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blueywrites · 2 years

Text

new skin

The diner’s signature dish: Fresh-baked soft pretzel knots with sweet Georgia peach jam, topped with bitter trauma. Recipe includes a dash of pining, a sprinkle of faith, and a generous heap of healing love.

Linecook!Eddie x Waitress!Reader. 60s Diner. Slow Burn.

Follows canon, except Eddie lives, and Vecna is defeated after causing the 'earthquake'. This is written in second person 'x reader' format, but you've been given a name. The name and nicknames that appear throughout the story are listed below; use the InteractiveFics extension to replace them if you'd like!

full name: emmaline louise. nicknames: emma, emmy

series content warnings -> eventual sexual content (18+), fem!reader, plussized!reader, fatphobia, domestic violence, domestic abuse, miscarriage/pregnancy, discussions of suicidal ideation, significant religious themes, found family, hurt/comfort, slow burn, angst with a happy ending

chapter content warnings -> 18+ for mature themes. mentions of blood, numerous Christian religious references, disordered eating habits, anxiety, references to emotional abuse and manipulation, body image issues, internalized fatphobia

one: an empty room (10.3k) | next | masterlist | playlist | AO3

You surrounded me

and my windows are breaking

Something is rotten inside of me

I have to find it and

cut it out

House Song — Searows

It was a mortal man who drove you away but divine providence that guided you to Hawkins.

You’d been dropping off the key to your motel room when you saw it: a cockeyed paper pamphlet in the dusty wooden holder mounted beneath the counter. Stuffed beside “Indiana Caverns” and “The World’s Largest Ball of Paint,” it advertised a place where fissures had unfurled like the spindly legs of a spider, all radiating out from the center square. ‘Visit the town that hosts the gates of Hell,’ it read. You knew the town couldn’t really host the gate of Hell because Hell is a lake of fire and not a crack in the earth, though even the thought made a chill of foreboding shudder through you. Still, as you gazed at the name written in big red letters across the faded paper, you rolled it around in your mouth, seeing how it felt against your molars and exploring the way it tasted on your tongue.

Hawkins.

You’d expected bitterness. Ash and fire and brimstone, if the leaflet was to be believed. Instead, Hawkins tasted of pine, of sweet corn, and drugstore laundry powder. And that was odd, certainly. But maybe odd was what you needed— something wholly unfamiliar, nerve-wracking in its foreignness but peaceful in the knowledge that, if nothing else, you know he would never expect you to escape to somewhere like this.

You’d been cutting a path from your home in Georgia due north, aimless and wandering, restless like a frightened prey animal consumed with nothing but thoughts of flee, flee, flee. The instinct had brought you from parking lot to roadside fuel-pump to motel six day after day, bouncing as the stacks in the cashbox wedged beneath the passenger seat began to dwindle. A pawn shop helped resupply your reserves, and your ring finger was lighter for it, but the running is beginning to wear on you. And there's just something about the taste of Hawkins lingering in your mouth, yeasty like wheat and clean in a way you haven’t felt since the day after Christmas when the bleeding began.

Your fingertips twitch before you snatch up the folded paper from the holder, spilling out into the gray of early morning. You cut a path back to the crack of warm light leaking from your room, where you’d wedged a stone against the metal edge of the door to prop it open. You slip inside one last time before you depart.

There isn’t much to gather. Inside, there's just a musty floral bedspread and a side table with a bolted-down lamp. You flick the switch, leaving the room cold and dark in preparation for your departure. Your few personal belongings are already packed away in the car waiting outside, and it’s with a sense of familiar shame twanging at your heartstrings that you duck back into the tiny tiled room nestled in the corner of the bedroom. The pamphlet crinkles as you fold it and slip it into your coat pocket, freeing your hands to do what they will.

This place is just one in a long line of stark rooms, transient nests that shelter you briefly as you flee. It's what made you think you were aimless and wandering, but you weren’t. Not really.

During your flight from Georgia, you’d stopped in Lexington, Kentucky. And when you drove on, you could have, just as easily, chosen to go northeast, toward Columbus, perhaps curving over toward western Pennsylvania. But you decided to go northwest instead, dipping into the southern edge of Indiana, avoiding Cincinnati and its choked smog until you nestled into fields and farms again. It was divine providence that guided you that way, that bid you stop at this motel for the night, that helps you now discern the notes of flavor you hadn’t noticed back in the office as the leaflet crinkles in your coat pocket. Because beneath the unfamiliar— pine and corn and laundry powder— there is the familiar musk of fresh hay, mown on a sweet summer morning by your pa as soft whinnies huff from the stable. It warms you, though the January wind cuts through to the bone as you scurry back out of the motel room and let the door thump closed behind you. Your eyes dart for lookers-on, though the sting of self-consciousness isn’t quite as acute now as the first few times you’d waddled to the pastel blue Lincoln and fumbled the back door open with laden hands.

When you found that pamphlet and chose Hawkins, Indiana, as your final nesting place, God was calling you home. You will know that in the end, but you don’t know it now. Now, you’re just a scared girl carrying toilet paper, satchets of soap, and tiny bottles of mouthwash in your fists, pilfered from yet another temporary room. They tumble to join the pile of stolen treasures in the backseat, right beside the pillow from Tennessee and the scratchy blanket from Kentucky.

You've known since you were small that you aren’t a lamb— only Jesus is the lamb. Still, you'd hoped you are a sheep, pure and white, close to Him. Yet it turns out you’ve been wrong all this time. It turns out you're just a dirty, thieving crow, poking your beak in the dirt to search for shiny things to sustain you. As you stare at the pile of your baubles, the shame tugs again at your heartstrings, clawing up to settle heavily in the base of your throat. Thick like the beginnings of tears.

You slam the back door and climb into the driver’s seat, sitting motionlessly for a long moment as you speak with your Father. You've always talked to God as long as you can remember but never had your prayers been so consistent as they've been this past week. First the waiting. Then the bleeding. Then the forsaking. Then the stealing. In all, you ask the same.

Please, Father. Forgive me.

You pull the leaflet from your coat pocket, unfolding it carefully, avoiding the inflammatory language about gates and fissures as you search until you spot the tiny map and the star in its center that demarks the location of Hawkins. The instructions say that, from the south, you should take route four-thirty-one to route three north.

Your aimless crawling has suddenly gained a clear direction; with it, your prayers shift for the moment. A hymn comes to mind, and you close your eyes as its melody plays in your head: Lead me, guide me, along the way. For if you leave me, I will not stray. Lord, let me walk each day with thee.

“Lead me,” you sing, a breath of a whisper as your eyes open. “Oh Lord, lead me.”

Beside your Lincoln, a businessman is loading his trunk into the passenger seat of his station wagon.

You crank down your window hastily, resting your fingers against the doorframe as you peek out without making a sound; working yourself up to speak with this strange man takes some effort. He has just closed the door and is about to cross around the front bumper when your voice finally comes, timorous but sweet as Georgia peaches. “Excuse me, sir,” you say, brows tipping as he turns to you. “Do you happen to know the way to route four-thirty-one from here?”

The cloud cover never wanes as you meander along the highways that lead to Hawkins. Even as the hour deepens to late afternoon, there is no glow of warmth from the sun; only cold bright grayness follows you as your gas gauge edges toward a quarter-tank, and you pull off to find a gas station and something to fill your aching stomach. You shade your eyes as you stand beside the pump and squint across the street, gaze catching on a familiar mascot: a swirl of hair like a dollop of black whipped cream and the red suspenders of Frisch’s Big Boy. The sight promises cheap food which will almost certainly be filling enough for your single midday meal.

The place isn’t overwhelmingly busy inside, but you still need to wait by the empty hostess stand before you’re taken to your seat. Against the long smudged window, shiny stickers and little childish baubles crowd the twenty-five cent machines, but your interest lies in the considerably more drab newspaper dispenser beside those colorful globes. You aren’t quite at your destination yet, but you’re close enough that local ads will likely provide you with a taste of your chosen home before you reach it. You purchase one quickly, wedging the newspaper under your arm and jumping almost guiltily when the hostess returns and finally chirps a greeting at you. You feel as if you’ve done something wrong as you trail after her, though as she hands you a menu and leaves you with a pleasant smile, she implies nothing of the sort.

You don’t spend long perusing the menu before you make up your mind. You order with a soft voice as the waitress scratches across her pad, promising to bring your orange juice and coffee in a jiffy. “Thank y’ma’am,” you say, small with your hands folded one over the other in your lap.

You wait eagerly, stomach rumbling in earnest now that it knows your meal is well on the way. If you had to choose one type of food to eat for the rest of your life, breakfast would surely be it. A smile plays on your lips, and your mouth wells up with wanting as you picture it: crispy fried potatoes, eggs any which way, fluffy sweet milk waffles, cream of wheat with maple syrup and cinnamon. That one’s mama’s favorite. Pa’s is country fried steak, with a crunchy crust but tender and pink inside. Paul’s is—

You hedge from the thought, skipping quickly along to yours: dense, crumbly biscuits and thick, well-seasoned gravy, with little savory bits of sausage mixed in. They hadn’t had that here, so you ordered the pancakes and sausage links with a side of over-easy eggs, plus the coffee and orange juice. You’d gotten into the habit of eating once a day, mostly because it was easier to eat one big meal than try to stop for several smaller ones. That means that, as you sit there waiting, the scents of the kitchen and the clinking of silverware quickly become a dizzying reminder of your hunger, one that necessitates a distraction. So you spread the newspaper out against the table, turning each page slowly as you scan for the town that tastes of fresh laundry and hay.

You spot it once you reach the classifieds. It’s in an ad blazoned with one bold word across the top: vacancy. Forest Hills Trailer Park, the paper reads. Ready-to-move-in trailers, spacious for singles and small families. Just a five-minute drive from downtown Hawkins. In tiny font, tiny enough that you need to scrunch your nose and draw your face close to the paper to read it, the ad remarks, No background check or references required. First month’s rent plus deposit due at lease signing.

Forest Hills Trailer Park will clearly be a far cry from what you’ve left behind, but it checks all the necessary boxes, especially the most important ones.

You fold the newspaper, creasing it carefully with your fingernails before tearing bit by bit along that manufactured edge until the advertisement comes free. You’ve just carefully deposited the clipping into your pocket as the food comes, steaming and succulent, making your mouth instantly water.

“How’s it look?” Your waitress asks as if you aren’t itching to pounce on the plate the second she goes away, devouring your sustenance like a starved animal.

“Looks great,” you assure her, tiny and sweet and small and docile. “Thank you so much.”

But even once she leaves you to it, your manners forbid you from such a thing. You keep your elbows off the table and cut the pancakes with little even saws of your knife, spearing each square daintily with your fork before raising it to your lips. You eat your meal as if everyone around you is watching, even though no one is.

When your waitress returns with a refill for your coffee, you ask her for directions to Hawkins. For the first time, her eyes rove over you, taking in the winter coat you haven’t removed and the glinting silver cross at the base of your throat that peeks above the collar of your starchy dress. She squints at you and asks, “What, ya visitin’ family?”

When you don’t reply, she gestures with the coffee pot. “Take thirty-five west and keep drivin’ ‘til you reach the barn with the cow out front. Then turn left there. Y’can’t miss it.”

The ‘cow out front’ turns out to be a cow statue, bigger than any real cow you’ve ever seen and certainly not one you could miss, as she said. You slow and turn left, finally abandoning the highway for a scenic road lined with pine trees that stand like silent sentinels as you carefully guide your vehicle along the road to…

Home.

Your new home.

Now that it feels so imminent— this decision you’ve made to build your nest at the feet of the supposed ‘gate of hell’— doubt begins to creep in, freezing at the edges of your ribs and creeping toward your center. You’ve driven more than twelve hours from your origin-place, and America is vast— so vast— with more motels than stars you can count across the expanse of the sky on a clear summer’s night.

And you’ve set your mind on this place because you saw it in a pamphlet?

Your fingers tremble as you pass tree after tree, branch after branch, leaf after leaf, a sea of unending forest stretching to enclose you and the road you follow. Might as well’ve spun myself around at the treeline, pointed a finger, and started walking, you think to yourself, the leather of the wheel creaking under your wringing hands. It is one thing to run aimlessly; it is quite another to plop yourself down the same way.

'Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.'

“Proverbs,” you whisper, your trembling beginning to subside with each exhaled word that passes through your lips. “Chapter three, verses five and six.” The fingers of one hand unpeel from the steering wheel to clasp instead around the silver at your throat. And by the time your fingers have warmed the metal, your doubt has calmed, and a sign on the right interrupts the treeline, declaring you’ve arrived.

Hawkins, Indiana. The forest gives way to typical small-town life, though the evidence of what occurred here almost three years ago is still evident in the divots of scarred earth now frosted over with ice, like sharp gauze packing a wound. Some buildings are in permanent disrepair— collapsed, crumbled, roofs caved in, wood and brick sinking into the earth like sinew and bone, partially covered over by hairy weeds that expose the steady march of time. But as you drive slowly toward the center of town, where is rebuilt is teeming with small-town life, not unlike the place you’ve come from. As the sun begins to wane, warm lights slowly blink on inside cozy split-levels and ranches to take its place. Wives welcome husbands home from work before sitting down for supper; children are called in from the streets as mothers stand in breezeways, dropping bikes to be left abandoned in the frosty grass until tomorrow. Despite the present bleak midwinter and the past tragedy that befell them, life goes on for the people of Hawkins, Indiana. That fact conjures a sense of peace as you wander through, searching idly for Kerley— the road that leads to the trailer park. This is the place described as hosting the gate of hell? As you pass bare cornfields and sleepy suburban streets, Hawkins feels so far from it that your earlier fear seems suddenly silly.

