Chapter Text
(Three days before they’re saved, Sarah discovers Pope’s hideaway spot—a small stretch of empty beach about a mile west of camp. She pushes past palm trees and messy piles of driftwood over to where Pope sits, cross-legged in the sand. Only a few inches away from a quickly rising tide. He watches the waves get closer and closer, watches the water swallow the sand and upon release leave it darker, harder, more malleable but not as gentle. The line of dark, tough sand is close enough now Pope could extend one of his legs and cross that boundary, touch skin to the cool of it if he wanted. For now, he just waits.
“Hey,” Sarah says. He can’t look her in the eye, he just can’t, so he nods and forces a smile towards the sea in leiu of greeting. He feels her t-shirt sleeve brush against his upper arm as she lowers herself down beside him. More intensely than that, he feels her eyes on him. She watches him and he watches the tide and he doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say, wishes the tide would come in already and swallow him whole and make all of this that much easier. “Dude, what’s going on? What are you doing this far out from camp?”
Pope shakes his head, both in answer and to clear it.
“Okay, well, I know it’s not nothing ‘cause you’re a mile away from camp for some reason and you look like you just saw a ghost.” Sarah shifts a little and for the briefest of moments her arm touches Pope’s. Her skin is warm, familiar. But it’s not right. None of this is right. His eyes burn.
“Pope, look at me,” Sarah says finally. She’s turned towards him now, and though Pope tries to focus his gaze on anything else, he catches a glimpse of her face—brows furrowed, eyes filled with worry. “What’s going on with- did something happen?”
Pope says nothing. He breathes in, breathes out, as the ocean ebbs and flows in tandem.
“You’re crying.”
Pope doesn’t know what else to do. He turns and sinks into her, wraps his arms around her and cries as the water nears, cries and cries and cries into her arms. She doesn’t ask, doesn’t say a word, just holds him. “It’s okay,” she says after a few minutes pass. “You’re okay.”
“It’s all so fucked up,” Pope says between sobs.
Sarah squeezes him. “I know.”
“I just want- I want everything to be okay again,” he says. A flurry of memories and sensations floods over Pope. JJ’s hand on his cheek. A wadded up note from Kie, passed his way during class. JJ’s drunk laughter in his ear. The way their lunch table left imprints on his thighs. A pang in his chest. JJ’s hand on Kiara’s arm. His parents hugging him after he won the spelling bee in third grade. His bed. His house. Thirteen year old JJ and John B, digging through his pantry for a midnight snack. JJ’s eyes on his. Blue.
She rubs his back. He hears tears in her voice when she speaks. “I know,” she whispers. “I know. I know, God, me too.”)
They’ve been back home for two weeks when Pope’s phone lights up with a text from an unknown number.
hey it’s sarah! is it okay if i crash at your place?
They’ve been back home for two weeks and Pope’s heart stirs uncertainly inside his chest. He doesn’t know how to feel or what to think as he takes in Sarah’s text, as he reads and rereads her words, like some secret message might reveal itself to him.
After they lost the gold and Denmark’s cross to the Camerons and subsequently spent what felt like an eternity on that stupid island in the middle of God knows where, Pope’s hardly seen any of the other Pogues. Kie’s parents have had her under lockdown up on figure eight, JJ and Cleo and Sarah have been helping John B deal with Big John’s return, and Pope—Pope’s been home. Right here. Leaving for school and playing A student in his classes and coming home and kissing his parents’ cheeks and going to work and trying to forget, trying to just go through the motions, day in and day out. Because what else was there to do?
What was that thing they used to say? Something like, “Here’s to having nothing left to lose.” Pope thinks about one of his first nights on that island.
(John B’s laugh echoes louder than the crackle of the campfire. JJ’s arm settles over Pope’s shoulder, warm and safe and JJ pulls him closer and Pope leans into him because it’s JJ, because it’s second nature. Kie and Sarah and Cleo are singing. JJ whispers in Pope’s ear, “Ain’t that the big dipper?” Pope looks up. It’s the little dipper. Pope nods. “How many of those stars do you think are dead?” JJ asks. It’s one of Pope’s favorite things to think about- the fact that so many of the night sky’s stars have been dead for so long, some since before humankind ever even existed. And yet, they glow still. Bright and alive here on Earth, in spite of it all.)
There was always something left to lose. Pope realizes that now.
Sarah’s text jolts him awake, forces him out of autopilot and into the real world, where his friends need him and he still needs them.
He leans over to peer through the crack of his door. Down the hall, his parents hold hands on the family’s torn up sofa, faces aglow by TV light. They haven’t slept much since he got back. They didn’t sleep at all when he was gone, either—this Pope knows because of how drastic their eye bags were when they wrapped their arms around him just two weeks ago, because of how thin and fragile their bodies felt against his.
