It's like a joke, Panda thinks, but she doesn't really find it very funny anymore.
...
JJ finds her sitting near a tree in the courtyard, and he doesn't talk. For once, he doesn't say a word and doesn't fuck anything up or blurt out any secrets. He just sits there silently and she doesn't protest when he takes her hand.
She turns to him and gives him a weak smile. "It's all a bit weird, isn't it, J?" she asks him, and she doesn't know what she's referring to, but they both know she's right.
"Quite peculiar," he agrees, and he sounds so soft and fragile, she's afraid to hold his hand any tighter than she already is. Briefly, she wonders if he's breakable. That seems almost backwards; boys are hard, all sharp architecture. They shouldn't break easily. At least, she's never found one that did before now.
"It's fucked." she mutters, and he nods.
"It's fucked."
...
Her eyes are closed and she's lying on her back in a pile of autumn leaves in her front yard. Her mum isn't home, and she wouldn't be here if she was. She cherishes these times, where she can just be and her mother isn't in her ear, telling her how Effy has ruined her life, changed her in ways that don't quite make sense.
She knows he's there before he makes a sound, and she's surprised he's managed to be so quiet around her lately, and she doesn't know how to feel about it.
"Pandora?" he asks, and she can hear the tentative smile on the nuances of his voice. With her eyes closed, she can picture his hair, standing up in places that aren't right, his smile with braces holding his teeth in place. It isn't right, but she isn't sure if it's wrong either.
"Yeah, JJ?" she asks, popping one eye open and letting herself grin for the first time in days.
"Are you alright?" he inquires, and he can't help but smile back and that only serves to make her smile widen until she feels like she could be a pageant queen, waving from a float. And in that world, everyone loves her.
But in her own universe, she just nods, and the way he's looking at her makes her wonder if maybe he loves her, and she thinks that that might be enough.