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JJ thinks Pope and Kie are going to break up.
Well. Not quite. Perhaps this is more accurate: JJ knows Pope and Kie are going to break up. He knows this because he’s currently receiving an elaborate play-by-play of their relationship from both parties whenever he’s alone with one of them. It’s like watching the extended cut of a movie, and then checking out the DVD special features, and then reading interviews with the cast and crew and browsing the IMDB trivia for good measure.
He’s not really sure why he got into this position, where both Pope and Kie have adopted him as their chief confidant and resident relationship guru, but he does know how ; he kept inviting it, casually dropping faux-innocuous questions into unrelated conversions, frequently making invasive and borderline crude enquiries about exactly what was going on between them. He thinks the whole time he was waiting for one of them to tell him to fuck off. Neither of them ever did. He has come to realise they know even less about their relationship than he does.
Maybe he’s nosy, or just a pervert. He draws an odd kind of comfort from that last thought. Teenage boys are supposed to be perverts, after all. Pope’s not a pervert, though, and he doesn’t think John B is either. Maybe he’ll revise that. Proper teenage boys are probably perverts. Pope’s not really a proper teenage boy, he doesn’t think, not, like, in that way, and there’s a good chance that John B, with his flowing hair and big doe eyes, isn't one either. He’s not really sure where to go from here.
He sneaks a glance at John B over his shoulder. They’re round at Pope’s, but Pope’s in the bathroom so it’s just the two of them. John B shouldn’t really be here, full stop - him and Pope have sort of developed this thing-that’s-not-really-a-thing where he comes round on the odd free evening and they watch foreign crime dramas together. He’d forgotten his work shoes a couple months and got sent home from his shift, so, at somewhat of a loose end, he turned up at Pope’s only to find him midway through a heated scene of two French policewomen yelling obscenities at each other, and was informed that he could stay, but only if he ‘shut up’ and didn’t ask questions.
And. Well . JJ’s not immune to the charms of an enthrallingly sleazy mystery, so he’d stayed that night, and then, much to Pope’s surprise, had turned up the next day, with a twelve pack of beer and a well, dude, I have to known if Clémence is guilty now, don’t I ? It’d become almost a routine - they’d finished that show, then another, and their current one was a Spanish mystery about a missing university student, and her shady uncle who had amnesia, or did he ? JJ liked the drama, and Pope liked pointing out the copious inaccuracies in their forensic pathology, and it worked for everybody.
But, due to the fact that he’d just come back from the dead and all, nobody could really say no to John B when he wanted to hang out with them, even though he spit in the face of the shut-up rule every two minutes - sure, maybe JJ has never stuck to it either, but he prefers to think that his interjections are witty and charming rather than bothersome. It’s been less than fifteen minutes, and they’ve already had to pause it four times to explain the main character’s family tree. Pope’s been taking a concerningly long time in the toilet, and he wonders if he’s making a break for it out the bathroom window, and feels oddly offended at the idea Pope would do that and without him, and then remembers that this is a made-up scenario and feels odd in a different way.
John B, blissfully unaware (as usual) of the disturbance he’s causing to their ritual is grinning. ‘So,’ he says, apropos of nothing. ‘Pope and Kie, huh?’ This is a very John B thing to say in more ways than one; firstly, his thoughts rarely follow a discernible timeline, and he frequently inserts unrelated and largely unwanted observations into conversations about literally anything else. Once, they were debating JJ’s deeply held belief that Mythbusters is staged, and probably a scam of some kind, and John B had spontaneously chimed in with the opinion that ‘beer tastes weird out of a can’. Secondly, ‘Pope and Kie, huh?’ wasn’t really a question, or a statement which left much room for reply. John B is good at this, dropping complete non-sequiturs into discussion and then sitting back and smiling like he’s contributed something profound.
JJ just kind of shrugs, because there’s not much else to do with a brilliant observation like that. ‘Yeah, man. Those crazy kids.’ He wonders if John B’s aware they’re about to break-up. Probably not. He has been a bit busy with the whole almost-dying thing, and he’s somewhat of a Peter Pan figure at the best of times, rather childish and constantly gambolling between reality and fantasy.
John B nods sagely. ‘I think it’s nice, y’know. That you’ve been helping them out while me and Sarah were gone.’