His fingers hover over the keyboard. He’d been under the impression that Sarah was with John B and Cleo and JJ out on the Chateau. Apparently not—at least, not anymore. He pictures Sarah’s face that day she strolled onto John B’s porch to tell Pope about her discovery of the island room, how she hadn’t hesitated to sacrifice everything she knew for him and his friends.
He texts back:
Of course, youre always welcome here
Pope puts his phone down and looks out over his room. Almost instantly, regret sinks in. Where will she sleep? He could pull out the blow up bed, but he can’t remember- didn’t JJ poke a hole in that last time he was over? And his parents, shit, his parents. Though Pope isn’t grounded per-say, they’ve made it more than clear they don’t want him getting tangled up in anything Pogues-related. He rubs a hand over his face, then looks out into the hall again. Now, his dad sits alone on the couch. He hears his mother tinkering away in the kitchen.
“Okay, Pope, okay,” he says to himself. “Just ask them. You can do it.” He takes a deep breath. He walks out of his room and down the hall. His dad glances up at him warily.
“How’s homework going?” he says.
Pope opens his mouth to answer, but before he can utter a single syllable his mother interrupts, body halfway over the kitchen counter to get a good look at him. “Oh, hi, hon,” she says. “Making pasta tonight. You want some?”
“Um, sure, yeah,” Pope murmurs. He sits on the loveseat and steels himself to ask his parents about Sarah staying over, unsure what he’ll do if they say no, given the fact that he, perhaps dumbly, already said yes. The family’s fishery-themed clock ticks on the wall, and the UNC versus UofSC basketball game plays on in the background, his dad making little grunts every few minutes when a play doesn’t go his way.
“Hey, guys-“ Pope starts. The doorbell rings.
Pope looks at his parents, whose eyes are on him in an instant. “I’ll get it,” he says before either one can ask, and he jogs over to the door. Opens it with a shaky hand.
Sarah Cameron stands on his front porch, wearing a dirty tee and ripped jeans—from the intensity of the rips, Pope doubts the jeans came that way. Her dirty blonde hair drapes over her shoulder in a sweaty ponytail. She holds a small knapsack, knuckles white around its handles as if she’s afraid someone might snatch it away.
Pope hardly has time to say, “Hi,” before Sarah’s rushing forward and wrapping her arms around him so forcefully it pushes him back into the doorframe. He wraps his arms around her and for a moment, just a moment, he’s not thinking about his parents or homework or how much he misses his friends or how little there is he can do about it. For now, he just thinks about how happy he is to see her.
She pulls back and wipes her eyes, beaming at him under the flickering porchlight. “It’s so good to see you.”
“I’ve missed you,” Pope says.
(They’re on the island, and JJ is telling everyone some story about a snake he saw in the woods. Pope looks over at Sarah, who rolls her eyes and mouths, It was a stick. Pope laughs. Kie laughs. The waves lap up against the shore as if even the ocean finds it funny.)
“I-I’ve missed everyone,” Pope says. “Like, so much.”
She sniffles a little. “We’ve missed you, too, man. You and Kie. It’s…weird without you.”
“I know, I- I’m sorry,” Pope says, “It’s my parents, they’re-“
Sarah grabs Pope’s arm. “Pope, hey, it’s fine. It’s your family.”
“You guys are my family.”
“You’ve got two, dude. You’re lucky.” A pang of guilt washes over Pope. He is lucky. Of course, he knows that.
Not knowing what else there is to say, he steps back to let her in. He keeps his eyes low as he guides her into his home. Once they near the common area, he doesn’t have to look up to know his parents are staring at him, their stares asking a million silent questions.
“Thank you guys so much for letting me stay here,” Sarah says, thankfully unaware of the tension in the room. Her voice is light with evident relief, the voice of someone who hasn’t been able to take a real, full, deep breath in days. As if she’s just come up from underwater, onto the island of normalcy that is Pope’s home. He looks up to see his mom, reliably as ever, shifting into host mode. She shakes her head, already in the process of clearing a spot for Sarah at the table.
“Nonsense, sweetheart,” she says. “Here, please sit. I’ve got some pasta on the stove, but if you’re hungry, I can whip you up a salad. Or some bread, if you’d like. We’ve got, um, hey, Pope, honey, what’s that snack you love? The one in the- the blue box….”
“Rice krispies,” Pope murmurs, all too aware of his father’s relative unresponsiveness. “But I don’t know if- if that’s the best, like, pre-dinner food.”
Sarah meets Pope’s eyes from across the room. She shoots him a playful grin, reassuring him that this is fine, that this is more than fine, then smiles warmly at his mother. “I’m okay, Mrs. Heyward. I’m not that hungry. Thank you so so much, though. Really.”