You meander the town in your pastel blue Lincoln until you happen upon Kerley Street. By the time you finally reach the turnoff for Forest Hills Trailer Park, the black of night has fallen like a curtain over the vague rectangular structures that crowd beyond the gravel entrance. Your headlights swing and illuminate a slapdash sign that designates the land manager’s residence, and you’re relieved to see a vague glow seeping through the crack below the door and between the curtains, persistent despite the clear attempts to keep it concealed from the outside world. You park the car and hold onto the doorframe as you emerge onto gravel, which you waver over in your low heels until you reach the stairs at the base of the porch. There’s a cracked flowerpot on the bottom step, but instead of the husks of flowers you expect, it’s loaded with cigarette butts, decaying in layers of paper and used nicotine.

You stare at the door for a moment before announcing yourself. You’re nervous to be confronted with the unfamiliar person beyond; foreboding clenches in your chest, but it can’t be helped. A rap of your knuckles conjures the man who’d tried so valiantly to hide that he was home. His shirt is dirty, his pants sag, and his shave isn’t close to even; he eyes you wearily as you stand on his stoop. “Locked out?” he asks dully, and you flounder a moment before replying, swallowing to wet your throat and hope your voice stays steady.

“I don’t live here,” you say, “but… I’m lookin’ to. That is, I saw in the paper you had vacancies—” You shove your hand in your coat pocket and pull out the newspaper clipping, passing it over. The man surveys the ad perfunctorily, one bushy brow quirked. The toothpick between his teeth bobs as he plays with it, his eyes sliding to you as you ask hesitantly, “...Do you still have vacancies?”

His chuckle comes so fast it’s startling. The sound is raspy, like he needs to clear his throat. “‘Course I have vacancies.” He pulls the toothpick from between his lips, flicking it heedlessly away. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

When you shake your head, he jerks his toward the doorway spilling light across the porch. “Come on, then. Let’s get this done.”

You forget his name almost as soon as he tells you, but your land manager seems nice enough. Brusque, sure, but harmless as you sign the papers and pay for the first month’s rent. He waives the deposit— literally waves your words away like irritating wings are fluttering near his ear— and explains, “Place is mostly unfurnished, but you got a bed at least.”

You can’t do anything but stand there stock still as he tells you your house number— seven— and drops the key into your open palm. “Don’t bother callin’ me f’somethin’ breaks. I’m useless at plumbin’ and ‘lectrical. You’ll need to call someone in the profession.” You curl your fingers over cold metal, and the grooves of the key bite your palm as he wags a finger at you. “Y’lose your key, it’ll cost you a fiver to replace.” He waits until you’ve nodded enough to satisfy him, and then he sends you on your way, closing himself away again. The light leaking from the crevices is extinguished by the time you reach your car door.

You guide your car carefully along the gravel path, driving past darkened trailers, past a red dome made of bars and a picnic table, past a trailer with a caved-in roof you stare at as you pass. A great crack churned up the porch floorboards, and between them now sprout tall, dry, brittle grass made feeble by winter’s bite. There's a streetlight nearby, but it's broken; the moonlight that plays on the dilapidated structure makes you shiver. Still, there isn’t much time to react before you’re at your place. Your trailer is a carbon copy of the well-kept rectangular box beside it, except the other has a chain-link fenced-in yard at the front. A clothesline denotes the edge of your side yard from your neighbors’.

As you cut the engine, the world goes quiet. You sit in the stillness, and for a moment, there’s just you, your car, and your new home beyond a scraggly dirt yard.

You think of the other places you’d called home before your temporary motel rooms. You think first of your childhood home, and your mouth fills with peaches, with the hollowness of piano keys and the rich dirt from under the wraparound porch. You think of that tall white house, where your delighted shrieks echoed through warm wood hallways as you ran out the back door toward the stables beyond. Your clumsy fingers had carved your name over your bedroom door in elementary scrawl. Pa’d been so angry when you did that, but he relented and ruffled your hair in the end, shaking his head. He always was too fond of you.

Then you think of the home you could call your own— not your parents’, but yours. Yours and Paul’s. Stately, proud, with more of a brick landing than a porch leading up to the dark oak door. Inside are gauzy curtains and rich wallpaper; plump pillows line the couches just so, and the servers display decorative crystal. As you remember, your mouth fills with powdered sugar and water lilies, the gloss of fine china and the silk of ruffled bed skirts. But there’s metal on the back of your tongue, the copper acrid and biting as it overwhelms the rest. You shudder a breath, breaking from your recollections to finally emerge from the car and face your newest home.

In the moonlight, you can see that it also has a porch, but it’s sagging. You mount its stairs, and they’re rickety, creaking under your heels. Inside, when the screen door cracks back into place behind you, the interior of number seven Forest Hills Trailer Park feels like a void of stillness. The light switch flickers erratically before coming to life when you nudge it with your fingertip as if it hasn’t been called to do its job for quite some time. A long narrow hallway directly across from you leads into darkness, with a living room on your right and a kitchen on your left. All of what you can see is empty aside from a thick layer of dust coating the window frames, which are cracked with dried paint, the drips of sloppy workmanship forever preserved in lacquer. There’s mildew growing at the corner of the wall in the living room, and you hesitate to explore it further, opting to head left instead.

At the threshold of the front door, you’d landed on a filthy, matted-down rug. You clack forward with hesitant steps as if afraid to disturb anything, as if this is someone else’s place, not yours. When you edge into the kitchen, cautiously pulling open the refrigerator door, the cold air leaking from inside is reassuring. But when it suddenly kicks and rattles as if sick or angry, the sound makes you tense and jerk away quickly. It’s empty in this room, too— every drawer and cabinet is barren when you tug them open, aside from the dried corpses of flies mounded in a strange pile on the linoleum in front of the kitchen sink. At least the land manager said there’s a bed. Vague unease begins to well in your chest; you hurry down that dark, narrow hallway, flicking the switch as you pass, but nothing changes. The light does not come on. In the back room, the bed is nothing more than the vague lump of a mattress, lonely on the floor.

The screen door snaps closed behind you as you rush back down the rickety porch stairs. When faced with the choice, you elect to wrap yourself in your scratchy Kentucky blanket, your winter coat, and some extra socks to sleep in the Lincoln despite the bleak midwinter.

Because number seven Forest Hills Trailer Park trips off your tongue; it doesn’t taste like home.

The sun streams cheery light through the windshield, and you wake at just after six, mouth dry as cotton weeds. Your back and neck are sore, cricked from their position against the headrest all night, and the muscles spasm when you stir. You rub your bleary eyes clear, holding your palms against your lashes as if reluctant to remove them and see the state of your new home as it was last night. Eventually, you relent; in the light of day, you peek again at the worn trailer with its gray siding, faded and covered with moss at the concrete base, that rickety porch, and the dull brass knocker concealed behind the screen door…

You take a moment to consider but can’t decide if it’s any better in the light of day.

With a handful of your stolen toiletries, you venture back inside, and the screen door makes you jump as it snaps closed while you’re standing closeby. Your heart hammers, blood rushing in your ears, and you chastise yourself lightly once it calms. I have to remember to lower the door closed, otherwise people’re gonna get mad with me making such a racket in the morning.

A quick glance past that closed door you hadn’t explored yesterday reveals that the bathroom is in a bad state, so you avoid it aside from what’s necessary. You brush your teeth at the kitchen sink, setting the toiletries— tiny bottles and sachets of soap— in a carefully-laid line along the side, conscientiously avoiding the pile of flies near the toes of your kitten heels. With minty freshness on your breath, you feel finally awake, and it’s clear what your first order of business should be: getting this place spic and span. No use living in a pigsty, as mama would say.

You take a moment to survey the trailer more carefully, walking in circles around the living room, the kitchen, and the singular bedroom as you peek into nooks and crannies and compile a mental list of the supplies you’ll need. You move gingerly as if you still do not want to disturb this place, though it’s not quite as foreboding as it was last night.

It’s just an empty box, after all.

You don’t bother unloading the rest of your meager belongings before driving into town for your cleaning supplies and other essentials: bedding and bath towels and cooking utensils and furniture to provide you with somewhere to sit and eat. It hits you then, as the ranches and yards subside into businesses and parking lots, how little you truly have. How much you’d relied on others before, how much you’d taken for granted.

Downtown Hawkins in the daytime is a bustle of quaint activity. The streets aren’t overly crowded because the town is not overly populated, but you can take your time perusing the shops you drive past. And you do— your eyes scan them almost desperately as you try to stamp down on the feeling rising inside that writhes in the pit of your stomach. A video store. An arcade. A laundromat. None of use to you right now, though the laundromat has you thinking of the dress you’re wearing, the way it pinches your arms and pulls tight around your stomach as you drive. You’d managed to ignore the feeling during your flight, but now—gasping and huffing on the comedown as you stop running, and with the enormity of your situation looming before you— the writhing is spreading from your stomach to your chest, pressing outward as if you’ll burst, and the wardrobe you’ve been wearing for months now is finally beginning to suffocate you.

Seeing the thrift store feels like a gust of fresh air has been breathed directly into your lungs, and you don’t even need to ponder it before parking and throwing the car door open to access the backseat. After all, there is no reason to endure any longer; no one is stopping you now. So you dump the contents of your two trash bags onto the Lincoln’s backseat and the remnants of your old life spill over onto the floor. Almost detachedly, you sort the contents into ‘keep’ and ‘sell’ piles; you keep your undergarments and pantyhose and shoes, and you stuff all the dresses— all their linen and gauze and luxurious cotton, all their structured hems and nipped waists and darted busts— into the trash bags to be sold.

If the employee behind the counter is surprised to see the quality of the items you’re selling, more suited to a department than a thrift store, he doesn’t show it. Calmly, you pull out each dress, laying the fabric out carefully before you slide it over the counter towards him. As the garments emerge from your trash bags, their associated occasions flash in your mind. The yellow gingham you’d often wear when visiting family. The pink peony was often seen in your kitchen, protected by an apron covered in flour. The blue linen, one of your old favorites, makes you think of Sunday mass. All get passed to the man on the other side of the counter, all but one that sticks in your memory, left laid against the bedspread back in Georgia.

The man examines each dress and punches staccato numbers into a calculator with the eraser of his number two pencil until they’re all gone from you, and in their place is a wad of bills you can use to shop for a new wardrobe.

If the employee behind the counter finds it strange that you’ve sold your department store dresses to buy thrift store ones, he doesn’t show it.

Gathering your replacements doesn’t take long because you know exactly what you want. Your new wardrobe should be modest and comfortable, comprised of a practical assortment of casual dresses and cardigans, a couple of nicer frocks for your Sunday best, and some loungewear for the house, including a bathrobe that makes your cheeks burn when it slides across the counter toward that same employee from before. After making your purchases, you carry the plastic bag into the dressing room, slipping behind the velvet curtain and pulling one casual dress out at random.

You rip down the tiny zipper on the starchy dress you've been wearing since yesterday, and the release of pressure is bliss. Though the cotton of your new dress is a little scratchier than what you’d been wearing before, you don’t hesitate in kicking the old fabric aside before gazing at yourself in the mottled thrift store mirror.

The new dress buttons up past your decolletage. It’s almost long enough to skim your ankles, and it is at least one size too big, maybe two. It looks more fitting for a forty-year-old than your twenty-one years; some might even call it frumpy. But it’s what you want.

Because when you think about the clothes you’d been wearing— think about how, over the last year, your breasts and hips and thighs and stomach had gradually broadened, softened, begun to press uncomfortably against the fabric even after your mother had let out the seams as far as they could go— frumpy doesn’t compare with what you’d experienced.

You remember the sympathy in Paul’s tawny brow as he stared down at you. ‘No, Buttercup, I’m sorry. Think of it as an incentive,’ he’d said kindly when you’d asked for an allowance to purchase bigger clothes. ‘I’m just trying to help you.’ You remember how the ladies in town could see the way the beautifully tailored dresses, once so flattering, now bulged and bunched around the heft of your changing body, especially around your midsection. And you knew, though they were always too polite to say it, that when you gathered with them after church or ran into them at the grocery store, they couldn’t help but glance at your tummy and wonder if you were pregnant. But you weren’t pregnant. You were just…

Fat.

The reflection in the mirror suddenly doesn’t feel like you. That’s not your soft jaw; those aren’t your round cheeks. Your dress wouldn’t balloon so far outward over your breasts and stomach, and your thighs wouldn’t rub together because that isn’t you. But those are your eyes, and your hair, and your lips and fingers. And when you twist to look at your backside, so does she; when you smooth your palms over your ample hips, she does too. So she must be you.

You just wish she wasn’t.

You pull your attention from your body and focus instead on your dress, trying to detach from that knowledge again. The important part is that this dress doesn’t restrict or cling or reveal any unsavory lumps and bumps, and that’s what you want. You pull on some woolen stockings and a loose cardigan since it is still January, and after sliding on your low heels once again, you leave the thrift store behind.

You can run from that dressing room— can slip back into your car, load the new plastic bag into the backseat and coax the engine to life— but you cannot run from your feelings. And seeing yourself in the mirror has left you hollow and wanting, exposing the void inside that begs to be filled in that familiar way, the way you’ve grown used to over the last year. Your kitchen at home may be bare, but from beyond your windshield, you can see what will help you fill it. There’s a bright spot down the road and across the way in the lot beside the general store.

Miss Daisy’s Diner.

As you leave your purchases behind in the car, your eyes glaze over the help wanted sign written in beautiful script in the diner window; you’re more focused on filling that hollow place inside you. And inside Miss Daisy’s Diner is more than enough to satisfy the ache.

There isn’t just the promise of good food waiting for you at Miss Daisy’s. There’s the scent of grease and salt on the air, sure, but there’s something else there too. Something that beckons you forward, light and almost ticklish, like the heat of panting breath, the softness of a furry ear dragging under your chin to the tip until it flicks off. Before you know it, you’ve taken two steps forward, and a waitress in a swish of skirts and a flick of her manicured nails has plucked a single menu from the stand.