JJ snorts at that, feels weirdly unseated, leans back and settles himself into the corner of the couch in an attempt to remedy this. ‘Nah, man, s’ not like I’m Dr fuckin’ Phil. There just aren’t many relationships that wouldn’t benefit from…’ He rubs his thumb and forefinger together the way people do on TV when they’re talking about money. ‘The JJ touch.’
John B arches an eyebrow with just a hint of incredulity (which, alright, rude , he gets teenage married once and suddenly he’s a relationship expert), but doesn’t raise any objections. Instead, he just says ‘Yeah, me and Sarah were talking about it the other day, y’know. It’s nice that you guys have become like - kind of a trio while we were gone.’ This is another John B-ism - me and Sarah - but JJ doesn’t have time to dwell on it, because now he’s smiling innocuously and saying ‘It’s cool how involved you are.’
Well. JJ’s not really sure how to take that , but he doesn’t have to be, because then Pope’s back from the toilet, and they unpause the TV and lapse into comfortable silence until John B shakes his head and says ‘Wait, wait - is he her brother or her cousin?’ and Pope sighs, hits pause, and launches into another explanation.
JJ’s picking his nails and thinking about the Spanish woman on TV with the bob and the low-cut dress, face swimming thinly in front of him. Her skin ripples with static from the cheap aerial and he wonders what it would feel like if he reached out and pressed his fingers to the screen, if she’d buzz under his touch or if he’d just be smearing fingerprints on the glass. He’s thinking about him and Pope and Kie and endless questions and divides that cannot quite be perforated. Thinks about being involved , the impression of a person, pixels and waves of static. They unpause the show again and when John B says he thinks the woman is pretty, JJ says yeah, man and feels his fingers twitch as though the static is running right through him.
(This is another John B-ism, saying pretty instead of hot or sexy . He thinks the latter is disrespectful to women, Sarah in particular. JJ needs to get some friends who are proper teenage boys.)
JJ’s beginning to get thoroughly sick of Sarah Cameron. She was alright at first, back when he was too whipped up in the excitement of the gold and prison and John B almost dying to pay much attention to her, but now all that stuff’s over, and she’s still here.
He had felt, at the time, that she was just a side effect of the adrenaline, and would surely dissipate along with their adventure as it died down. But now she’s kind of one of their friends, and he has to see her like every day, and she’s always watching him, like she’s trying to figure him out. None of the others watch JJ in that particular way; they know him implicitly by now, but Sarah’s still constructing her idea of him. He wishes she would stop. Pogues for life; there’s a reason they’ve been friends for so long. They get each other, and he thinks of himself as an endearing yet complex character he doesn’t really trust Sarah Cameron to fully grasp.
He had told the others they should kick her from the group, and when John B asked on what grounds he said blondeness and vaping. Sarah had this ridiculous little vape, small and white and almost oval-shaped. It looked like a vibrator and she seemed stupid whenever she used it and it was seriously bringing down their general street cred. Kie had promptly pointed out that he was blonde too and the whole thing had devolved into a slanging match, the original point of the conversation entirely forgotten in a way it often was.
Here is something else that seems as though it devolves from his original point, although doesn’t: once, they’d all been very drunk on a beach together, and Pope and Kie were off fucking or not fucking or politely holding hands and talking about maybe fucking one day in the future, and John B was knee-deep in the ocean teaching sea turtles about friendship or something, and he was sitting on the sand by himself having a cigarette. She’d come stumbling over to him, puffing on her stupid little vape, and, without warning, said Hey, JJ, are you gay?
She wasn’t joking. She stood there, all bright-eyed and blonde and well-intentioned, shifting loosely from one foot to another and bouncing her vape between her fingers. The idea was bizarre, foreign, almost hilarious, the kind of question that doesn’t need an answer because the answer is so evident, like asking
are trees purple
or
has the Queen killed a man with her bare hands
? It was as outlandish as her just walking over and shoving a cake into his face, cream dripping down his cheeks and crumbs lodged in his eyebrows, a piece of slapstick to be performed for an audience who would laugh uproariously at his apparent bewilderment. Obviously, blatantly ludicrous, too much for this dirty beach in the dead of night, the kind of thing that happened on TV a very, very long way away.
