you’re the one who always makes sure to talk about everything openly.”
“Stop being such an idiot.”
“I am an idiot?”, JJ repeated in disbelief. "You didn't even say a word about your pregnancy scare and now I'm the idiot here?"
“Yeah, you’re an idiot. You’re flirting with that blonde chick.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A couple of days ago you talked with that girl in front of our school.”
For a moment, JJ remained silent. Kiara still didn’t look up.
“You mean Angie, I guess”, he said.
“I don’t know who she was. I’ve never seen her before.”
“Do you remember when I attended that group therapy for kids who got physically or sexually abused?”, he asked.
Kiara nodded. It had been a couple of months ago, shortly after Luke left Outer Banks.
“Angie lives in a flat with her mom. Her dad always hit them”, JJ told her.
Kiara’s heart contracted. Nobody deserved to get abused by anybody. It was just completely wrong.
“She just walked past our school that day, noticed me and then we talked a little. She told me that her and her mom moved and that everything was better now. She’s just kind of a mate to me, you know?”
“So, you and Angie weren’t flirting?” Kiara felt insanely stupid when JJ shook his head. How freaking paranoid she’d been! And instead of asking him about what was really going on, she jumped into conclusions.
“I’m so sorry”, she whispered eventually.
“I am sorry, too”, she heard JJ’s quiet voice from the window. “I thought you wanted to break up with me because you were so distracted in the past week.”
“I thought the same thing.” If the situation hadn’t been so scary, Kie probably would’ve laughed. She finally looked up to meet JJ’s eyes. They stared at each other for a couple of seconds – it wasn’t even weird, but more comfortable, the girl thought. This simple eye contact gave her a little bit of hope and safety.
Suddenly, the timer of Kiara’s phone rang loudly.
The three longest minutes of their lives were over.
A part of her just wanted to grab that silly test to look at the results, the other part hesitated. She closed her eyes and then opened them again to see her boyfriend standing in front of the bed, looking at her worried.
After breathing in and out a couple of times, Kiara grabbed the pregnancy test with her hands shaking and looked at it.
There was only one red stripe.
“Negative”, she said toneless.
Negative.
Negative.
She wasn’t pregnant.
“Negative?”, JJ repeated.
“Negative”, Kiara mumbled.
It took her a while to grasp the meaning of it all. She still would go to her gynecologist to check if she really wasn’t pregnant, but right now, all that mattered was this little test disk in her hand and the result it showed.
Somehow, her feet carried her to JJ and he pulled her into a tight hug. Finally, she started to release all these tears, all this sadness and fear that she held back in the past days. She was sobbing loudly, and the relief she felt was incredible. JJ was crying too. They were a beautiful mess holding onto each other like the other one could disappear if they loosened their grips only just for a little bit.
“It’s okay”, JJ whispered and brushed his hands through her hair. “Let it all out. I’m right here. I’m not gonna leave.”
...
Three days later, after Kiara got checked up by the gynecologist to make sure there really was no worry of a tiny baby growing inside of her belly, her and JJ sat on the couch which was standing at the porch of the Chateau.
“Do you think one day we’ll really have kids?”, JJ asked after a while.
At first, Kie was a little shocked because of that question – she honestly never thought of being a mom someday until her pregnancy scare a couple of days ago – but then she really started thinking.
She imagined herself and JJ living somewhere in a house or shack in the Outer Banks with two or three children. JJ would teach them how to surf and she would tell them about how important saving the earth and environment actually was. They would spend as much time as possible together.
They’d be a team.
A family.
Kiara smiled and looked at her boyfriend. “I think we’ll be amazing parents someday.”
They fell asleep cuddling while watching the sun disappear behind the ocean.