“One?” she asks, chipper as you nod. “Booth or table?”

“Table,” you answer, and she leads you to one.

She leaves you with the menu, but you don’t yet look at it, consumed by the crowded atmosphere around you. The restaurant seems almost suspended in time with its black and white tiled floor, the retro-patterned tabletops, the chrome, the beveled glass windows, the teal and white booths and chairs that squeak with vinyl when you adjust in your seat. The walls are loaded with pictures and posters, memorabilia of the 50s and 60s: Coca-Cola bottles, old cars, Elvis and Marilyn, novelty signs advertising products for cents on the dollar. The effect is charming, made even more so when you realize that each table, including yours, is decorated with a white daisy in a glass of water. Somehow, the interior of this restaurant feels jubilant and comforting, like the bright joy of Easter, even though it’s January. Maybe that has something to do with how full it is— though it’s around ten o’clock on a Thursday, the place is no less than three-quarters full.

“Hey there, dear. You decide what you want yet?”

The croak interrupts your reminiscing, and you startle upon seeing a different woman than the one who’d brought you here— older, with gray hair coiffed into a beehive and pink lipstick crackled on her lips. “Oh!” You are immediately repentant. “No, ma’am, I’m sorry. I haven’t looked yet.”

The woman snorts, but it’s all in good humor. “Ma’am,” she echoes you, though where yours was respectful, hers is slightly sardonic. “No need to go reminding me I’m old, dear.” You crackle with nerves, but she grins at you with slightly yellowed teeth. “I’ll come back when you’re ready. Just flag me down, all right?”

You manage a nod, nerves easing as she taps the table with her wrinkled hand and leaves you to it.

The menu is not overly vast, but it takes some time to decide what will fill that void you feel, what you’re really yearning for. In the end, you settle on a Reuben sandwich with french fries and a chocolate milkshake. Though all the waitresses are dressed the same here to fit the theme, you’re grateful for your waitress’s distinctive beehive as you catch her attention, peeking at the nametag she has pinned to the right of her collar when she arrives. ‘Sherry,’ it reads, and oddly, there’s a little doodle of a shamrock beside it which looks to be drawn on in permanent marker.

“Comin’ right up, sweetie,” she promises you.

“Thank you, m—” you swallow the ‘ma’am,’ and Sherry’s smile widens as she wags a finger at you.

“Watch it, you; I heard that,” she says, her voice a croaking tease. “Don’t you start.”

You giggle, and when she leaves you again, it isn’t just the promise of food that makes you feel better.

The sandwich comes quicker than you expected, considering how busy it is, and it's delicious: creamy Russian dressing, salty corned beef and mild Swiss sliced thin, piled together with tart sauerkraut. The outside of the bread is grilled crisp and not too greasy, and the fries are hot and crunchy, a perfect balance with the thick, sweet coldness of your milkshake. It’s perfect; you couldn’t have asked for more.

As you eat, you watch the waitresses flit about in their matching yellow dresses with white collars, aprons, and cuffs, gathering behind the bar counter when not visiting their tables or pushing through the swinging doors to the kitchen. You watch them laugh and chat with one another, and it pricks at something familiar inside you. It’s been years now, but you still remember what it feels like to flit from table to table, to smile and serve, to share in that camaraderie behind the bar, though the place where you’d done it was nothing like this.

Once you’ve thoroughly cleaned your plate, Sherry stops by again just as the jukebox kicks on to play Baby I’m Yours by Barbara Louis.

“How was it?” she asks, and you tell her it was very good. “Any room for more?” She follows up, eyeing your empty plate, and there’s a sudden hot flash of shame, a moment where you think she might turn wolfish. But her tone and expression remain nothing but sincere, so it wanes. Still, you hedge on an answer, deliberating whether to accept the offer.

She notices your hesitation and perks her brows, coaxing, “We’ve got a mean pecan pie.” A little encouraging smile plays on her crackled lips. “Sounds like that might be right up your alley, judging by your accent.”

It is true— you love pecan pie. And that void was lessened by your meal but not quite filled. So you accept, and Sherry brings you the slice.

And you think maybe this is what does it— this slice of pecan pie. The crust all golden brown, the pecans placed so carefully on top, the filling gooey but not falling into a gelatinous heap upon the plate. Your sandwich had been so good, and your milkshake, too, and this, now— this just looks so good.

You take a bite of the mean pecan pie, and it is not good.

You chew slowly, nose scrunched, brow furrowed just slightly. It’s not… horrible. But it’s not good. Certainly not as good as the pecan pie at home.

Miss Daisy’s Diner is so inviting inside, suspended in time, straight out of the glossy world of dreams. The chrome is shiny, the teal booths pleasant, and each table is adorned with a single daisy. The doo-wop of the jukebox mixes with the hum of conversation; the waitresses in their yellow dresses laugh with patrons as they fill up their coffee mugs and emerge from those swinging doors with plates loaded with delicious food. But the pie isn’t delicious, and you would hazard a guess, as you crane your neck to peek at the display of cakes and muffins beneath the far end of the bar, that the rest of their baked goods are the same way: good-looking under the lights, but nothing compared to what you’re used to.

Nothing compared to what you can do.

'Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.'

When Sherry stops by the table to ask if she can get you anything else, your reply comes swift and easy. “I saw the sign in your window. Are y’all still hiring?”

It’s a quick affair, becoming a waitress at Miss Daisy’s Diner.

When you ask that question, Sherry’s brows flash, but she sits across from you right away, crossing her legs smartly as she asks you a series of quick questions. You used to work at the restaurant in a country club back home, and though it’s been a few years now, you know how to answer them all sufficiently. That kind of knowledge— the knowledge you gain from experience— never really leaves you. When you finish, she looks at you discerningly before shrugging. “Well, y’seem alright to me. Just wait here. I’ll get Willy.” She pauses half out of her chair as if a thought has just occurred to her. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Emma,” you tell her, and despite the croak of her lungs, your name flows like molasses off Sherry’s tongue when she repeats it back to you.

Willy is the owner of Miss Daisy’s Diner, and he looks nothing like the ‘Miss Daisy’ pictured on the menu. Where she appears crisp and plucky, Willy is doughy and lax. You learn that there is no real Miss Daisy, though Willy jokes, "All my chickadees here are Miss Daisy. That’s why they dress alike." He doesn’t even interview you after learning Sherry already talked to you; apparently, that’s good enough for him. Instead, he just rambles about scheduling, uniforms, and payroll, speaking in slow circles that loop back and around again until Sherry cuts him off.

“I’ll get her up to speed, Willy,” she says, and his face splits with a lazy smile.

“Sher’ll get you trained up,” he concludes as if it was his idea.

He begins to turn from the table, and you pipe up before he can leave. “When can I start?”

Willy shrugs lazily, looking towards his employee. “Tomorrow?” he offers, and Sherry concurs, and that is that.

When you leave Miss Daisy’s Diner, your Lincoln is parked down the street where you left it, the white plastic bag of your new clothes visible through the backseat window. When you get in, your pillow and blanket are beside you, reminding you of the lumpy mattress and the pile of dead flies that need to be tidied. Your original goal for the day still looms ahead.

But, God, you aren’t complaining. You swear it. Because Hawkins is a refuge, and you have a job, and the bleeding finally stopped this morning. And there’s security in the first chore you’ve decided to begin your new life with. You’re intimately acquainted with mopping, dusting, and scrubbing, having learned to clean well in the last three years. While you don’t particularly enjoy it, there’s comfort in making something dirty into something clean. By tomorrow, your trailer will no longer be a pigsty, and maybe you’ll sleep in your bed tonight. Tomorrow, you get to go back to Miss Daisy’s Diner, back to Sherry and the jukebox and the flowers on the tables, and maybe you’ll be laughing behind the bar this time.

‘For I know the thoughts that I think concerning you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you the end that you wait for.’

Thank you, Father.

In the few days following your first day in Hawkins, you learn many things. You learn that the daisies on the tables of Miss Daisy’s Diner are made of fabric and wire, and the water is dried glue. You learn that Willy— given name Wilbur— might own the place, but the girls run it. You learn that the coffee maker sometimes doesn’t spit out water unless you smack it hard and that you won’t get a shiny nametag to match the others until Willy orders one from a special shop, which may take a while. You learn that the yellow dresses and aprons might look cute, but they aren’t all that comfortable, though Sherry kindly accommodated your request for the largest size she could get. It's not quite as big as the dresses you'd picked for yourself, but she did her best.

Still, these cracks in the facade of Miss Daisy’s don’t make it any less charming to you. The pace is hectic, and though each restaurant has its own way of doing things, you fall back into that ebb and flow quickly with the help of all the girls, who don’t hesitate to welcome you into the herd. That’s another thing that helps— the waitresses are all kind and helpful, though more curious about you than you’d prefer, sniffing at your hair and shoes when you aren't looking. It becomes apparent very quickly that they’re all the same: goats who bleat at one another across the floor and nibble at the strings of one another’s aprons in friendly affection, yours included. You aren’t quite one of them, but they don’t seem to notice.

You can’t hide your accent, of course, so they know you're not from around here. There’s always that awareness in a small town— even your tables ask you about it. You remain vague about your past, reserved but polite with your coworkers and charming with your customers, treating them with hospitality just like mama raised you. The beatitudes guide your manner: meek and humble, righteous and merciful, pure of heart and generous. A peacemaker, bringing harmony to those around you.

It’s almost enough to make you think you might have white wool after all, though you can’t quite shake the raven feathers that shudder when you return home to your nest with its barren sticks and its piles of stolen trinkets you gathered on your flight to Hawkins. That’s why you spend as much time as you can at work, soothed by the dulcet tones of the jukebox as you flit from table to bar to kitchen and back again until all begins to feel familiar and comforting.

Safe.

By the end of your first week, you’ve also grown accustomed to the back of the house. Even the sight of Harry, the line cook, begins to comfort you. He is large, broad-shouldered and thick, but his movements are measured and gentle, set with a pace that speaks assurance that things will get done when they get done. In fact, his movements are so predictable that every time you shuffle through the swinging doors into the kitchen at the start of your shift, you anticipate the repetitive sound of his thick bull hands scraping the spatula slow and even as he works the cooktop.

So the sight that greets you now as you catch the door from Sherry is quite jarring.

Before the cooktop stands a man who is both shorter and thinner than Harry but somehow far more imposing. He’s angular and jagged, frenetic in his movements: booted foot tapping tile, elbow jutting sharp as he jerks the spatula, a wild mess of curls shaking as his head bobs exaggeratedly. And the sound of the kitchen isn’t at all soothing in his presence. There’s some kind of tinny howling coming from him, some unholy noise that nearly makes you halt at the threshold of the swinging doors before you realize it’s coming from underneath his hair and not from him, exactly. You quickly spot the thin cord running down to the tape player clipped to his tight dark pants, though the handkerchief swaying at his hip— old and spilling loose threads, black and white and emblemed with eerie skulls— has your nerves kicking up again just as quickly.

Sherry’s voice is hoarse from smoke and age but, to your surprise, not filled with even a hint of the same nerves as she greets the man. “Afternoon, Ed,” she says, sounding almost fond as she shouts to be heard above the music.

Almost instantly, the headphones are jerked down to hang around his neck, and when the man spins abruptly from the cooktop to face you both, your chest clenches again. His voice is brash and warm, mouth split wide to flash his eyeteeth as his gaze finds your coworker quickly. “Afternoon, Sher,” he says, mimicking her fond inflection, a teasing grin dimpling the corner of his plush pink lips. “How’s my best girl?”

Your eyes quickly dart from him to Sherry and then back, face frozen so as not to reveal your reaction: a mixture of wariness and confusion since he looks almost thirty years younger than her. Sherry just rolls her eyes and purses her lips, which are crackled with deep pink lipstick. “Yeah, yeah. We’re all your best girl, aren’t we, Eddie?” It’s said with long-suffering sarcasm like this exchange is akin to slipping on an old pair of shoes— worn in and comfortably molded to one’s foot.

The man, Eddie, doesn’t reply, though his smile does widen. Sherry nods your way but addresses him. “This is the new girl. Be nice,” she warns, wagging a gnarled finger.

“Whaddya mean, Sher? I’m always nice.” Eddie huffs through his nose, showily stretching his arms above his head and holding his clothed elbows as his eyes slide to you. Yours dip to the dark stains beneath his pits, the evidence of his toil and sweat that begs the question of why he’d be wearing long sleeves if he’s that hot. “Hello, new girl,” he says lightly, and his voice hums like there’s a secret joke he’s holding back from laughing at.

The cock of his hip, the sharpness of his limbs, the narrowness of his waist where the apron is tied hastily, the stretch of his ribcage against the dirty long-sleeved shirt, the tilt of his lips— it hits you suddenly what he is, just as suddenly as you’d realized that Sherry and the girls are bleating goats and Harry is a gentle bull.

This man is a coyote.

Suddenly, that feeling of safety is threatened. What else could explain that rush of tingling awareness pricking up your neck when he acknowledges your presence, if not the fear that a predator is near?

Instinct drives a prey animal when confronted in such a way. You’ve seen it yourself back at home: hens clucking and skittering in the dirt when they sense a fox, horses swaying uneasily in their stalls when a wolf prowls the woods beyond the paddock. And like a prey animal, your body can either freeze or flee. It chooses the latter.

You squeak out some semblance of a greeting— even fear can’t entirely overwhelm the graces you’ve been taught— and hurry around Sherry to duck into Willy’s office. You want to close the door, to wedge a physical barrier between yourself and those dark eyes and flashing white teeth, but you resist the urge knowing Sherry will be coming in right behind you, and the gesture is not only futile but potentially rude.