When he didn’t say anything, she swayed a little, blew smoke into the night air. It smelt fancy, cosmopolitan, like burnt vanilla. He remembered the little vial of liquid she’d used to fill it up that morning, remembered it was supposed to taste like some kind of ice cream. His own cigarette glowed dully in his hand.
My cousin’s gay she offered, as though that would make a lick of difference. His name’s Archibald . JJ felt bizarrely violated in a way he couldn’t quite name, like she’d come over and spontaneously ripped his shirt open, or shoved her fingers down his throat. Like she was in on a joke he wasn’t, and maybe the rest of the world was in on it too. Maybe there was a whole crowd of people perched behind Sarah’s wide eyes, chuckling and wincing and passing around buttered popcorn. JJ has never eaten buttered popcorn. He thinks he’d seen it being eaten on a sitcom.
He got to his feet, stumbling all at once, made a big show out of demanding something like what the fuck, Sarah , telling her that was why she wasn’t a Pogue, why she’d never be one of them, weird fuckin’ - you’re so weird! He remembers thinking about calling her a dyke, but he sort of knew, even in his irritated and inebriated state, that that would be too far, and also he’d never actually said that word out loud before and he didn’t want to risk sounding stupid or unpracticed, the way you sometimes do when you say bad words for the first time, so he just left it and stormed off to hang out with John B and the turtles.
She’d shouted something after him, some kind of reprimand, but he hadn’t heard properly, or maybe he just didn’t want to listen. She hadn’t brought it up since, but she still watched him, was always watching him.
(Sometimes, he looks at the back of her blonde head and wishes mild inconveniences on her; once, they were eating at the Carrera’s restaurant and he asked Kie’s mom to give her extra ranch dressing, just because he knows she doesn’t like it. He brings up old inside jokes and is gratified when everyone but her laughs along. Likes the idea of having a joke that she’s not in on, knowing more than her for once.)
He’s hanging out with Kie, smoking a blunt on the Phantom and arguing about whether a person could feasibly stop a bullet using their teeth; he reckons they could, and she’s rolling her eyes, and telling him sometimes she’s not sure if he does it for attention or if he’s really this stupid. They’re half-laughing, but also not really and they go quiet after a while, because they’re self-aware enough to know that they have to allow their debates to tail off at a certain point before either of them get too into it and end up delivering some unforgivable insult over a discussion about the fragility of human teeth.
One time, they’d gotten into a heated argument about whether or not it would be possible to tie so many balloons to a house it floated like in Up , and she’d told him he was so irresponsible it made him difficult to actually care about. He can’t remember exactly how the discussion got there but it did, and then they didn’t talk to each other for a week. He thinks she was avoiding him because she felt bad. They only started speaking again when John B sat them down and gave them a tragic, rather desperate speech about the importance of their bond as a group, and how nothing should ever damage that. They’d make awkward eye contact across the table, and agreed to call a truce, the way divorced parents acquiesce to be nicer to one another when begged by their child.
By noon that day it was like nothing had ever happened. Now, he thinks that maybe that comment, or others like it, were part of what had inspired him to take on the role of couple’s counsellor in the first place. To prove that he was trustworthy, responsible, a real human person. Solid and dependable and easy to like. JJ knows he’s likeable - he’s rather a delight, actually - but there is a difference between being likeable and being easy to like. He remembers, once, Big John told him that he wasn’t entirely sure about him when John B first brought him home from school, but in the end he couldn’t resist him , remembers the implication that JJ’s particular abrasive brand of charisma (because he is charismatic actually, and funny too, thank you very much) was something to struggle against, to be worn down by. He thinks that maybe people who are easy to like have good sex and fun clandestine teenage relationships and see women’s collarbones in real life and not just over low-cut dresses in middling crime dramas.
Whatever. Given that Kie and Pope are currently on the verge of breaking up, he’s not sure how well the whole well-meaning counsellor thing worked out for him, really.
He knows, now, that his services as relationship therapist-cum-matchmaker are about to be required again, because he can tell that Kie’s about to bring up Pope. She gets this funny look whenever she’s about to update him on their latest development, jaw clenched all tight like she’s trying to ward off an invisible dentist, to avoid something. Like it
pains
her, and she’s so guilty about this it just hurts more.
It kind of sucks, actually. This is Kie, and she’s his friend, even if she is a bit of a cunt sometimes and gives him a stern talking-to about the environmental benefits of oat milk every time she sees him eating cereal. She shouldn’t look like she’s about to get a filling every time she talks about her relationship with their other friend.