“My pleasure, sweetheart,” Pope’s mom replies. She shifts more things around on the table, only briefly making eye contact with Pope. To his relief, he sees only excitement in her expression. She’s always loved hosting. When JJ and John B used to come over a lot more, she’d look forward to those times for days before, cleaning the house and buying supplies for the boys’ favorite meals.
Pope’s dad, on the other hand, looks less enthralled. As his mom fusses over Sarah’s things, Pope takes a moment to amble over to where Heyward sits on the sofa. He picks at the fabric of the armrest but doesn’t sit.
“I’m sorry,” Pope says. “I was going to tell you, but it was sort of last minute and I- I didn’t know she’d get here so quick, you know?”
Heyward nods but doesn’t look up from his hands, calloused and turned toward the sky as if in prayer. “I’m not mad, Pope. Just tired.” He wrings his hands together now. “I just want- I need you to be safe, you hear me? I know you just wanna do right.”
Pope swallows. “Look, she… she’s done so much for me. I just wanted to help.”
“I know, son. I know it’s been hard on you. Not seeing your friends. And I know you’ve been beating yourself up over what happened with the treasure. But there’s a point where- where it’s better you don’t have it than you lot end up dead somewhere. We thought…. Pope, Christ, you should’ve seen Kiara’s parents.”
Pope looks back at Sarah, watches as his mom makes a joke and Sarah laughs a sparkling laugh.
“We were just trying to get what was rightfully ours back. I mean, those people stole-“
His dad tilts his head toward Sarah. “You mean her family.”
“She’s not like them.”
To Pope’s surprise, his dad doesn’t hesitate to nod in agreement. “No, she’s not. She’s a good one.”
Pope waits for Heyward to say something more, unsure where this conversation is headed, unable to read his father’s tone or expression. Finally, Heyward checks his watch and sighs. “I’m gonna go fix the blow up bed. You tell her she can stay as long as she’d like. You can show her to the spare towels and all that?”
Pope swallows and nods.
“Alright. Good.”
His dad walks off, and Pope’s phone immediately buzzes in his pocket. It’s from Sarah’s new number.
all good?
He turns around and gives her a thumbs up. “You don’t snore, do you?” he asks.
“Not yet.”
Pope laughs and makes a face. “What does that even mean?”
Sarah shrugs and smirks, huffs out a laugh. “I don’t know, man,” she says. “I’m sleep deprived. But no, I don’t snore.”
Pope’s mom hands him a plate so heavy Pope almost drops it—overloaded as it is with a child-sized mound of spaghetti and three pieces of cheesy garlic bread. “That’s for Sarah. Ask her what she wants to drink, too,” Pope’s mom says.
Pope shakes his head. “Mom, this is way too much. And she’s not gonna let you do that for her, either.”
“Just ask,” she says, giving him an I-don’t-want-to-hear-it look. Pope knows there’s no point in arguing any further.
Pope walks out to the table, where Sarah sits, having just used the bathroom to change into a fresh pair of blue-gray leggings and a Pelican Marina sweatshirt Pope recognizes as one of John B’s. She turns to greet him. Her eyes widen when she spies the plate in his hand, and he bites back a laugh as he places it in front of her.
“Oh, my God,” she whispers.
“You don’t have to eat all of that,” he says. “I swear.”
“Oh, my God,” she says again, a laugh in her voice.
“Yeah, I’m- I’m sorry,” he says. “She just gets all excited when we have guests over, I don’t know…”
“Dude, why the hell are you apologizing?” Sarah says. She beams up at him, looking about as grateful as he’s ever seen another person look.
He almost apologizes again, but bites his tongue. “She’s also used to our dinner guests being, yknow, JJ and John B.”
“Oh, I’m sure this is the perfect amount for them.”
(JJ sits in the chair with uneven legs because he likes the way it rocks. His parents laugh and a motorcycle revs outside. Crickets. This memory is worn at its edges, but Pope remembers enough, he remembers he pushes his plate back just as JJ inhales a final forkful, leaving a perfectly clear plate in front of him. He burps loudly and Pope kicks him under the table, but his mom just smiles wide at JJ’s appetite. “That was fantastic, thank you so much Mrs. H,” JJ says. “You got any more?”)
“Not even,” Pope says. “They usually ask for seconds.” But when was the last time they’d done something like that? Spent the night, watched movies at each other’s houses—done regular teenage friend stuff? Eighth grade, maybe? Somewhere along the line, they’d grown up. Whether they wanted to or not.
Sarah laughs and nods as if to say Of course they do, and Pope just wishes they could’ve been friends back when things weren’t so screwed up.
But it didn’t work out that way. And given everything that’s happened, Pope can’t help but feel nervous by her presence here instead of at John B’s side.
“You’re okay, right?” Pope blurts out. “Like, everything’s….everything’s alright?”