You’re tying your apron when she enters, and she catches your eyes immediately when you look up. Sherry purses her lips at the sight of your flushed cheeks and wide eyes; she chuckles, but there’s an edge of sympathy. “Oh, come on now, dear," she consoles you. “Eddie might look some type of way, but he doesn’t bite.” Her wrinkled eyes soften as she regards you, the tease in her voice gentling as she adds, “He’s a good boy.”

You force a smile, but her assurances can’t dispel the goosebumps prickling along your flesh. They don’t calm your trembling fingers as they slip your notepad into your white apron, smoothing along scratchy cotton afterward as if attempting to press out the bulge it makes against the front of your body. Your body whispers danger and your mind does, too. And if the spirit guides the flesh, then you know you feel this way for a reason.

Sherry’s platitudes are no match for instinct and belief.

After your initial spook, your shift progresses much the same as any other. You greet your tables, fetch them drinks, faithfully record their orders, deliver their plates, ask them if they need ketchup or hot sauce, chit-chat just a tad, drop the check, and bid them ‘have a good day now,’ parting with a smile. Your voice doesn’t even waver when you push open those double doors; your call of ‘corner’ is sweet and stable, less tremulous than how you began earlier this week. The only time fear squeezes your chest is when you must clip up your tickets. Because that means you’ll have to approach the coyote, draw near to his jagged elbows, those dark, angular legs, and the abundance of curls that cling damply to the edges of his pale jaw and conceal his expression from your view. At least facing Eddie’s back or side is considerably easier than his front; luckily, he’s so thoroughly occupied by the cooktop that he doesn’t acknowledge you before you scamper off. Your fear becomes a predictable wave: with each step toward him, your chest tightens, and with each step away, you feel the clench begin to ease.

You’ve just swung returned to the floor, loose and nearly chipper, when Samantha hurries over, holding a loaded plate, her ponytail and yellow skirts swishing as she skids to a stop before you. “Emma! There you are.” She beams brightly, and the words huff out of her as if just the sight of you is a relief. It makes you feel warm inside, and that warmth blooms in the smile you answer her with before asking,

“Is that mine?”

You look down at the plate as she nods, noting that the steak has just barely been cut on the corner, not even all the way through. “It’s from table four. She wants it cooked a little more. More like medium-well,” she explains, and you take the plate without a thought.

“Sure thing,” you say, and it isn’t until you’ve pushed back through those swinging doors into the kitchen that you realize what this task will require.

Your throat dries as you approach Eddie, eyes darting over the white of his shirt, how the fabric has gone somewhat translucent where it sticks to the planes of his back. His shoulders roll as he stretches to the side to reach a hoagie roll without moving his feet, which still tap along with the rhythm coming from the headphones slung around his neck. The sound of howling has since subsided to resonant thumping and the faint melody of some screeching instrument, which grows clearer as you edge closer with your plate.

Closer and closer still you draw until you can detect the faint scent of sour sweat, pungent smoke, and something earthy as the coyote turns his head back to the cooktop, still oblivious to your presence. You halt then, feet sticking as your clenched chest whispers that you’ve come close enough. Eddie continues to load chopped beef, peppers, and onions into the hoagie roll, and you hover some steps away until his chin happens to edge left, and he catches you in his peripheral.

His long eyelashes flick up as his gaze flashes to you, eyebrows jerking in mild acknowledgment, mouth soft and slack. The eye contact makes you hasty; you push out your voice and plate together, squeaking, “Can you cook this more? …Please?” You tack the pleasantry on, nudging your elbows forward as if urging him to take the plate as quickly as possible.

You want him to take the plate, but still, you must resist a flinch when his hand outstretches to receive it from you. His palm is broad, with callouses dotting along the meatiest sections, and his fingers are long and ruddy at the tips. Your breath hitches at the sight of his hand’s approach, but all Eddie does is grasp the plate. As soon as his fingers close around its edge, you snatch yours back toward the safety of your body. “Thank you,” you say, and you hazard a glance at his face.

A dimple forms on Eddie’s cheek as he grins, and his voice is warm and brash when he meets your eye and replies, “For you, sweetness? Anytime.”

And then he winks, a quick flash of those long lashes to conceal a sparkling brown iris.

Such a small thing, really, to say and to do. Thrown just as casually as a smile for a stranger who holds the door for you, just a brief moment of banter between coworkers as they cross paths in the diner kitchen.

But the swell of emotion Eddie’s words and wink conjures within you is not a small thing. You jerk away from him, a fierce spasm of your muscles to match the fist of fear that seizes you tightly and shakes you until you’re left trembling. The feeling is visible all over your body— in the tightening of your arms against your middle, the shrinking of your shoulders, the blanching of your face, the quiver of your lower lip, the widening of your wet eyes.

The sudden violence of your reaction clearly shocks him. Instantly, Eddie’s spine straightens, and his face falls. Those dark eyes go wide to match yours, confusion sinking into ruefulness as your back begins to bow— feet planted but spine arching, upper body inching back as if your only desire is to get away from him. All the warm brashness in his voice has deflated as he stutters, “Look, I– I was just— I’m—”

Had he gotten it out, would it have been an apology? An explanation? Would it have put you at ease, unclenched that feeling inside? Who’s to say. Because desperate to repair, to stop your backward flight, Eddie reaches out a hand toward you again. Soft, palm upturned, fingers slack. An entreaty to stay and let him fix things. Suddenly and acutely, your wrist aches at the approach of his palm; with that shock of pain, your freeze finally turns to flight.

In a burst of white and yellow, you skitter and spin toward the swinging doors, leaving your predator behind.

It’s a temporary balm, of course. You cannot avoid the coyote in the kitchen forever. After all, you have a steak to retrieve. This is your responsibility, and though the temptation to ask Samantha to fetch it for you is there, you know it would be wrong to give in to that impulse.

Out of the kitchen, in the front of the house, Miss Daisy’s Diner carries on as if nothing has happened. All is calm; all is bright. You hear the familiar clinking of utensils against ceramic, the swish of yellow skirts and the squeak of sneakers, the bleating of the girls mixed with the crackly doo-wop of the jukebox. Someone has put on Try Me by James Brown, and you whisper the words along with him as you shake off the tension like feathers ruffling to wick off water. ‘Try me,’ ‘hold me,’ ‘need you,’ you sing, the words repeating over and over like the lazy spin of a record on the turnstile. The slow beat eases you back into the rhythm of the floor as you steal precious minutes before you must return to the kitchen.

When you can delay it no longer, you edge back through those doors, breathing slowly to keep yourself from turning away as you anticipate the sight of his body, angular and jagged, coiled tight. But the slope of the coyote’s shoulders is low, and the frenetic swaying of his hips is still now. The howling has quieted, and the jerking of his spatula is slow, slow like Harry’s, which you’re used to. It helps to ease your cautious steps as you reach him, stopping a short distance away. You can see that the plate of your steak is prepared for you to retrieve it, resting on the counter just on the other side of him.

It doesn’t take as long for Eddie to notice you this time, and your chest threatens to clench when his chin turns your way. You try to push out a reminder of what you need. “C-can you—”

Eddie doesn’t make you ask. “Yeah,” he interrupts, “No problem.”

The three words do not sound angry or sad; they do not sound like much of anything, really. His mouth does not open wide to say them. Instead, his white teeth hide behind his pink lips as he passes you the plate with no other words exchanged between you. And as soon as you receive it, Eddie turns his face away.

Each successive visit to the kitchen that afternoon proves the truth of the matter. Since that first encounter, the coyote’s tail has since been tucked between his legs. The points of his teeth have been filed, and with them, over the course of those hours, your fear of his bite finally begins to ease.

So why, then, does your wrist still ache?

chapter two: I'll be seeing you is coming soon.

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thewritersaddictions · 1 year

Text

Bases: Negan Smith- Chapter 1 Her

Pairing: Negan Smith x Fem!Reader

Pov: Negan

Warnings: boundaries push, touching, cocky comments, the walking dead, zombies, trigger warnings, almost dying, special treatment, the wives, jealousy, being saved; Simon mentioned a little bit, maybe Dwight too, and Negans wives. masturbation,

Summary: Negan meets you when you come to the sanctuary doors. Wary of you at first he takes to watching you, and boy does he get interested quickly.

A/n- @ firefly-graphics for dividers

WC- 3.2k

The Walking Dead Master List // The Wanderers Master List // Series Master List

Y/n tries to catch her breath, but she just can’t seem to. Everything around her is swaying with her every step. She feels the sun pour through the sky, and it just ends up beating her up as she walks in the middle of the road. Trees line each side, giving no shade for her overheating body. She walks until she hears the indicators of the walkers; the sound grows louder the more she wanders due North. She worries for a moment until she sees a tall building that probably used to be a factory before the world went to shit. Then the sound of cars, the sounds of people.

People! She doesn’t care if she doesn’t have enough energy to get to the gates; she’ll push through the hoarse voice from no water for at least the past few nights and days. She’ll push until someone picks her up from the searing hot cement underneath her. She manages to make it to the gate; her face is flush, and she ends up waving down what looks like a post guard. “Do you know where you are, Miss?” It’s a guy no older or younger than she is before Y/n can answer though she’s collapsing to the ground. She’s worn herself out before just making it.

There’s a knock at the door, which means some shit is happening that Simon or some other fucknut doesn’t know how to handle. The knock on the door is different, rushed, almost a worried knock. “Come in.” I don’t look up until the person starts to talk; like always, it’s Simon. “Boss, um, we’ve got a problem.” My brow arches as I stare at Simon with a deathly glare. “A problem?” It’s not really a question, and Simon knows it. He just nods, and we walk in steadfast with each other. Lucille sits over my left shoulder. People quickly advert their stare as we step outside in the blaring heat of the Georgia sun.

There’s a small, growing crowd around something rather intriguing. “Move outta the way, dingbats,” Simon shouts rather loudly in my ear as I look into the center of the growing crowd. “What’s this?” I ask one of the guards. His gun is slung around his back, the nose of the sniper pointing towards the ground. “I’m not sure, Duke over there said this girl waved and then collapsed outside the gates.” More intrigue. “Let me see.” The crowd moves, giving me a perfect view of the ‘girl’ lying on the hot ground. “You,” I say, pointing with the bat's end cap. The guy, ‘Duke’ visible, swallows, “She um… she was running towards the gate, and tried to wave at me, but before she could answer any of my questions, she just knocked out, hit the ground pretty hard too, Sir.” The guy says. I move Lucille making room for me to bend to my knees and get a more impersonal look at the ‘girl’ layin’ on the ground.

Her skin is red and peeling in some places on her face and shoulders. Her hair is out of her face. Her face looks almost hollow like she hadn’t had water in days, maybe weeks. But she’s wearing what looks like an excellent proper pair of boots and jeans, and the first thing I think of next is, “Did ja check for bites?” I ask the whole crowd, and the Duke guy answers again. “Already checked her out, nothing, no bites or anything, Sir.” He says; I motion for Simon to come over, “Why was this so fuckin’ important, huh Simon?” he glides a hand through his messy hair. “Cause I figured you want to say what happened to the girl.” Simon never really gave a shit, didn’t take orders to well, and somehow always managed to not fuck up but still fuck up my shit.

“Yeah, dumbass take her to the damn doc. What the hell you waiting on me to say that for.” I mutter to myself as I watch the two post guards pick her body up stiffly. Causing the both of them to alost tumble over. I roll my eyes at the action. “Simon.” I shove the bats handle into his hand. “You tow lacklys, get back to work i’ve got her.” The inner monologue tells me that I know it will always be me who has to take care of the dark shit, the bad shit, and the good shit. Nobody else. Simon close behind me, as the women lay limp in my arms.

She had yet to open her eyes as the cool air inside the sanctuary hit her cheeks, her arms, and any other exposed skin. She didn’t even rustle as I walked her limp body through the doorway. “Dr. Carson, you can stop whatever the fuck you’re doin’ now. Help this women here.” I set her down on the cot, her head falling back along with her hair into the shitty pillow provided in this makeshift ER. “What… What happened?” Dr. Carson wasn’t the village idiot by any means, but it would nice if for once I didn’t have to tell the damn idiot what happened and he could just go do his fucking job. “Carson, just do your fuckin’ job or I swear to the god that probably fucked off already I will make your postion available again.” He shook his head, and got to work. Simon handed Lucille back to me, as I took a seat in those uncomfortable waiting chairs.

“Looks like she has some burns some serious” Carson said looking over at me. An arch brow, and he was on the way to solving the whole damn thing, “Nothing a little bit of antibotic cream can’t fix. She’s also very dehydrated, so I’ll need to get her pumped with some fuilds before she can… before she’s well enough to talk with you Sir.” Carson mumbled out, I nodded my head and started to turn out of the room. “You said she needs fluids.” Carson nods his head, as he goes to get bandages wraps for her burns. “Bring her to my room, we should show our new guest the best care, right Carson?” He nodded with angst.

“Are you sure… Sir, do you think that’s the best course of action. We don’t even know where this fuckin’ lady is from” Simon as his ratty, trash talkin’ fucking mouth never shut the hell up sometimes. I turned quickly catching his normal leaned back attitude off guard. “I think you would know me by now Simon. It’s a game, it’s always a fuckin’ game.” Simon stood still for a moment, and then nodded.