And then there’s Pope. He doesn’t deserve this either.
God. He knows he’s played a significant hand in all of this, but JJ doesn’t think his friends should be allowed to date each other, actually. They’re fucking terrible at it.
‘Me and Pope -‘, Kie starts, taking a hit from the blunt mid-sentence, even though it’s awkward and disrupts the flow of her speech. He doesn’t know if she’s doing it because she thinks it’ll give her courage, or because she just wants something to do with her hands. Maybe she wants to remind him that she’s worldly, that she’s cool, that she frequently engages in casual drug use, in order to soften the perceived embarrassment of what she’s about to say next. ‘- we fucked that night at the Chateau, when John B and Sarah came back.’
He laughs at that, loud and bell-like. ‘Really? Cus’ I’m gonna be honest, this whole time I thought you guys just went off on that boat together to debate the oil crisis or something.’
She pushes his shin with her foot, doesn’t bother to laugh. That’s the thing about Kie; she won’t giggle along with people just to mollify them or lighten the mood. If she’s being serious then she’s being serious, and no stupid, half-baked joke will distract her. ‘Shut up! I’m trying to tell you something here.’ Her voice is severe, almost maudlin. ‘It’s - it’s like -‘ He thinks if our lives were a movie what would I have her say right now? Probably confess to being a werewolf or at the very least an axe murderer or some kind of alien. He recognises that’s all quite juvenile. Whatever. Things around there would actually be a lot more fun if they were written by him.
Kie pauses, takes another hit from her joint. Screws up her face and glances over her shoulder as she exhales, not looking him in the eye. The boat seems very, very big all of a sudden. ‘It’s - you’ve fucked girls before, right, JJ?’ she says into the sea.
He laughs again, yelping and obnoxious like a cartoon hyena. ‘Fuck, Kie, sorry, I mean no offence, man, but I’ve never really thoughtta you -‘
‘JJ!’ She kicks him properly this time, and the whole boat rocks with the impact. ‘Can you just - I don’t know, just - I’m trying to have a conversation with you -‘ There’s a buried frustration in her voice, a frustration she’s long felt with him but never quite been able to articulate. The closest she’s gotten was that argument about the balloons and the ensuing fight. He’s like a fish; unpleasant to touch, slippery, always twitching, writhing, jumping out of people’s grasps. Sometimes he thinks she would like to spear him. Metaphorically. She is a vegan, after all.
But that’s what she’s asking for. For him to be still, to sit and say the right thing, to be a receptacle for her woes. To be a real human person. He wonders why she doesn’t go to John B with this stuff. ‘Yeah, yeah, okay!’ He sits back, raising his hands in surrender. ‘Whatever. Keep talking.’
She eyes him a little suspiciously, and then seems to decide her life will be easier if she just takes him at face value. Sighs instead, like she’s got the weight of the world on her wiry, 16 year-old shoulders. They’re all toned from her surfing. Occasionally he thinks he’s jealous of Kie, although he doesn’t know why, or of what. It’s just a feeling he gets sometimes, in certain lights, when the sun hits her a particular way and she rolls her eyes and speaks like she’s certain what she’s saying is the absolute truth. But then the moment passes, and she makes some stupid remark about how shampoo is killing sea life and he thinks this is my friend Kie, and she’s really annoying actually . He’s not sure if she’s a son his dad would be proud of, or a son his dad would hate, and he doesn’t know which of the two possibilities he prefers.
Anyway. She sighs again, and scuffs at the bottom of the boat with her foot, brow creased. She looks hot and uncomfortable, skin slick with sweat and eyes squinting against the sun like having to repeat this is the worst and most degrading thing that’s ever happened to her. She’s always been a bit of a drama queen. Pot calling the kettle black, he supposes.
‘Whatever.’ She rubs the top of her left arm and looks down at her feet, encased in a mismatched pair of Crocs; one purple, one a garish neon green. ‘It’s like - you’ve slept with girls, right?’
He snorts, elbows propped on his knees, hands dangling. ‘Yeah. Duh .’ Takes a hit from his joint. This is not entirely a lie. JJ hasn’t slept with girls, but he has slept with a girl. It was last summer at the bonfire party and she was a tourist, visiting for the week from Westchester. Her name was Lacey; he’d never met a girl named Lacey before, and she laughed when he told her this, and laughed harder when he said no, like, I’m being serious .