Sarah’s smile drops a little and she shrugs. A few beats pass.
“There’s been some….we had a little fight, I guess. Can we talk about it later?” She looks at him now.
“Of course,” he says. He clears his throat, searches for a new topic. “My mom- she, uh, wanted to know what you want to drink.”
As predicted, Sarah’s head shakes immediately. “No, no, I’ll get myself a drink,” she says. “She already got my plate.”
Pope holds up his hands in surrender. “Fine,” he says. “Your battle.”
To Sarah’s credit, she makes a valiant effort. Nevertheless, not even Sarah stands a chance against his mother. The debate ends with Pope’s mom pouring ice water into Sarah’s glass and Sarah thanking her profusely, promising to help with dishes later despite his mom’s prompt and repeated rejection of that offer.
Pope sits across from Sarah. Dinner goes well, for the most part because of Sarah’s people skills. Raised in an aristocratic family, Sarah knows how to play the part of gracious and entertaining house guest. She answers their questions in great detail and asks questions of them in return. She humors them with stories—though she doesn’t mention her family and avoids talk of the island altogether. She eats slowly and properly, praises the quality of the pasta Pope’s mom made just the right amount of times, and even manages to eat most of the food on her plate out of courtesy.
Things are almost normal, as if this were a normal sleepover with a friend Pope made under normal high school kid circumstances, until, after a brief silence, his mom clears her throat.
“Sarah, honey,” Pope’s mom says. Her tone unsettles Pope. Though friendly, there’s a sudden seriousness to it. Sarah seems to notice as well. She looks up from her plate, brows furrowed, and gives Pope’s mom a small smile that invites continuation. His mom looks at his dad, clears her throat, then reaches out and rests her hand on Sarah’s wrist. “You said you’ve been with JJ and John B, didn’t you?”
It’s Sarah’s turn to make unreadable eye contact with Pope now. “Yes, ma’am, I’ve been staying with them.”
“How are they?”
Sarah softens visibly and Pope feels himself relax back into his chair at the same time as a deep sadness floods over him. “They’re okay,” Sarah says. “John B’s dad is back. I don’t know if you heard.”
“I did.”
“Yeah, well, John B’s just been dealing with all that, yknow.”
Pope’s mom nods. “And JJ?”
“Oh,” Sarah says. She stares down at the table, and Pope’s stomach churns with the realization that she’s purposefully avoiding his gaze. “He’s alright.”
She nods at Pope’s mom, who breathes out a sigh of relief and rubs Sarah’s wrist warmly. “Good,” she says. “I just want the best for those boys.”
“Pope, your parents are amazing,” Sarah says. She sounds almost awe-struck. Pope glances over to where she’s perched at the foot of his bed, so close to the edge he’s reminded of a bird preparing to take flight. He realizes, in an instant, it's been far too long since she received such pure, untainted care from an adult.
“Thank you,” he says. “Yeah, I think so, too.”
Sarah smiles, but it’s too heavy to reach her eyes- burdened by everything that's been so unfairly thrown her way, a smile that can't quite hide her profound exhaustion.
He turns back to his dresser drawer, and finally, there, in the back corner, he spots a flash of white. He pulls the Advil container out from under his jeans, then throws it over to Sarah. She laughs excitedly. “Ohhhh, fuck yes, now we’re talking,” she says.
“I can get you a-“ Pope starts to say, but before he can offer to grab her a glass of water, she’s downed two pills dry. “Jesus,” he whispers.
She laughs at his bewildered expression. When her laugh dissipates into the air, a comfortable silence washes over them. Pope watches her lean back, close her eyes, lips curved into a blissful smile. Pope decides now’s as good as any other time to ask.
“Um, can I… ask you something?”
Her eyes open. She sits up and pulls her legs to her chest, props her chin on her knees, and says, “Shoot.”
“At dinner, when my mom asked about JJ….”
She nods and pushes her lips together. This time, though, she doesn’t look away from Pope. “Yeah?”
“Is he really….like, alright?”
She sighs. “I mean, it’s JJ,” she says. Several moments pass. “I think he just misses you- or, yknow, everyone being together.”
“Yeah,” Pope breathes.
Sarah stares at him. “Mostly you,” she says, almost hesitantly, as if she’s testing the words, waiting to see what hold they’ll have over the space between them. Pope forces a neutral expression, swallowing surprise and affection and guilt and even a dose of pride—pride that someone like JJ could miss someone like him. Even after what happened. Even though he’d always thought, maybe despite everything, that he was the most disposable out of the Pogues. John B was the leader, JJ was the wild card, Sarah and Kie kept them grounded. What did he have to offer? Sarah continues, “He really misses you. Talks about you constantly.”