An hour later there was a knock on my bedroom door. “It’s Dr. Carson with the Jane Doe.” He said through the door. I rolled my eyes, the clink of the gin bottle hitting the glass table rang my ears as I got up opening the door. This time two much larger guard held the Jane Doe on a cot. Less prone for her fall and get even more hurt. “You said you wanted her here sir?” Carson asked as if the first time I said wasn’t good enough for him. I look over at the Jane Doe. Her shoulder all the way down to her arms are covered in the white bandages. Her face isn’t though which is nice. “Come on in then.” I open the door wide enough for the large men to walk her in and place her on the couch adjacent of the bed. “I’ll get some fluids going in her and then I can come back in a few…” I cut him off, “No need doc, I’ve got it from that point. Don’t need someone in and out of my fuckin’ room every couple of hours.” He nods his head vigorously. I know what I’m doing, and there’s more I wanna know about this mystery Jane Doe.

“Well hello there sweetheart.” The women in front of me is opening her eyes. It took nearly two days to get to this point. For nearly two days I have extra patrol out making sure that nobody followed this young women here. No need to be gettin’ ambushed right now. Her eyes go wide and when she opens her mouth to talk nothing comes out. Her nails scrap at her throat. “You need something to drink?” I’m quick to get up and gather a glass of water for her. Her hands are clammy when they graze past mine to collect the cold cup of water. The needle in her arms ache I can tell just from the look on her face. “We’ll take that out later, but for now why don’t you not rush your recovery.” I said as soft as I can. She looks like someone just told her that the world was starting all over again.

She clears her throat, and for the first time I hear her voice. It’s angelic is a soft, fairy sort of way. “Where am I?” She ask looking around the room. “A settlement, the Sanctuary.” She looks over at me, beautiful eyes shining back at me. For the first time it’s odd to around a women who isn’t appalled by me, or faking it all together. She pure, and innocent in so many moldable ways. “I promise that i’ll be out of your hair before you even know that I was here.” She promises me, I humm. Then look over at her fluid drip, and the bandages on her body. “I was thinkin’ that you could stay here for a while. At least get yourself settled before you go back out in that hot Georgia sun.

“So Miss Jane Doe, do you got a name?” I ask her as my words sink into her head. She clears her throat again taking another large gulp of water to coat her throat. “My name is um…Y/n.” She says with a little smile. “And you wer travelin’ alone out there?” I ask her, “Yeah.” She says nodding, she looks far of into the distance staring up at one of the ceiling tiles. As if she’s remembering someone she’s lost. I clear my own throat bringing her attention back to me. “I’ve ask that the doc, keep you here in my room. I wouldn’t suggest that you go out right now. Dr. Carson and I agree that you’re a little too fragile for that eveiormnet right now.” I said coaxing her into a choice she had no say in. She nodded, “My pack?” She asks, “I almost forgot.” I reach behind the coch she’s laying on. “Thanks.” She says with a small smile, and once more our hands graze each others.

Hours later after a rather a surface level introduction with Y/n about where she came from, why she didn’t have anything other then a knife, and what the Sanctuary was about. There’s a soft knock on the door. It causes Y/n to shiver with anxiety. “It’s alright sweetheart, don’t worry about anyone trying to get ya.” “Can I come in, Negan?” I know that damn voice, Frankie. I boil over with anger and before I can get to the damn door Frankie is opening it. A sliky black dress drapped over her frame. I catch Y/n out of the corner of my eye; staring and watching the interaction between the two us. “Negan, I haven’t seen you in a few days…” Frankie stops short in her sentence. Scwoling at Y/n, as if she understands what the hell is going on either of them. “Frankie, go. I have a guest.” I say strongly grabbing her bicep and pushing her out of the room.

The slam of door makes Y/n shriek, and when i turn to look at her she’s got her head cocked. “Who was that?” She asks timidly. “A… um… it’s just Frankie.” I finally manage to mumble out. “When was the last time you had a good bed to lay down in?” I ask in deperate need to change the subject. I don’t know just yet how to explain the wives to her, but then again when have I ever felt the need to explain myself to anyone. I push the feeling away, bury it in my stomach. Deep down. She shifts swinging her legs to the edge of the couch. She’s got pretty long legs even from the thick jean material that hid them. “I’d say at least since the first or second month of this shit.” I huff a laugh out, “Well how about this sweetheart. I’m gonna take this IV out, and patch you all up so you can get a good nights rest.” “But what about…” I shake my head. “I’ll take the couch, it’s been a while since I’ve booted to the couch anyways.” I jokingly say.

Carson had left a few supplies here for me whenever Y/n was going to wke up so I could remove the IV, and bandage her up. As I do her skin is soft as least not where she’s been wrapped up with bandages. “So what was wrong with me?” She asks as she stares at my working hands. “You got a hell of a sunburn all up and down your shoulder and arms. Some antibiotic cream should fix ya up real quick.” I tell her, “And plus you were super fuckin’ dehydrated, what the hell were you doing running a fuckin’ marathon?” She giggles at my question as I tape down the gauze to make sure the blood doesn’t leak into anything.

“Do you have extra clothes in that pack of yours?” I ask Y/n, she looks down and dig around. A minutes passes, and another, “Look mary poppins I don’t think there’s anything else the damn bag.” I might be getting a little frastrated, “So I’d take that as a no.” She nods her head. I whip myself around. Shifting through draws and a small closet of my clothes. “For tonight you can borrow somethin’ of mine. Sweats, and a long t-shirt so your bandages don’t come off during the night, Sweethearts.” I say passing her the clothes. Y/n stares down at them, and she get a little shy, well a lot shy. Bitting and pulling on her bottom lip. “Bathroom is over here sweetheart.” I watch as she walks towards the bathroom, and then the door shuts.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I ask myself. Dragging my hands down my face. There’s a shuffle from behind the bathroom door. “All good in there?” I ask, willing my voice not to break. I feel like a high school kid all over again with a stupid high school crush. “Um…” her voice sounds so tiny behind the door. “I don’t think this is gonna work.” She says shyly through the door. I stand to open the door, but she does before I can manage it. My long sleeve is loose on her frame, and the sweats don’t even take on her hips, but I guess that’s alright since the long sleeve is so big on her it acts as a dress. “That’s all good doll, how about I help ya get to bed.” I say reaching out my hand for her to grab.

Yet again her hands are baby soft, like she’s never been outside a day in her life. No broken calluass, or rough patches. With our hand interlocked I walk her to the side of the bed. Moving the sheets back so she can easily get under the covers. She isn’t graceful about the plop down the bed. “A water bed!?” She asks, I actually laugh, “I wish sweetheart!” As Y/n shifts her legs to get under the covers and onto my side of the bed. I get a flash of her pink worn panties.

I have to swallow down the groan of sexual frautration, maybe I should have taken Frankies offer. Pushed her outside the door, and fucked her stupid mouth shut. I shake my head, and I watch as Y/n starts to get snuggled into the cool fabric. I don’t grab the other pillow fromthe bed, I just make my way towards the couch. Cleaning up the medial mess I made earlier. I lean back into the coch, closing my eyes and all I can see is the pink panites. The coarse hair that prickled to come through the fabtic.

My cock stirs to life in my tights blue jeans. I can’t see Y/n’s face due to the dim lights in the room, but her snores are a good alert that’s she fast asleep. I close my eyes again and the flash of her nipples through the old shirt of mine makes me swallow down a moan. A hard on from a girl I know nothing about, a fuckin high school kid. All I can think of is the pink pussy that lays behind the pink panties, the tits that would bounces as I fucked her raw. I unzip my jeans, and pop my hard cock from my boxers.

The tip is leaking pre-cum that I end up just using as lube. Pumping myself slowly at first until my eyes fall shut and all I can imagine is the sounds that Y/n would make when I fucked her up agaisnt the headboard. Or how good her pussy probably tasted. My cock is coated with my pre-cum, and so is my hand. The sounds are delicious, the sound of the squelching as the soft pad of my thumb over over the head of my cock and I end up just a pile of fuck, shits, and graons as I come all over my chest.

“Fuck.” My breath is ragged, I haven’t come that since I was much younger and a whole lot ballsier. I throw my shirt off my shoulder and wipe down my tummy, and chest. Discarding the ruined shirt to a pile of other thrown clothes.

Completed on: 08/10/23

Posted on: 08/12/23

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thatbloodymuggle · 8 months

Text

READY TO RUN (iv)

FOUR - DIMINUENDO

SUMMARY: in a world where everyone has a predetermined match, JJ Maybank and Y/N Montgomery want nothing to do with theirs. it has to be a cruel joke; the universe forcing two people to love each other when they don’t know how.

PAIRING: jj maybank x reader / soulmate au

WORD COUNT: 4k

SERIES MASTERLIST

SONG: CHOPIN’S 24 PRELUDES, OP.28: NO.4 IN E MINOR

✰✰✰

You never liked tennis, despite being forced into lessons since the ripe age of 6. You greatly preferred more physical sports, like lacrosse or soccer, as opposed to prim and proper tennis.

Yet, here you were, at the annual mid-summer Outer Banks amateur tennis tournament. Any other year, you would have been in bed with an unfortunate "cold". But due to recent events, you didn't dare protest when the entire Montgomery family hiked their tennis bags onto their shoulders and drove to the country club.

Georgia was the most excited of the Montgomery clan, as she never failed to remind everyone that she was the reigning North Carolina 13U tennis champion. Of course, daddy's favorite would be playing with Clyde.

Dixie would be playing with your mother, as her boyfriend Brad was still away on business. Margaret knew Dixie was only participating for the open bar, but of course, so was she.

Much to your relief, you partnered up with Anna. You thanked God that Anna's dad was out of town; otherwise you would be stuck with your own father's creepy college roommate, Carl.

"I hate this sport," you grumbled while readjusting your ponytail, "Why can't we play, like, soccer or something? I feel like kicking something. Or someone."

"Come on, it won't be that bad," Anna chimed while double-knotting her shoes, "Topper and Kate will beat us first round and then we're off the hook for the day."

You scoffed, "Even if we lose there's no way in hell I'm getting out of here. My mom's got me on a short leash. She’s not letting me out of her sight."

"Well you had quite the night without her around on Saturday," Anna grumbled, jumping up from the bench. She didn't bother waiting for you as she sauntered over to the court to stretch and get the game started.

Your cheeks flushed red as your mind was infiltrated with flashbacks from the night at the Kegger, which in turn, reminded you of the other day in JJ's beat-up pickup truck. You could almost smell the rain pouring down, feel the warmth of his flannel, taste his-

"Let's get a move on, Y/N!"

Topper's booming voice startled you, shaking you from the unwanted thoughts. You jumped from the bench and ran to the court, willing the blush covering your face to go away. You'd gone all morning without thinking about your other half, and you weren't about to let him ruin your already horrible day.

"Let's get this show on the road," you feigned a grin.

Kate shot you a weird look from across the net--everyone knew how much you didn't want to be there. But regardless, you tossed a ball across the net for Topper and Kate to serve.

To no one's surprise, the loving couple immediately took the lead. You found yourself actually putting effort into the game in an attempt to distract yourself from all the chaos plaguing your mind. But still, you sucked.

Kate and Topper cheered as they shot yet another ball across the net that neither Anna nor you could track down. You huffed, and trudged back to your position on the court. Sweat beaded on your forehead, and you tried to wipe it away with your arm in vain. A squeal sounded from the court opposite you, and you glanced over to see Georgia cheering and your father spinning her around in a celebratory manner. You fought the urge to roll your eyes.

You instantly regretted letting your eyes wander away from the court as a tennis ball came flying at your face and a sharp pain exploded in your nose.

"Shit!" you screeched, cupping your nose.

You glared across the net at Topper who was in a fit of laughter.

"What the hell?" you yelped.

"That's 30-15, losers!" he laughed back, high-fiving Kate.

"You're an ass," you grumbled back, just loud enough for Topper to hear. You turned expectantly to Anna, waiting for your best friend since 3rd grade to back you up. Your frown deepened as you found Anna staring in the opposite direction, oblivious to Topper's antics.

You followed Anna's gaze to find her staring at the Pogue you were desperately trying to avoid; JJ Maybank.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," you fought the urge to snap your racket in half.

JJ's nose scrunched up in discomfort, and his fingers pressed against the bridge of it. Your eyes widened as you realized you were holding your throbbing nose in the same manner. You ripped your hand away from your face and cleared your throat, "Anna!"

Your counterpart ripped her gaze away from the Pogue and shot Topper a tight-lipped smile.

"Nice one, Top," Anna called to the pair across the net.

"Anna--" you hissed at your friend, trying to pull her attention away from the game.

"30 serving 15, right?" Anna ignored you, getting in her ready stance for the next point.

Your lips parted, but you shut your mouth as you realized there was nothing to say. What would you say? You had no idea what was going through Anna's mind, and you were in the middle of Kook central.

You could feel JJ's gaze burning into you, but you didn't dare turn to face him. Instead, you mimicked Anna's ready stance, and pretended to give a shit about the game, internally praying it would be over soon.

The first set ended without a hitch, and then the second. By the end of the game, you were sweating profusely despite losing miserably.

With one last serve, you tossed the ball in the air and swung the racket with the little energy you had left. You sighed in relief as your serve flew about two feet out of bounds. Topper and Kate cheered across the court.

"At least it's over," you sighed, your arms falling limp by your sides.

You didn't even bother walking up to the net to shake hands with your opponents. It was Topper and Kate; they wouldn't be offended. Instead, you trudged over to the bench. You didn't hesitate to lay down on the bench with a sigh of relief. You threw an arm over your face to shield yourself from the sun and blindly reached for your water bottle.

"You suck at tennis," a grating voice disturbed your moment of recovery.

You lifted your arm and squinted one eye open. You groaned when you caught sight of the striking blue eyes that seemed to follow you everywhere you went.

"Go away," you spit, closing your eyes again.

"No can do, sweetheart," JJ quipped.

"You're interrupting my peace and quiet."

"And you're interrupting my job," he shot back, "Go get your peace and quiet somewhere else."

You grunted, hauling yourself up from the bench. your legs felt weak, but you forced yourself to stand. You turned to face JJ with your arms crossed.