It buzzes in front of him like a faintly claustrophobic flashback. She was very blonde, and she wore an anklet, and when he fumbled with the waistband of her shorts he saw on the label that they were from Brandy Melville, which sounded more like a Real Housewife to him than a clothing brand, but what did he know. Not much, it seemed, although she was very nice and helped guide his hands into the right places for the entire thing. Her mouth was sticky with lip gloss, and he kept angling his face weirdly so as not to get any on his chin, although he’s not sure why. He found himself looking at her fingernails the whole time, short and stubby, determinedly shedding their last few flakes of polish. There was a bruise on his thigh and he wasn’t sure if she politely ignoring it or if she just didn’t notice.
It was over very quickly and he was pretty sure he hadn’t been any good, a suspicion which was confirmed when she got up, patted him on the cheek, and told him that he’d ‘get there someday’. He remembers feeling affronted at the time, offended at this dismissal of his masculine prowess, but also sort of disappointed, in a bigger way, because sex was supposed to be the point of everything and it kind of sucked actually. For once, he didn’t really know what to say, just chuckled a little, and she laughed again and walked away through the sand and he realised that she had no idea who he was and that he would never know her either, not in a million years.
And he was sort of pissed off, but probably more upset, so he found Pope and Kie and bugged them to play beer pong with him for the rest of the night and got very drunk and didn’t shut up the entire time which was probably extremely annoying, in retrospect, and they complained profusely, but he didn’t take them seriously, and they didn’t want him to, and everything was normal again. Later that night, he threw up in the ocean and felt like he was returning to something and vowed not to have any more sex until he was better at it so that next time it would feel life-affirming. Maybe he could look up some tutorials on the internet or something.
He doesn’t tell Kie any of this, of course. Doesn’t tell her about the next morning at the Chateau, when he woke up and felt kind of sick in that weird way you sometimes do after a night drinking, not hungover, just sticky and regretful and uncomfortable in your own skin. Like you were outside your body, for a moment, and now you’re back in it, and you have to relearn all the restrictions again. He can’t shake the feeling that it’s a different body to the one he left, but he doesn’t say this aloud to anybody, because that would be a bit gay, or at least gay-adjacent.
He didn’t recount the experience to his friends for several weeks, and when he did it was thoroughly embellished and embroidered, more of a conquest than a clusterfuck. He put in lots of suggestive hand gestures, and they all squealed and groaned and rolled their eyes in the right places. He paid particular attention to the Pope the whole time he was speaking; for some reason, it was paramount Pope paid complete and total attention to this. He thinks maybe he just wanted to freak him out. Pope’s good at getting freaked out, and JJ’s good at freaking people out. (He didn’t look freaked out, though, not at all, just kind of sat there and listened, and next week he started trying to put the moves on Kie and JJ vowed to watch those tutorials sooner rather than later, because clearly there was something to this sex thing if even Pope was getting in on it.)
Kie wouldn’t care about any of this - she’s got her own obscure, Pope-centric sexual issues, it seems. ‘So you know then, right?’ she says slowly, still tracing lines across the boat with the tip of her Crocs. ‘What it should feel like.’ He half-shrugs, half-snorts, opens his mouth to blurt out some ill-conceived wisecrack, but then she’s talking again so he shuts up. ‘We fucked on the beach and it was all - there was a bonfire, and the stars were out, and we were right next to the ocean, and it should’ve been like, wow .’ Her voice is thick, like she’s trying to say something too big for her mouth. JJ wants her to shut up. That’s rude. He wants her to be quiet. She looks up, gazes over his shoulder out at the horizon. ‘But it wasn’t. It was just kind of weird.’
He’s the one kicking at the foot of the boat now, not meeting her eyes. He thinks if he kicked hard enough he could tear a hole in the lining and the whole thing would sink and Kie, with her strong shoulders, would be able to swim back to shore. He’s not sure what he’d do. He’d figure it out, like he always does.
Like he is right now - he doesn’t know what to say to Kie, not really, so he rests on his laurels, and trots out a tried-and-true solution to any awkward situation: a Pope joke. ‘It was, like, probably a Pope thing.’ Pauses. ‘You know. He’s kind of a weird guy.’