Her words ring in Pope’s ears. Talks about him constantly? In what context? Pope can’t sort out how this news makes him feel, just that his eyes have begun to burn and he has to blink fast to keep them dry. “What’s he say?”
“Just that things’d be better if you were around.”
“I feel awful about-“ Pope blurts. “I feel so bad. I just didn’t know what to do, Sarah, I mean my parents were such a mess when we got back, and I didn’t think- I mean- I thought maybe it’d be better if… I wasn’t around so much.”
“Look, Pope, I’m not mad but- seriously, why would you think that?”
Pope tries to shake away the answer, but now, with no distractions in the way, it clings to him. The memory won’t let go.
(JJ’s face burns orange by the light of their quickly dying fire. Pope can’t stop himself, his head hurts, tears race down his cheeks and into the space between his lips as he yells, “Fuck you.”
JJ’s tears are red. Flames reflect in his narrowed eyes. His hand strikes Pope’s chest and he’s so close Pope can smell, under the weighty blanket scents of alcohol and ash, an entire ocean. JJ’s smell. A smell that used to make Pope feel better or safer but now just makes him cry harder, salt water flooding his throat. JJ’s voice cracks around his words. “No, man, fuck you,” he says, half-accusation half-plea. “Fuck you, Pope.”)
“The night before we were rescued, JJ and I- we- we had a fight.”
Even Sarah, who’s freakishly perceptive and almost always unsurprised by the goings-on between the Pogues, slips into a look of shock. “Wait, what-“
Pope’s door creaks open. Heyward stands in the doorway, holding a gray sack under one arm. “Got your bed,” he says.
Sarah pries her gaze away from Pope’s and puts on a grateful smile. She stands to take the sack from Heyward, but he shakes his head and steps into the room, immediately beginning to unpack the mattress and set up its accompanying air pump. “I’ve got it, Ms. Cameron. You’re our guest.”
“Thank you, sir,” Sarah says quietly.
It takes Heyward six minutes (according to Pope’s alarm clock, which he watches intently) to inflate Sarah’s air mattress. In between bouts of silence, he makes brief small talk with Sarah and asks Pope about classwork. When he’s done, he leaves Pope to make the bed. Pope pulls out some spare sheets and one of his grandmother's quilts, then grabs a pillow from the living room couch. He messes around with Sarah's set up, readjusting and readjusting and giving himself more work than is necessary simply to avoid turning around. Simply to avoid meeting Sarah’s eyes and having to answer the questions he knows she must have.
“Pope?” she says. The silence that’s been building breaks into shards at his feet. He turns around and nods at her. “Is it cool if I use your shower?” she asks, and the tension in his chest eases.
“Oh, of course, yeah,” he says. He shows her to the bathroom, gives her a spare towel and shows her how to use the janky hot/cold controls. She thanks him, and he returns to his room, crosses his legs on the bed, and stares at the opposite wall. After two weeks of running on autopilot, drowning everything else out, the real world sinks in on him. The memories flood over him and he feels so so small in their wake, like the kid he is, a kid who’s too young to know how to handle any of this. They all are.
He curls up around himself.
Sarah comes back in abnormally high spirits, as if their earlier conversation simply hadn’t happened. Slipping on John B’s sweatshirt, she crosses the room and starts to brush her hair in Pope’s mirror.
“I didn’t appreciate showers enough before we got stuck on that island,” Sarah says.
“Yeah, getting stranded on an island really makes you appreciate the finer things, I guess.”
“Yeah, that and, well, you know, being on the run from the law, nearly dying twice, watching all your friends nearly die so many times you lose count…” Sarah says, ticking off on her fingers.
Pope forces out a laugh. Though Sarah’s tone is light, he can’t help but realize how much trauma they're stuck with now. For the rest of their lives. And Sarah, oh, God, Sarah- to lose your family like that. Not dead but still, gone in so many more ways than one. He can’t even imagine.
“Hey, how are you?” he asks.
She puts the brush down and turns to him, leaning against his dresser. She hesitates for a moment. “I’m not great,” she says. “I, um- John B and I got in a stupid fight. It doesn’t really matter, I’ve just been sort of, like, all over the place, I guess.”
“Can’t see any reason why that’d be the case,” Pope says.
Sarah smirks. “Yeah, no reason at all. Super weird why I’m feeling like that,” she says. “But yeah, there’s… a lot of stuff I need to process. And John B’s been sort of off since his dad came back. I’m sure he’ll tell you more whenever you talk to him. I just needed a break. I needed to feel, I don’t know, normal for once. Does that make sense?”
Pope nods at her. “Yeah, it does. I’m glad you reached out.” This time, her smile reaches her eyes. His chest fills with a sudden sense of affection. “If there’s ever anything you need to talk about….”
“I know,” she says. “You, too.”