His signature mud-caked boots were replaced with a slightly cleaner pair of sneakers. His uniform khaki shorts were a far cry from his usual attire; not to mention the white polo shirt with a shiny name tag clipped to it. Despite the Kook-ish uniform, his messy blond hair was a dead giveaway that he did not belong in the Outer Banks Country Club. Not to mention he was very hard at work folding dainty white towels.

"Nice polo," you snorted.

JJ diverted his attention back to his towel folding. You rolled your eyes, ready to walk away when a sweaty, used towel was flung in your direction. You screeched as it landed on your face, and flung it back at the culprit.

JJ laughed at your overreaction and dodged your retaliatory attack.

"You're a pig," you scowled.

"You're one to talk, Miss Bourgeoisie."

Your lips curled into a sneer, "I despise-"

"Y/N Montgomery!" a cold voice shut you up immediately.

Your cheeks flushed and you subconsciously cowered as you turned to face your mother.

"Come watch your father and sister play," Margaret Montgomery ordered. "And stop associating with scum," she lowered her voice, but kept it just loud enough so the Pogue could hear.

You were swept with embarrassment and guilt. As much as you didn't want JJ around, he didn't deserve to be equated to scum by your mother for merely doing his job. Nevertheless, you hung your head and followed your mother obediently. Your body screamed at you to turn around and apologize, but you didn't dare spare JJ another glance.

The Pogue scoffed, and flung the towel he was holding onto the bench in frustration. He fought the urge to curse the evil witch out, and instead searched for Pope, who was on catering duty. He caught a glimpse of his friend a couple of courts away. JJ abandoned his towels and strode towards the other Pogue. What was the worst that could happen, he'd get fired? He was ready to get out of there anyways.

Just as he was a few strides from stealing Pope away from his work, a freshly manicured hand dug into his arm, yanking him into the doorway of the club entrance.

"What the hell-"

"Stay away from her."

JJ let out a dry laugh as he stood face to face with a very pissed off Anna Kim. Her arms were crossed and her eyes narrowed with malice.

"Well shit, I'm popular today. I'm like a Kook chick magnet," he smirked, "This has been a great ego boost, but I'm not interested, Kim."

JJ tried to brush past her, but you caught his arm yet again, turning him back to face her.

"I mean it," Anna hissed, "Leave her the hell alone, Pogue. She doesn't need you fucking up her life; she deserves better than that."

JJ's jaw ticked, and he yanked his arm out of her piercing grip, "I know you Kooks like to think that you run this island and all of us lowly peasants are just dying to infiltrate your perfect little lives, but you'll be shocked to hear that silver spoons and high teas are my own personal hell. I have absolutely no interest in your friend."

Anna's glare only deepened at the thinly veiled insult, "Glad we're on the same page."

She pulled a dollar bill from the back of her phone and passed it alongside her dirty towel from the tennis match to the Pogue. "For your troubles, towel boy," she sneered, venom dripping from her lips. She swiftly turned on her heels, and sauntered back over to her friends.

JJ shook with rage as he crumpled up the dollar bill in his fist and carelessly threw the used towel aside. He had never wanted to clock a girl so badly. "Entitled bitch," he grumbled while ripping off the shiny name tag pinned to his chest, and tossed it alongside the dirty towel. JJ marched swiftly towards Pope, who was manning the grill.

"Hey man, you wanna dip early?" JJ's words caused Pope to jump, nearly sending a patty flying through the air.

"Shit dude, don't sneak up on me like that!" Pope cried, turning to face his friend. He frowned as he took in the sour expression painted across JJ's face, "What happened to you?"

"If I have to serve one more of these pigs I'm gonna lose it," the blond snapped, "you coming?"

Pope cocked a brow at his friend's nonresponse, but decided against pushing him any further as he really did seem ready to burst. "I can't dude, you know my dad will kill me. Why don't you just stick it out for another hour?"

JJ huffed, "No way, I'm out of here." He turned on his heels and weaved his way through the mass of polo shirts and tennis skirts, leaving a very confused Pope behind.

For as long as he could remember, JJ had been certain that the soulmate thing wasn't for him. Still, he used to feel bad for whoever his other half was. He felt guilty for the pain he constantly put them through. He routinely laid awake at night, mulling over the impending disappointment his soulmate would feel when they inevitably found out who he was, and the life he led.

But now, any trace of guilt he previously felt was gone; crushed by the pristine, designer shoe of Y/N Montgomery.

As he stomped aimlessly along the side the road and spat at the gaudy white houses (both figuratively and literally), JJ tried with all of his might to take his mind off of his soulmate. But, much to his frustration, every train of thought led back to you.

You were an enigma; the object of his unwavering hatred, and of his deepest desire.

✰✰✰

After a long day under the beating sun, Georgia and Clyde Montgomery were crowned the Kildare County Annual Tennis Tournament doubles champions, to absolutely no one's surprise.

You, on the other hand, were left with a blistering sunburn and an equally scorching feeling of resentment in the pit of your, or should you say JJ's, stomach.

With your family caught up celebrating the youngest Montgomery child's win, you were able to slip away from the post-tournament award dinner to accompany your friends to the neighboring docks. The sun had set, and you welcomed the soothing touch of the ocean breeze against your skin as you sat with your feet dangling over the water. You let your eyes flutter shut, and just for a minute, tuned out the voices around your and your own thoughts.

"Are you alright, Y/N? You're quiet today," Kate's voice jerked you away from the temporary relief. Your eyes fluttered open, and you turned to your three friends staring at you; Topper and Kate's brows furrowed in concern, whereas Anna remained stoic.

"'M fine, just exhausted from the tournament, I guess," you sighed with a soft smile which didn't quite reach your eyes, "Are you implying that I'm a bore?"

Kate rolled her eyes, "Yeah, I actually can't stand you," she nudged you jokingly.

"I second that," Topper interjected, earning a glare from you.

"You're one to talk, you grouch," you flicked your foot to kick up a splash of water towards him.

Topper shrieked at your assault, and reached over the dock to send a splash of water right back, "Don't test me, Montgomery. I will throw you in. You know I'm--"

Topper was cut off by another splash of water, this time from a giggling Kate. His jaw dropped at his girlfriend's betrayal, and you seized the moment to send and your spray of water towards him. His eyes narrowed, and you bolted up before he could lunge towards you. You ran away giggling as Topper scrambled up to chase after you, all the while continuously getting splashed by water from both Kate and Anna now, who had joined in on the action.

"You are so dead!" Topper shouted after you, as you tried your best to outrun him. It wasn't long until he caught up to you and grabbed you, throwing you over his shoulder.

"Owww, Topper put me down!" you squealed. You kicked your legs blindly and tried to squirm out of his grip, but to no avail.

"You made your bed, Montgomery, now lie in it," Topper quipped. Although you were unable to see his face, you could hear the smug grin in his tone. Kate and Anna were cackling.

Your eyes widened as Topper neared the edge of the dock, "Topper don't you dare throw me in, I will not hesitate to kick you in the balls!"

You pleaded with your friend, but he had already made his mind up. You screeched as he dumped your rather ungracefully over the edge of the dock. You squinted your eyes shut and braced yourself for the impact milliseconds before you was submerged under the cool water. You swam back up and gasped as your head broke the surface. Kate and Anna were now laughing so hard, tears were streaming down their cheeks. You wiped the water from your eyes, and glared up at a smirking Topper.

However, a devilish grin took over your face as you noticed Kate's legs were dangling over the edge of the dock in your fit of laughter. Before Topper could stop you, you lurched forward and tugged your friend down into the water with you. Kate screamed as she fell over the edge and into the water. She coughed violently as she came up from underneath the water, "What the hell was that for?"

You sent a splash of water towards Kate, "For enabling your boyfriend!"

Before Kate could splash you back, a wave of water engulfed both of you as Topper cannon-balled between you. You both cried out, and assaulted him with splashes as soon as his head peeked out from underneath the surface.

You giggled as you fought with your friends in the moonlit water. This was the first time in days that your mind wasn't plagued with thoughts of piano, or college applications, or your soulmate. Even if for just a few minutes, you felt an unwavering bliss like no other.

But just as quickly as it engulfed you, bliss slipped away.

The feeling of sharp nails dragging down your back wiped the wide grin off of your face instantly. In an instant, you became acutely aware of your whole body. You felt teeth nipping harshly at your neck, and a familiar feeling bubbling in the pit of your stomach. You felt your gut twist and wrench; but this feeling was your own.

You had felt your soulmate getting it on many times in the past. Sure, it annoyed your; but only because it would interrupt your own activities. You had never thought of it as anything more than a nuisance.

But things were different now. You had felt the electrifying touch of his skin on yours; of his lips on yours. You had stared into his ocean eyes. He was no longer some faceless, nameless agitation. He was JJ Maybank.

"You're feeling him, aren't you?" Anna's icy tone sent a shiver up your spine.

Anna frowned down at you from your seat on the dock. You were suddenly aware of your surroundings and whipped around to find that Topper and Kate had drifted off on their own. You diverted your attention towards Anna again, feeling small under her punitive gaze. You felt the invisible nails clawing at your back again, and clambered out of the water as if you could escape the feeling.

"I don't know what you want me to do about it, Ann," you barely spoke above a whisper, "It's not like I can break the bond." you hugged yourself as the combination of your dripping wet clothes and the soft sea breeze made you shiver.

"No, but you're entertaining the idea of it," Anna coolly replied, "I saw how you looked at him today."

You frowned and clenched your fists as the feeling of pleasure in your gut returned. You sunk your nails into your arms with the hope that JJ would receive your message.

You composed yourself before you bit back, "I don't know what you're talking about, Anna. I barely looked at him. But even if I did, then so what?"

"I'm just looking out for you here, Y/N. He's bad news, and you're above that. You don't need that kind of chaos in your life," Anna replied in a condescending tone, eliciting a scoff from you.

"Do you think I'm fucking dense? I am fully aware of who he is and where he comes from, and frankly, I don't have a rat's ass what side of the island he lives on," you seethed, "I won't be associating with him because I don't want a soulmate, not because he's beneath me. And my decision to do so will not be to satisfy you, or my family. That decision will be made for myself, and myself only."

As you ranted, your voice raised and captured the attention of Kate and Topper.

"Well someone has to look out for you if you won't look out for yourself," Anna sniped back, matching your volume.

You groaned, and stomped your foot in frustration, "Get your head out of your ass, Anna. You and I both know that you're only looking out for yourself and your reputation."

Anna opened her mouth to reply, but you cut her off, "I'm out of here."

You spun on your heels, and marched away from your angry friend. You ignored Kate and Topper's confused shouts asking you what happened, and where you were going.

As you walked further from the scene, your composure cracked with each step. It wasn't until you were completely out of earshot that you allowed it to shatter completely. Just as the first tear trailed down your face, the first sob wracked your trembling body. Your bottom lip wobbled as you willed yourself to calm down, but to no avail. Your legs felt like jelly as you stumbled along the side of the road, tears streaming down your face. Your vision blurred, and you couldn't contain the wails escaping you. It was as if your body was dispelling all of the events from the past week. The fight with your parents, the stress from Madame, and the unavoidable, mind splitting confusion you felt over JJ Maybank.

JJ.

You were doing just fine until he came into the picture. You had a handle over things. But the small semblance of control you had felt over your own life had cruelly slipped between your fingers, as you sobbed over a boy you barely knew. You cried over the image of him with another girl. And you cried over the prospect of accepting him as a part of your life. Above all, you cried because you felt helplessly alone. No matter how suffocating your secret became, you couldn't talk about it with anyone, as Anna had proven to you that evening.

You stumbled over your feet, but before you could collapse a pair of wet arms caught you, wrapping around you from behind.

Your cries only escalated as Topper held your frail body against his chest, "Shhh, Y/N. It'll be okay. You're okay. You're safe."

Despite his soothing tone, you shook your head violently, unable to respond through your wheezing sobs. He delicately turned your body to face him and wrapped his arms around you once again. Topper held you firmly against his chest and rubbed circles in your back, all the while whispering affirmations in your ear. Breathe, Y/N. You can do this. You're strong. You buried your face in the fabric of his soaking shirt, muffling your cries.

You weren't sure how long you stood there crying into Topper's arms, but his hold on you did not waver until your sobs subsided into hiccups, and your breathing slowed to a normal rate. Eventually, you were able to unravel yourself from his limbs. Your red, puffy eyes trained on his, and you opened your mouth to speak. But your voice was hoarse, and you didn't know what to say.

"You don't have to say anything," Topper read your mind, "But at least let me walk you home."

Your shoulders sagged in relief, and you nodded gratefully. You began the mile long trek to the Montgomery estate in a silence filled only with the sound of your hiccups and chirping cicadas. Your eyes remained trained on the ground below, but true to his word, Topper did not ask you any questions. You felt his concerned gaze trained on you, but didn't dare to meet his eyes. As you walked side by side, you felt a fogginess overcome your mind. A haze brought on by crying until you had no tears left. For just a moment, you allowed yourself to dissociate from the chaos. You felt a temporary relief; one you knew wouldn't last long, but that you welcomed all the same. Because you knew that tomorrow it would pass, and you would have to confront the mess you had the misfortune of calling your life.

And boy, what a mess you were in.

...so it's been a minute, but I felt inspired to pick this back up again. taglist is super old, so please message me if you would like to be added or taken off! (repost)

#jj maybank x reader #jj maybank #outer banks #jj maybank imagine #jj x reader #jj maybank fanfiction #outer banks fanfiction

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battyaboutbooksreviews · 5 months

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💖 Sapphic Books Coming Out April 2024

🩷 There's something especially sweet about a sapphic romance. Here are only a few of the amazing sapphic books hitting shelves in April 2024. Which ones are you adding to your ever-growing TBR?