It’s weak, even coming from him, but he hopes she’ll look past that, feel mollified, laugh politely and move on. She doesn’t. He should have known. As he said, Kie is not the kind of person who accommodates others. If she was, she probably wouldn’t hound him about oat milk so much.
She’s still looking out to sea, although he’s unsure if she’s looking for something or away from something. Wow. That was poetic, maybe. He’s not really sure. Never paid that much attention in English class. Remembers the name of a dog in a book. ‘No.’ She pauses, like she’s about to say something bad. He’s reminded of that scene in Gossip Girl where Serena tells Blair she killed someone. How strange it felt, how out of place. Smuggling the most awful secrets into the most clandestine places; confessing to one of the worst crimes a person can commit in front of the overlit backdrop of a CW teen show. This feels a bit like that, Kie’s brow pinched, running her teeth worriedly across her bottom lip as the Phantom bobs and dips across a tranquil sea. ‘I think it was my fault, actually.’
He doesn’t know what to say again, must be turning into some kind of record. He can’t sit still, somehow, feels like there are ants crawling across his stomach and burrowing into his navel. He wants to slip into the ocean. He wants Kie to start going to John B with her problems. He wants, with a swiftness that startles him, to be shitty, to make some kind-of fucked up remark that’ll have Kie spitting, that’ll force her to turn on him, shove him off the boat and keep her and Pope’s weird sexual dysfunction to herself , thank you very much.
But he doesn’t. They just kind of loll around for a while, and after a moment she accepts that he isn’t going to say anything, and allows him to wiggle out of her grasp, an unpleasantly slippery fish returned to the sea once and for all. The next time one of them speaks, it’s him making a remark about how his dealer’s cousin is in town next weekend, and he’s supposed to have all this fancy shit from Glendale. She wonders whether John B and Sarah would be willing to chip in for it, and as they go back and forth about this, they guide the Phantom back to port and never pick up the tail-end of their previous conversation. Her and Pope break up two days later.
(For the record: JJ has not watched Gossip Girl . John B went through a phrase in freshman year where he used to log into Kie’s Netflix and watch it during class, and JJ occasionally caught the odd scene over his shoulder, if Pope was off sick and he’d ran out of people to bicker with. John B didn’t even finish the whole show. He made it about three seasons in before he decided it had become ‘too pro-rich’ and turned it off. This isn’t relevant. It’s just what he thinks of when he hears about his friends breaking up and getting together: watching a TV show over someone else’s shoulder at the back of the class.)
It’s the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday and he’s lying on a beach with Pope, and he’s very, very drunk, which is probably fine and probably what proper teenage boys do. The sun’s heavy on his face and the sand’s light beneath his fingers and Pope and Kie broke up this morning, but he hasn’t brought it up, and neither has Pope, and he doesn’t know if that’s because Pope doesn’t know he knows or if he just doesn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t Pope who told him, obviously; it was Kie, in a straightforward and somewhat blunt text that he’s yet to draft a response to. John B had messaged him about it as well, only his contained a lot more exclamation marks and general distress. He hasn’t replied to that one either. He wonders if this makes him a bad friend. Probably not, he figures. John B has Sarah, and Kie certainly wasn’t looking for a shoulder to cry on.
He’d replied to Pope’s offer to hang out right away, though, so he figures that’ll get him some good karma. He’d even bought the booze. He is a good friend, he knows that for a fact.
Now they’re lying flat on their backs and trying to decide whether they’d rather have lips for eyes or eyes for lips, syllables slipping drunkenly round their mouths and grains of sand sliding through their outstretched fingers. ‘Nah.’ Pope’s head rolls loosely from side to side as he laughs, making ripples across the sand. JJ thinks about leaning over and sticking his thumb into the indent. He wonders, briefly, if he’s leaving a similar impression, but that doesn’t seem important somehow. ‘Extra eyes would actually be helpful.’
JJ snorts, incredulous. ‘Man, for what? ’
He feels Pope shrug next to him, vibrations shudder through him like static. ‘Could read faster.’