That night, they talk for hours upon hours, exchanging stories about each other and their friends and laughing so loudly Pope’s parents have to knock and ask that they quiet down.
It’s half past eleven and they’ve settled into a comfortable silence. Pope reads on his bed while Sarah lays back on the air mattress. Pope assumes she’s fallen asleep, as he hasn’t heard a peep from her direction in quite a while.
Out of nowhere, Sarah’s voice fills the space. Pope jumps. “Pope, what’d you and JJ fight about?”
Pope’s chest constricts. He closes his book, using a finger to mark his place. He looks away from where Sarah sits and shakes his head.
(JJ’s voice in his ear. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.)
“Sarah…”
(JJ’s lips on his cheek. JJ’s hand on his own. Fuck you. Fuck you.)
“Bottling shit up isn’t healthy, dude. Whatever happened between you two, I can tell it’s eating you up inside. You can talk to me.”
(Pope looks over at JJ. The others are asleep a ways away from the fire. Tonight, it’s just the two of them.)
Pope feels himself talk before he's decided to do it. Sarah's all too easy to talk to and it's like the words just pour out of him, taking on a life of their own, having been locked up inside of him for so long. “It was- it was, like, everything just came out all at once,” Pope says.
(JJ leans over to kiss Pope’s cheek, a drunken sort of goodnight, a show of affection he’s done more times than Pope can count. JJ is and always has been touchy and it doesn’t mean anything it shouldn’t mean anything but Pope jerks back. JJ’s eyes burn at him.
“What are you doing?” Pope asks.
“What do you mean?”)
“We’d been on that island for a while and… he kept- kept hanging around Kie and only asking Kie to do things and I shouldn’t have cared but I felt so-“ he pauses. Sad, he thinks. I felt so sad. “Angry,” he breathes. Though a word like that can’t possibly cover the way he felt.
(“You can’t just act like we’re all good and everything’s normal, JJ.”
JJ’s eyes don’t move. Wind blows through the trees like a warning. Pope’s chest burns and burns and burns.
“Because it’s not, okay?”
“Just a little kiss on the cheek, dude, but whatever.” Finally, JJ shifts his gaze away. His face is like the moon, half dark half light. He stands. Pope stands too.
“That’s not why I’m upset.”
JJ raises his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah?”
Already spiraling, Pope mistakes the pit in his gut for anger. He twists it and twists it and twists it until it comes out all wrong, until he hears himself saying, “You don’t think I see you and Kiara? You were all over each other earlier, and then you go and- and-“ Kiss my cheek, he thinks. Like it’s nothing.
“Me and Kie, bro? Seriously?” JJ asks. “God, you’re a fucking idiot. Is that seriously what this is all about?”
“Yeah, JJ, it is. I’m not- I have eyes, alright? I see it. We all see it.”
“You’re drunk.” JJ tries to walk away, but Pope grabs his shoulder and spins him back around.
“Tell me the truth,” Pope says. “You like her, don’t you?”
“I don’t fucking like Kie, Pope,” JJ snaps.
“Liar.”
“God, you have no fucking idea, do you? You think you’ve got it all figured out but you don’t because you’re so- so god damn oblivious about anything that’s actually important.”
Pope shakes his head. “No no no, stop it. I- I know what I….”
“If I did like Kie, I wouldn’t act on it, okay?" JJ lowers his voice now. He runs his hand through his hair. "Let’s just- let's go to sleep.”
Pope hurtles forward. “Why not? Why wouldn’t you act on it?”
“Because of you,” JJ says.
“Yeah, well, don’t let me stop you.”
JJ’s expression isn’t an angry that Pope recognizes. It’s an angry Pope’s never seen on JJ, an angry shelved in desperation. “Maybe I will,” JJ says. “Huh? Since you want me to like Kie so fucking badly. Maybe I’ll ask her out. Maybe I’ll fucking kiss her.”
Pope’s cheek burns where JJ kissed him. This isn’t what he meant. None of this is right. He just wants… he doesn’t know what he wants. He wants to stop caring. He wants his cheek to stop burning. He wants JJ to look at him like how he used to, not like he does now, under the moonlight on their own little slice of the Atlantic. “Fuck you,” Pope hears himself say. From afar, he hears JJ return it. From afar, he hears JJ say back, “You know what I’ll tell Kie? I’ll tell her I’ve loved her since we were eight god damn years old. I’ll tell her she’s the most annoying person I’ve ever met. I’ll tell her I think about kissing her all the time and I fucking hate that I know she doesn’t think about me like that at all. I’ll tell her she’s my favorite person in the world and I’m sick of arguing with her over the stupidest shit and I’m sick of pretending like everything’s okay all the time when I just want to- I love her so much I feel fucking sick over it. And maybe I wish we hadn’t even met, I feel so sick over it.”