💖 What's your favorite sapphic book?

[ List below. ]

Contemporary 💖 A Happy Good Girl - Marissa Higgins 💖 A Case for Discretion - Ashley Moore 💖 Thawing the CEO - Emily Hayes 💖 Aubrey McFadden Is Never Getting Married - Georgia Beers 💖 The Broken Lines of Us - Shia Woods 💖 Rainbow Overalls - Maggie Fortuna 💖 Here Come the Brides - Micheala Lynn 💖 Houseswap 101 - Jaime Clevenger 💖 Sweet on You - Shannon O'Connor 💖 Sing, I - Ethel Rohan 💖 Light Betrays Us - Greta Rose West 💖 Moving Hearts - Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue 💖 The Last Love Song - Kalie Holford 💖 Playing For Keeps - Jennifer Dugan 💖 Truly, Madly, Deeply - Alexandria Bellefleur 💖 Finally Fitz - Marisa Kanter 💖 Every Time You Hear That Song - Jenna Voris 💖 Women! In! Peril! - Jessie Ren Marshall 💖 Revisiting Summer Nights - Ashley Bartlett 💖 Leather, Lace, and Locs - Anne Shade 💖 So Long Sad Love - Mirion Malle 💖 Girls Night - I.S. Belle 💖 Here We Go Again - Alison Cochrun 💖 Pillow Talk - Stephanie Cooke, Mel Valentine 💖 Good Bones - Aurora Ray 💖 Crash Landing - Li Charmaine Anne 💖 Winnie Nash Is Not Your Sunshine - Nicole Melleby

Paranormal/Horror 💖 Bloodline - Jenn Alexander 💖 Grey Dog - Elliott Gish 💖 Cranberry Cove - Hailey Piper 💖 Court of Wanderers - Rin Chupeco 💖 Something Kindred - Ciera Burch 💖 Blood City Rollers - V.P. Anderson, Tatiana Hill

Fantasy 💖 Call Forth a Fox - Markelle Grabo 💖 Someone You Can Build a Nest In - John Wiswell 💖 Off With Their Heads - Zoe Hana Mikuta 💖 Calling of Light - Lori M. Lee 💖 To a Darker Shore - Leanne Schwartz 💖 The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray - Christine Calella 💖 Saint-Seducing Gold - Brittany N. Williams 💖 A Sweet Sting of Salt - Rose Sutherland 💖 Darker by Four - June C.L. Tan 💖 The Map That Led to You - Ella McLeod 💖 The Merciless King of Moore High - Lily Sparks

Historical 💖 Lighthouse Keeper - Eliza Lentzski

Mystery/Thriller 💖 Rough Trade - Katrina Carrasco 💖 Molten Death - Leslie Karst 💖 Eye of the Ouroboros - Megan Bontrager 💖 Text Me When You Get This - Frances Lucas 💖 Paige Not Found - Jen Wilde

Sci-Fi 💖 Moon Dust in My Hairnet - J.R. Creaden 💖 Hearts Still Beating - Brooke Archer 💖 Harley Quinn: Redemption - Rachael Allen 💖 In Universes - Emet North

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witchersmistress · 1 year

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The Damaged and Rage

hello my darlings!! here is another portion of the blood empire for you!! Have a safe and happy fourth of July!!

Trigger Warnings: Sex, anger, drugs, no usage, blood and violence

Word Count: 5.4K

As perusual my dears you do not have permission to copy, translate or use part of my work. if you do ill find you and haunt you for the rest of your days.

August’s pov

“You doing okay?” King asks quietly, studying me with way too fucking much intensity. “Fan-fucking-tastic,” I say, switching lanes. “Not like I’m stuck in a literal pit of hell. Speaking of, why exactly are you visiting Georgia in July?” “I’m not visiting Georgia,” he says. “I’m visiting you.” “No one asked you to come,” I mutter. “You don’t have to ask,” he says. “I’m your brother.” “Lucky me.” He sighs. “We’re still family, August. Eliza, too. She can’t travel in her third trimester, or she’d be here, too. We can’t bring the baby on the plane for a few months, and I don’t want to be away from them any more than I have to once the baby comes. I didn’t want to wait until Christmas to see you, and you didn’t come to New York this summer, so here I am. Whether you like it or not, I’m still a Walker.” “How the twins doing?” I’d rather talk about them than myself. When they wanted to spend the summer in New York with Ma, it was a blow, but once they were gone, it’s been a relief. They needed to be out of harm’s way, and that means out of my way. They need distance from the guilt, or from the crime, if they don’t feel remorse. Getting them away from any suspicions that might arise in town was the best way to protect them, even if that meant I couldn’t watch over them. So I told them to go, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave. We all needed time apart, anyway.

A summer to forget, to put it all behind us, so it’s just another shadow lurking in our dark past. Or I hope that’s what they’re doing, that they’re not revisiting the place in their minds like I visit the place north of town, drawn back by some invisible cord tying me to the swamp. I found a dirt road that leads in behind it, so I don’t have to park on the side of the highway. No one ever sees me out there, and if they did, they’re probably backwoods rednecks who wouldn’t think twice about me tromping into the swamp in rubber coveralls that just about bake my balls after ten minutes. The twins aren’t around to ask questions, to demand why I’m going there. They’re not around to talk sense into me and tell me not to go. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. No one’s going to find her now. And if they do, there’s nothing linking us to her. We burned her clothes, and I burned all my notebooks. I don’t write anymore. I don’t want to know what fucked up shit would come out. I still go to the Slaughter Pen every Saturday night, but I don’t go to Hockington. I’m a legitimate part of the Walker empire now, with shares in my name and a spot on the board of directors. King seems happy to fill the drive from the airport with tales of the twins’ exploits, so I let him talk. They’re off partying on our old stomping grounds and getting high on this Alice shit, and I’m here with Dad, learning the business I’ll someday inherit by day. By night, I wander the streets or haunt the swamps like some fucking forlorn specter of revenge. It’s done. I killed her. So why can’t I forget her?

I’ve been by her house a couple times, but I don’t want anyone getting suspicious, so I stopped after the second time. I’ve also asked about her casually when the blue-haired girl who lives next to her was outside. I even tracked down Maverick, the piece of shit she used to fuck before me. She’s not anywhere. “You should come back with me,” King says. “It might do you good to get away, too.” My back stiffens, and I glance at him, trying to figure out what he means, what he knows. The twins swore they wouldn’t tell him what we did, but they trust him enough that they probably spilled it. Whatever. I’ll deal with it. It wasn’t doing them any favors to be around me right now. I’d die before I admitted it to anyone, but everything’s been shit since Harper. My insides are raw, jagged edges. From the start, I only meant to destroy her life, not take it. But after what she did, what choice did I have? I did what anyone in my shoes would have done, what everyone expected of me. She fucking deserved to die. She didn’t just sell my darkest secrets and deepest shames to my enemy. She sold our relationship to him one dirty detail at a time. It was all fake. And she didn’t just play me. She didn’t just make me fall for her. She made me believe that someone could do the same in return. That’s the lie I can never forgive. And it’s not that I care if she’s fucking dead. It’s the fact that she vanished like that, without a trace, just like Crystal… “Just stay the fuck out of my business, okay?” I say, weaving around traffic and pressing my foot harder on the gas pedal, ready to get home and out of this trap. My brother sighs. “You could have come back to New York. Then he shakes his head. “I’m doing what I have to do so that you don't get involved like I did.” “Because if you didn’t work for Al Valenti, I’d have to,” I say flatly. I know it’s the truth, even if no one else has the cajones to come right out and say it. King could have gotten out of working for our great-uncle. Yeah, our parents promised him their first son, but Al’s a reasonable guy. He’d have taken me, the best man for the job, if everyone had told him King wasn’t the right fit. It wasn’t our parents or Al Valenti who insisted on keeping the contract. It was King. He sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “You have a choice, August. That’s all I’m saying.” “And I made my choice,” I say. “You think you’re the only one who can make sacrifices for our family? The twins don’t graduate for another year.” I’m not leaving them with Dad. I know what he’ll use them for. If it’s the only thing I ever protect them from, at least it’s more than nothing.

“Our brothers told me about Harper,” King says quietly. “Did you tell Dad?” So, there it is. I knew they couldn’t keep their fucking mouths shut. But better to get it all out in New York than to let it slip in this gossipy little town. “No, I didn’t fucking tell Dad,” I snap. “She wasn’t his mark.” “She’s a Darling,” he says. “He’d want to know.” “What, you think he’s doing business with some trailer park junkie? She’s not one of the Darlings he’s concerned with.” “And the ones he is concerned with?” he asks. “You’re telling him about them?” “There’s nothing to tell,” I say, gritting my teeth in irritation at the shit I’ve had to put up with for the past year. Now that I’m working with Dad, I’m starting to understand why it’s necessary. But Preston doesn’t make it easy to leave him alone when he’s constantly fucking with us, poking us, trying to get a reaction. It pisses me the fuck off that there are Darlings walking around this town with impunity. “Maybe that’s a good thing,” King says. He thinks the Darlings paid for Crystal’s death already, and maybe he’s right. But he’s not her twin, and she’s not the only one the Darlings killed that winter. “Until we get the casino running, the Delacroixs are untouchable,” I say. “After that… All bets are off.” Once the twins graduate and I get rid of the Darlings, I’ll be on the first flight out of Georgia. The place makes my skin crawl. There are too many ghosts here, too many reasons to look over my shoulder. The girls who die in this town don’t get funerals, don’t leave bodies. They simply vanish, as if the town itself swallows them alive. The boys don’t get funerals, either, but they don’t disappear. The boys leave bodies—with nothing left inside them. Our ghosts haunt Georgia, too.

Harper’s POV

* A few weeks later*

Every week is the same. I go through the motions, but I’m frozen inside, as if it’s not really me there at all. There’s a Harper-sized doll in my place, someone I used to be but am no longer. The world has forgotten my existence. Only the Phantom remembers. I wait for him, for the clean smell of his house, the polished hardwood, the curl of his hard body around mine, the detachment I feel when he’s inside me that’s the closest thing to freedom I can imagine. When I’m not there, I’m a ghost walking the street at night, waiting for him to come back. He always does. Two days a week, he takes me home, feeds me. He fills half his closet with new clothes for me, shoes, jewelry, an expensive purse to carry my phone and keys and wallet. Everything comes to his house in boxes or bags delivered to the door, so he doesn’t have to leave the house except to get me and take me home. He checks the ring he put through my bellybutton to make sure it’s healed, puts dark-colored contact lenses in my eyes, touching my eyeballs like they are his own. I think maybe he’ll pluck out my eye and replace his blind one. But I don’t move, don’t try to stop him when he reaches between my lids and sets the thin lens over mine. “Good girl,” he says, stroking my cheek. “Beautiful.” He opens the closet door and sets me before the mirror. He tells me I’m perfect now, that I’m ready. I stare at the stranger in the mirror with dark eyes and dark lips and brown-black hair, and I think she looks ready, so he must be right. I don’t ask him what I’m ready for. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

A few weeks later, I notice the dark green field outside the Phantom’s window turning hay colored as the grasses droop in the late summer heat. Daisies and Black-Eyed Susans and wild asters dot the grass now. The Phantom stands there, looking out with his hands clasped behind his back, like he’s looking over an empire and not an overgrown field of weeds. “Have the Walkers contacted you?” he asks. I have the same phone number, but no one ever contacts me. Why would they? I haven’t contacted them, either. Everyone texted on the OnlyWords app, and I didn’t download it on my new phone. I didn’t have friends, anyway. Only the Walker boys and their friends got close, and they left me to die. They washed their hands of me, and I have no need to change that. I give my head a single shake, then realize he won’t see it. “No.” He rubs his jaw. I can hear the rasp of stubble. “It’s not enough,” he mutters. At dinner, he gives me a little black dress and tells me to put it on and do my hair. The dress is low-cut but not too revealing, and it hugs my curves and falls around me like it must have cost thousands of dollars. I roll on the stockings and garters he left with it. I put in the diamond teardrop earrings he left sitting on the dresser. I put my hair up the way he instructed and dab on some of the makeup he left sitting there for me. The lipstick is too dark, but I smear it over my lips anyway. I’m no longer startled when I see a stranger staring back at me from behind the closet door. Does it matter who she is? I know she’s a good girl. The Phantom walks behind me and puts a necklace around my neck. I can feel it resting cold against my chest, and it makes me shiver. I touch the charm, a diamond ballerina. He runs his knuckles up the back of my neck, skims his fingertips along my bare shoulders. “You look like…” He bows his head, so I can only see his golden hair, not even his eyes or mouth to give away what he’s thinking. I’ve never wondered what he’s thinking before. It never mattered. After dinner, he orders me to the bed without the usual shower. He doesn’t undress me, just commands me to lie on my back while he pushes up my dress. Then he picks up his phone, angling it so it gets my whole body. “No faces,” I cry, my voice echoing in the high-end apartment. I throw my hands over my face, surprised I can still react that passionately to anything. He’s shot dozens of homemade porn clips of his dick going into me, but he promised me no one would know it was me. Usually he fucks me from behind, anyway. I feel exposed on my back, vulnerable and scared in a way I haven’t felt with him before. Suddenly, I’m shaking all over. “Keep your hands over your face,” he says, laying a reassuring hand on my thigh. “No one will know it’s you.” He plays with my underwear, rubbing his cock against the outside of them, pulling them between my lips, then down my thighs. I pull a pillow over my face. He tugs it a little higher, setting my necklace straight before going back to work. I try not to feel what he’s doing, rubbing his cock between my lips, getting me wet. Finally, he pushes inside me. He lifts my leg and swings it around so I’m lying on my side, so he’s filming my hip with the tattoos. Someone could definitely recognize that. Above my hip, there’s a D branded into my skin. What if my attackers see it and come back for me? “Stop,” I gasp. “I’m almost done,” he says, moving my leg back where it was, so I’m on my back. He cums quickly, shooting once over my belly before pushing back inside me to finish. He doesn’t lower his phone until he’s gotten the whole messy scene. “Good girl,” he says. “You were perfect.” Then he steps into the bathroom, and I hear the shower running.