JJ laughs and laughs at that, inebriated and easily amused. ‘ Read faster?! Come on!’ He’s wiping his eyes even though he’s not sure if there are actually any tears there. ‘ Read faster , god, that’s too good, man. You should be, like, a comedian, you know.’ He thinks back to his conversation with Kie the other day, when she told him that she’s not sure if he does it for attention or if he’s really this stupid. The same could be said about Pope and his intelligence by somebody who didn’t know him, but JJ doesn’t think Pope puts things on, not really, or at least not very well. He’s like Kie, in that way, except he’d call Kie frank and Pope earnest. He’s not entirely sure what the difference is; it’s just a feeling. Didn’t pay attention in English class etc.
Pope’s laughing too, shoves JJ’s shoulder with his own. ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever. You’d have to have the extra mouths, man.’
JJ prods his arm for that even though it wasn’t necessarily offensive, giddy in anticipation of his response. ‘What? Why?’
Pope’s rolling his eyes. He’s a very fun drunk. JJ wants to say so many stupid, childish things. He remembers when they were in elementary school and Pope had the best rock collection he’d ever seen and he had thought, rather solemnly, with that kind of awe only experienced by six year-olds, that this was definitely a person worth knowing. He would like to tell this story now. He reckons he’ll have time. He’s decided they’re going to hang out here forever, or at least until it gets dark. ‘Cause you never stop talki-‘
JJ nudges him again, this time with the flat of his palm; more of a push than a prod. ‘Man, shut up!’ He misses when rock collections were a legitimate way of discerning someone’s social status. Maybe Pope and Kie wouldn’t have broken up if he’d just shown her his rock collection. That’s not a euphemism. He doesn’t know how it could be, but JJ doesn’t know much about sex, it seems, so he’s just covering all his bases.
Pope jolts upright to a sitting position, exuberant and victorious, jabs his finger in JJ’s direction. ‘You literally just interrupted me!’
It’s like a conversation out of a sitcom, so obvious it’s almost unfunny except JJ’s really drunk and it’s like the best thing he’s ever heard. He’s laughing properly now, head tipping from side to side, and he would sit up too but, dimly, he’s aware that the head rush might make him vomit a little and he doesn’t think throwing up on your recently-separated friend is particularly good etiquette. ‘ Recently-separated ’, fuck off, it’s not like they got a divorce. It was just stupid, teenage stuff. Normal stuff. Happens to everybody, he thinks. Probably. Whatever. He stays lying down. He’s decided that lying down with someone is very different to sitting up with them. He would like to lie down forever. Maybe he has been.
So. He’s lying down and he’s looking at the back of Pope’s neck and he’s thinking about why Pope asked him out here, just him. People have got to start involving John B in their love lives more. JJ has never personally taken romantic advice from him, but his soulful gaze and plump lips suggest a wealth of wisdom. Maybe it’s because JJ is the loose cannon, up for anything, down for anything, isn’t it weird how those two mean the same thing? That’s not profound, but he’d like it to be. He never paid attention in English class, but he’s decided to try and to work on being more profound. If he’s going to be perpetually detached he can at least do it in a poetic way. Maybe he’ll get there by next summer. He does think that’s why Pope called him, because he’s an outlander, not John-B-and-Sarah, not Kie and all the baggage that comes with her. Just JJ. He’s not sure when he became disinvolved. He’s still the cynosure of every room he’s in, he guarantees that. He doesn’t know if that’s the problem or a symptom of it. He is the centre of attention, and not the centre of much else.
He can tell from Pope’s silence that he’s about to bring up Kie, and he’s not sure if he craves this or abhors this. He’s not sure when he started having an opinion either way.
Pope’s still sitting up, back to him, when he tells him that him and Kie broke up, and JJ thinks that maybe next summer he’ll be more profound, maybe next summer he will be a proper teenage boy or at least know more of them, maybe next summer he will have life-affirming sex on a beach or by a bonfire under the stars and he will tell Kie about it with a little mocking in his voice like oh, that shitty thing that happened to you? Sorry, couldn’t be me . Maybe next summer it’ll be like when TV goes on a season break and everyone comes back tanned and blonder and more worldly. Maybe next summer he will have toned shoulders and know what he says is always the absolute truth. But this is this summer, and he’s trying to come up with a reply for Pope and his tongue feels heavy in his mouth and the sun’s beating down on his shoulders and JJ always has something to say but he never really does when it comes to down it.
(This might not be the absolute truth. He thinks he might have something to say, possibly, but he’s not sure if he knows the words for it yet. Maybe next summer.)