JJ stands close enough to Pope he can feel him breathing. The rest of the world falls away. “Good,” Pope says. “Tell her that.”
JJ’s tears have dried in streaks along his cheeks. “I will,” he says. “I’m going to.”)
Pope looks at Sarah. He expects a reaction from her—maybe a snide remark about boys being problematically territorial or even an empathetic nod—but she just watches him thoughtfully. “Angry because?” she asks.
(JJ looks down at Pope from the roof of his house. They’re thirteen, two tall, tangly messes of awkward proportions and acne. Pope stands on top of three haphazardly stacked crates, knees threatening to give out, heart pounding so fast so so fast like a runaway train, but then there’s JJ’s hand. Extended. A buoy in the great sea of Pope’s life, never too far away to pull him in. The sunset shines around JJ’s form like a halo. “JJ, I’m serious,” Pope says. “Promise you’ve got me.”
Pope’s hand finds JJ’s, and JJ smiles. “Of course I’ve got you, man.”
“You can’t let me go, JJ.”
JJ’s fingers latch onto Pope’s wrist. They’ve never belonged anywhere else. “I’d never let you go.”)
Sarah reaches over to poke Pope’s arm, which hangs off the side of the bed. “Earth to Pope?”
He clears his throat, and considers how to answer for a minute before settling on, “Because JJ’s my best friend. And I thought maybe that meant more to him than….”
“A girl?” Sarah offers.
Pope gives her a half nod. The two of them fall into silence yet again, but this time Pope is all too aware that Sarah is awake.
The minutes tick on. Just when Pope feels as if maybe Sarah’s not going to talk unless he does first, her voice makes him jump once more. “Pope, can I- can I ask you something?” she says. By the dim light of his bedside lamp, he sees that she’s stretched out on her back, hands clasped against her chest. She stares at the ceiling. “I don’t want to overstep or anything, so if this is, like, way crossing the line, please tell me.”
Pope’s heart pounds. There’s an uncharacteristic apprehension in Sarah’s tone that alarms him—the way she speeds through the question, voice trembling slightly, the way she refuses to look directly at him. He nods, curious, nervous. The only other noise is that of his years-old fan, the one his dad bought at some garage sale when Pope was just a freshman, whirring incessantly into the night. “Yeah, shoot,” he says, as casually as he can given how intensely and quickly his brain is catastrophizing.
Sarah rolls over and props herself up on her elbows. Her gaze settles on the photo strip of him and JJ that sits upright on his bedside table.
“The way you talk about JJ, it’s…”
Pope’s heart sinks, through his chest and his stomach and his legs and his bed all the way to the hardwood floor below.
“I mean, I just…was wondering if, like, there’s something there?”
“I’m not-“ he begins to say, but he can’t complete the lie.
“Right. Sorry.”
“I’m not-“ he tries again, but he thinks of JJ’s warm hand on his back, the way JJ’s eyes glow in the sun, how they sparkle mischievously even when he isn’t up to anything. He thinks of JJ and his cheek burns where JJ's kissed him more times than he can count and he starts to cry. Before he can say another word, Sarah’s arms are around him. His bed squeaks under the extra weight. She is warm and kind and one of the best people he has ever known. She presses her cheek to his head, her hair draping over his face like a veil, and she rocks him ever so slightly. “I’m so sorry, Pope, I didn’t mean to-“ she murmurs. “It’s okay. Deep breaths. Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.”
She grabs him a box of tissues from the hallway bathroom, and watches from her perch on the bed as he dabs his eyes. “I’m sorry, Pope,” she says again. “That was dumb of me, I didn’t think about- I know it’s hard. To be in that position. To feel like….” Sarah trails off.
“It’s okay,” he says. He dons the best reassuring smile he can muster, sensing that she still feels guilty over it. After a moment, her expression shifts, and she smirks at him slightly. “So you like him?”
Strangely enough, Pope finds himself laughing, a certain tension alleviated from his chest. He laughs, rolls over and buries his face in his pillow, like a character in some 90’s romcom. He’s never thought about it like that before. As a crush. A normal high school crush. On a boy. On his best friend. His heart sinks again, and he hear’s JJ’s voice, fuck you, fuck you, and he lifts his face from the pillow and begins to pick at his nails. He avoids Sarah’s gaze. Finally, he says, “I- I think so. Maybe.”
“Knew it.”
Pope groans.
“Too soon to be teasing you?”
“Maybe not. I don’t know.”
Sarah smirks again, then giggles and pokes his arm. “Pope’s got a crush!”
“I feel the need to remind you that this isn’t a good thing.”
“Why not?”
Pope stares at her. “It’s JJ.”
“And?”
“He probably…I mean he’s probably, like, only into girls.”
“Has he told you that?”