I get up, my limbs shaking, my pulse racing. Something’s happening to me. Something awakening, some horrible monster that’s rising like a tidal wave inside me, like Godzilla emerging from the ocean. I can’t breathe. I want to race up the ladder onto the roof, to suck in the night and shriek into the sky. I want to sail over the edge, arms and legs wide, and soar to my death below. Some impulse in me rebels at the expensive silk constricting my waist, the heavy pads of the bra. Suddenly, I’m revolted by the body I’m in, by what I’ve allowed to happen to it. I yank off the dress, tearing at the strangling fabric, kick off the heels he put me in, rip off the garters and stockings. I throw them aside and pace the floor in my bare feet, naked as an animal. My heart is skittering erratically around my chest. I feel trapped, caged, though he’s never once told me I couldn’t leave. In fact, he made me leave. I’ve been free all along, and yet, I’m not free. He’s treated me better than anyone ever has, than anyone should, and yet, I think I’ll scream if I see his mask again, if he calls me his good girl one more time. I pull off the earrings and reach for the box they were in, my fingers shaking. I lay them in the jewelry box. There’s a sleek black paper bag with the jeweler’s name on the side because he bought them just for me, maybe just today, and had someone deliver them. There’s a little tag stapled to the bag, the kind that comes on flowers. The kind that tells a delivery person where to send them, since the Phantom never leaves his apartment. There’s a name written on the tag. In looping cursive handwriting, the words Mr. D.

August POV

My phone chimes with a notification on the seat beside me. I check the screen. Lo again. I haven’t seen her all summer. After I found out what Harper did, I was in a bad place for a while. I don’t remember much of the rest of the year. The monster operated in my place, holding space for me until I was ready to come back. When our mission ended, and I had time to think things through, I stopped thinking about what Harper had done and finally looked at the facts behind it. Of course, my mind went straight to the one person who could have told her about Hockington—Gloria Walton. They’d gotten close, thanks to me, and I fucking paid for it. For letting a Darling into my life, letting her get in with my friends. That’s what I get for letting anyone close to me. Still, it’s a dick move on my part not to at least give Lo a chance to defend herself. If she wasn’t the one who told Harper, I cut her off for nothing. Harper could have bribed someone who worked there, seen me leaving with someone and tracked her down, rooted through my stuff or Dad’s when she was at our house and somehow put it together. It’s better this way, though. Better not to have anyone around me who knows shit about my life. When Lo found out about room 504, it felt safer to keep her close, to give her a reason not to tell anyone. Even if we never talked about it, never talked about our families the way I did with Harper or any real shit, our friendship was real. But letting people into my life is a mistake. People blackmail and betray. And if it was her, if she told Harper… Well, Preston can fucking have her. When my phone rings a minute later, I sigh and pick it up.

We can talk once. Just to clear some things up. I’m not going to give her a ride anywhere, like I used to when she didn’t have gas money. My car smells like a swamp from all the times I’ve dropped my muddy boots and rubber coveralls in here this summer. Gloria would ask questions, and I’m not about to answer. “Hey,” she says. “I figured you’d ghost me again.” “What’s up, Lo?” I ask, my voice sounding weary. “Do you use the OnlyPics app?” “No,” I say flatly, bristling at the insinuation. “Why would I?” “That’s not—I didn’t mean you’d put stuff up.” “Why?” I ask. “You don’t think people would pay to see my dick?” “No!” she says quickly. “I mean, they would, if you wanted to put it up. That’s not why I was asking, though.” “So, you don’t want to see my dick? That’s not how I remember it.” I’m being an asshole, but she’s basically calling me a whore. She knows better than to ask if I use an app that’s basically a sex worker platform. I don’t get paid for sex, and I don’t need to sell pictures of my body for money.

The OnlyPics app was supposed to be a companion to OnlyWords, which is a texting app with, as its name implies, only words in the messages. Everyone likes OnlyWords, but it has no photo sharing capabilities. So the same company made OnlyPics but it was basically a knock-off Instagram where you can’t use captions and the hashtags are hidden, only used by the algorithms to know who to show them to. It probably would have died a quick death if it weren’t for the sex worker industry, who cashed in on three key features—the ability to add a link to profiles, where they added their payment link; the fifteen-second video limit, which let them put up teases to get people hooked; and the private chat feature, which let them send someone the rest of the video for whatever fee they wanted to negotiate or even video chat for a live show. I don’t use the app because I’m not an amateur porn star, and if I want to watch porn, I can do it for free like everyone else. If I need a live feed, I have a phone full of numbers of chicks who would be happy to put on a show for me, and I can do more than watch and jerk off. I’m not interested in that any more than I am this app. “Okay, let’s try this again,” Gloria says. “You remember how Harper disappeared off the face of the earth when you dumped her?” I stiffen in my seat, yanking the wheel to pull off at the nearest exit at the last second. The car behind me lays on the horn, but I ignore it. The noise is almost drowned by the pounding of blood in my ears. “Yeah, what about it?” I ask Gloria. “Well, I think I found her.” “On a porn site?” I ask, hoping like hell someone just uploaded the video of her sucking dick from last year. It fucks with my head to think that one year ago today, I didn’t even know the name Harper Avery. It was another month before I would see her giving head in the parking lot behind the tampon factory. “Hey, don’t judge me,” Gloria says. “Your brothers have been out of town all summer, and you’ve been ignoring me. I’m having a dry spell.” I could tell her the twins are back, but if she ran her mouth to Harper, I don’t want her around my house, running her mouth to my brothers. So I point out the obvious. “There are more than three dicks in this town.” “Once you go Walker, you never go back,” she says lightly. “And anyway, I only saw it because she sent it to Dawson.” I’m glad I pulled over at the exit, because I’d probably run someone off the road right now if I were still driving. I grip the steering wheel with one hand and close my eyes. My voice comes out so normal you’d think I was just a guy who dumped a girl and didn’t give a fuck about what happened to her since. “I’m afraid to ask, but… Does your brother always share porn with you?” “No, you weirdo,” she says. “Someone DM’d him, and I’ve been obsessing about her all summer, so he showed it to me. He thinks it’s funny as shit.” “Why are you obsessing about Harper?” I demand. What the fuck.

Maybe I should have kept in touch with Lo. She could find out shit, maybe even the truth. “I don’t know,” she says. “Don’t you think it’s weird that she just… Vanished? I mean, I’m not saying you’re not worth going off the deep end over, or that you couldn’t eviscerate her heart so completely she could never love again. She liked to play it cool, but she really loved you, August. Like, the kind of love that eats you alive, and you’re never the same again.” “Put that shit on a ninety-nine cent Valentines card. You could make real money.” “Keep playing you didn’t feel it, too,” she says. “But y’all broke a lot of hearts when you broke up, not just your own. Everyone figured you’d get back together after spring break.”

“What’s your point?” I snap. I don’t need a fucking lecture about how much I disappointed everyone. She can add it to my fucking tab for all the times I fucked up and pissed off everyone who matters. “My point is, even if Harper was devastated beyond repair, she’s not the kind of chick who would let a breakup destroy her. She’s stronger than that. You may be irreplaceable even to her, but you’re still a boy. And it would take more than one boy to break Harper.” Maybe not one boy. But one boy who shared her with two more against her will? A broken hand and a rope she couldn’t get free of, a swamp full of snakes more poisonous than her? Yeah. That could do it. “Then it obviously had nothing to do with me,” I say. “Maybe she got hooked on Lady Alice or Pearl Lady or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now, and she’s selling herself to pay for it like a regular junkie. Hell, her mom basically said as much.” “It did blow up the scene right around that time…” Gloria muses. “Maybe she’ll tell you for the right price,” I say flatly. “That’s all she’s ever cared about.” “August…”

“What?” “Look, I don’t know everything that went down between you, but I know what it’s like to walk away from love. Just because you broke up doesn’t mean your heart wasn’t decimated, too.” My laugh is brittle, like stepping on glass. “You’re funny, Lo.” I could ask her, just come right out and be blunt, like King. Did you tell Harper about Hockington? But I can’t acknowledge that much aloud. The hotel is its own world. When we leave, we don’t mention what goes on there. I don’t tell the school that Gloria is a scholarship kid. I elevate her, take her to prom, win her crowns. And she never tells anyone that I get a room there every few months. Would she risk telling someone, knowing she could lose it all? Even if she hates me, she loves her status too much to risk it. What would make her turn on me like that? Harper didn’t tell that creep where she found out the information. But it has to be Lo. No one else knows. So, I hung up the phone, letting her think this is about a breakup. That it’s not about a murder, not about a girl coming back from the dead, a ghost dragging her broken body from the swamp and crawling back into my brain to fuck with it even more. I open my email, the one connected to the OnlyWords and OnlyPics apps by default because it’s all made by the same company. I barely remember thumbing away the automatic notifications I got when someone sent me a message this summer. I ignored them all, knowing they were porn spam. My chest is hollow as I open one from my spam folder. It tells me I have twenty-four new messages on OnlyPics. I follow the link and open my direct messages. The first one is a thumbnail of a video, sent this evening. If it’s from Harper, she changed her handle from BadApple. For a few seconds, all I see is a closeup of part of her tattoo. I take it in, examining it until I realize it’s her hip crease, and pressed along the back of her thigh, an expanse of pale skin. It takes me a minute to make sense of what I’m seeing. Whoever she’s fucking, he’s got her folded in half like her legs are over his shoulders while he nails her into the bed. There’s no caption, and there are no words even on the messenger, so I have to click on the profile to find an explanation. Apple Cream Pie, $1k/min.

Time seems to skip. Some caveman part of me must take over, because the next thing I know it’s five minutes later, and I’m five thousand dollars lighter, and I’m slamming my phone against the top of the steering wheel over and over. I feel it crunch and snap, but I keep pounding it until there’s nothing left in my hand, and the pieces of it are scattered across my lap and the floor. Time skips again. I’m in my driveway at home. Blood is dripping down the steering wheel and into my lap. I open my hand and find pieces of glass jutting from my palm in a dozen places. And all I think about is that day my car was bombed, and Harper tried to pick the glass from my face with her tiny, careful fingers. I climb out of the car. There’s a black Jaguar parked on the gravel, a tall figure leaning against it. I walked up to him. Something in me seems to have been knocked loose, and I think I might fucking kill him, even though it’s just Oliver Finnegan, who never goes inside. He doesn’t approve of the family business. “Hullo, August,” he says, his Irish accent distorting the words. Or maybe it’s the ringing in my ears. “Am I in your spot? I can move the car.” “Don’t worry about it.” He cocks his head, his weird, pale eyes taking in the blood on my pants, my hand. “You alright, mate?” I shrug and head for the house. Just as I’m about to step inside, his brother steps out, a black duffle in one hand, probably full of cash or those fucking pearls everyone’s on about.

Colin Fucking Finnegan. My eyes narrow, my fists clenching until I can feel the glass biting deeper, piercing through my skin and into the muscle and sinew. “Was it you?” I grind out. Part of me knows it’s impossible, but maybe he sent the photo on his way here, or maybe he took it earlier. I need Baron to find the date signature on a video, if it’s even possible. For all I know, Harper’s dead, and she took those videos herself while we were together. If she’d sell my dignity for a scholarship, why wouldn’t she sell videos of herself fucking other guys when she was with me? “Whatever it was, I bet it was me,” Colin says, flashing me a knowing grin that shows off his chipped front tooth. “Are you still sore about that beating you took last spring?” “You know what it’s about.” “If it’s not that, you’re pissed you didn’t get a cut of this,” he says, jiggling the bag. “Don’t fucking push me right now,” I warn. His creepy eyes go smug. “Or… You still on about that whore? I figured that’s what set you off last spring. Everyone in town knows I fucked her first. Are you just finding out?” “Where is she?” I demand, grabbing him around the neck and slamming him up against the wall. “Where the fuck do you have her, you cum guzzling, festering wad of infected dick cheese?” A cocky, defiant grin stretches his lips. “Aww, did you catch something off her?” he asks. “Wasn’t me, mate. I popped that cherry when there were barely three hairs on her pussy. Haven’t touched her since.” I don’t know exactly what happens next. I don’t see Colin Finnegan in front of me anymore. All I see is red. The next thing I know, my brothers and Dad are holding me down on the steps, and Oliver and their uncle are holding Colin back while he curses and struggles and spits. The white gravel is painted red like the day the Darlings vandalized our house, but this time, it’s blood.

“Let me up,” I growl, shoving off the step and wrenching free of my family. I stalk toward Colin, who writhes like a cat getting a bath. I can feel blood trickling down my face, the jagged edges of a few broken teeth, and the throb of one eye that’s already swelling shut. But I don’t feel pain. The other thing that lives inside me has swallowed it, and I can’t feel a thing. “Come on,” Colin yells, dancing in the grip of his brother. “Let’s do it again. I can go all night. Whoo! I feel alive!” I stop in front of him, ignoring my brothers, who have rushed up behind me to grab me if I lose my shit again. But I’m calm now. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” I say to Colin. My lip is broken and swollen so thick my words come out slurred. “If I find out you’re the one who sent those videos, you won’t be alive much longer.” I turn and walk inside. I don’t know why I care. I watched two guys fuck her. I gave them permission. I made sure to watch, so I knew I could never want her again, never think she was mine. I broke her on purpose, but piece by piece, I’m the one falling to pieces.

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