Pope considers her for a moment. He groans again, and she laughs as if in victory. “Well, either way,” Pope says, the gears in his brain whirring a mile a minute as he cycles through every reason why this is a terrible horrible thing he's feeling, “he’s my best friend. And I think he likes Kie, anyways. I don’t know.”
“Best friends to lovers,” Sarah says. “One of my favorite tropes.
“Yeah, in movies, Sarah, this is my real life.”
“It’s like a romcom.”
Pope groans again, half-embarrassed half-relieved at Sarah’s reaction. Still, he can’t help but think about their last conversation. How they’d all but screamed at each other on that beach, how he’d never seen JJ direct that kind of anger at him before, not once.
As if she can read his mind, Sarah says, “Oh… Pope, the argument you had… it’s not because you were jealous of JJ, right? You were jealous of Kiara, weren’t you?”
Pope looks down at his lap.
“Hey, I don’t- I don’t know what happened that night, but I know JJ, and I know he looks at you like you hung the fucking stars in the sky. Maybe you should talk to him.”
Sarah squeezes his knee and nods at him, and he recalls all the thousands of different ways JJ has looked at him, all the sideways glances and teasing eye rolls and open-mouthed laughs.
“I don’t know what I’d even say,” Pope murmurs.
“You’ll know,” Sarah says. “Trust me.”
Another hour or so passes. They sit on Pope’s bed, talking on and off as Pope tries (and fails) to wrap up his Dickinson paper for tomorrow. For a while, Sarah reads his flashcards for him. The clock ticks into the night, and eventually, Pope closes his notebook and manuevers his legs out from under Sarah’s form—now curled up at the foot of his bed. She smiles sleepily at him. He scratches his forehead and cocks his head. “Hey, um,” he says, “how’d you know about the stuff with JJ?”
Sarah raises her eyebrows. “Seriously?”
He nods.
She pushes her hair behind her ear and shakes her head against his bed. “Cleo pointed it out to me, honestly. It’s just- friends don’t look at each other like that.”
“Like what?” he asks.
Sarah grins, and he knows that look well. It’s a teasing look, a look that says, I find you endearingly stupid. “I don’t know, like they wanna be more than friends?” Pope stares blankly at her, and she rolls her eyes and pushes herself up from her horizonal position, then crosses her legs and shrugs. “It’s like, you’d look at each other like it was just you two in the whole world. Like nobody else even existed. That’s how it was with….”
“With what?”
“God, I don’t know.”
“Sarah?”
“No, sorry, it’s….I feel like I just fuck things up, you know? Like, I have this thing with John B, and it’s perfect and magical, but I just...can’t let it be enough. And before that, I did the same thing with- with-“ She looks nervously at Pope. “With Kie.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry, that was probably too much for 2 am on a school night.”
“No, no, Sarah. Say it.”
Sarah frowns down at her hands. “We sort of had a thing, I guess. It wasn’t like we dated or whatever, but we liked each other. I liked her a lot. But it scared me so I- I just went and fucked the whole thing up. It’s what I do.”
Pope isn’t surprised at Sarah’s words. He knows he’s a bit bad at picking up on social cues, but looking back, he considers the way Kie talked about Sarah so intensely, the betrayal in her eyes whenever Sarah’s name came up in conversation.
Like JJ’s that night on the island.
"I think maybe I do the same thing,” Pope murmurs. “When things get too real, it's like..."
"Gotta tear it all down before you get burned," Sarah says. "It fucking sucks, because I can feel myself doing it, but I’m tired of it. I don't want to lose out on anything else that could be good just because I'm scared of getting hurt."
"Yeah,” Pope says. “I don't either."
Sarah stares off into space, lost in her thoughts, and Pope thinks of what Sarah said earlier—how she just wanted to feel normal for once. What did normal kids do at sleepovers?
"Let's watch a movie," Pope says.
Sarah whips around to gawk at him. "It's a school night."
"It's already 2 am. I'll be tired tomorrow either way."
Sarah's surprised expression shifts slowly into an excited grin. "Yeah, okay," she says. "Something stupid and cheesy."
"Oh, yeah,” Pope says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “What else?"
When Pope wakes up to the cry of his alarm, Sarah sits at his desk, already dressed and ready for whatever sort of day lies ahead. She walks over to him and shuts off the alarm, then sits on his bed. “Morning,” she says. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
Pope nods groggily.
“I’m gonna go talk to John B. And I know school starts in a little less than an hour, but if you want, and if your parents are okay with it, I can take you with me. And you can talk to JJ. And I’ll get you to school on time, too.”
She stands and extends a hand. “What do you say?”
(At Pope’s hideaway, he pulls away from Sarah and wipes his eyes. His shorts are soaked. The moon has completely taken over the night sky.
Sarah stands and extends a hand. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s get you home.”)