Sarah had made a list of three must-see spots for JJ, before packing their backpacks tightly, and filling their water bottles. She's booked a three-part tour with the hotel. After double checking they'd left nothing behind, JJ said goodbye to the hotel room he swore he'd never step foot in again. The sun had risen a bit farther into the sky, and as he stepped out into the sticky and polluted air, he suddenly felt homesick.
He never thought it possible to feel that way, and had never experienced it in his life, but here he was wishing he was home in his bed.
After waving goodbye to the lady at the front desk, they made their way into the tour bus they'd found and boarded it to their first expedition. The Planes of Fame Air Museum. JJ had been looking forward to it since she made mention. He'd always enjoyed automotive engineering, explaining boats, planes, cars, bikes, you name it, he knew about it and could list facts for days. It was a pastime he had for when he was hiding from his father as a kid. Holding a flashlight and crouching in the closet, delving into a world aside from his own and learning about shit as he escaped from the chaos that often resided in his living room.
They left their belongings on the bus and got in the line by the door. JJ, who was practically bouncing on his feet, was excitedly listing off the models he'd never seen in real life before to his blonde counterpart, who was half-listening as she fought the urge to giggle at his childish antics. This was the most lively she'd seen him in the last five or so days.
"Are you even listening, Sarah?" He asked her, cutting himself off. She laughed loudly, drawing a few stares.
"You're going a million miles an hour about shit I don't understand, J, I'm doing my best to keep up." She told him.
"Sorry, this is like the best idea on the list." He told her.
"You haven't seen the list." She told him.
"Yeah, well, what beats automotive innovation?" He asked her in a duh tone. She just smiled at him.
"You'll just have to wait and see."
They'd booked a flight for eleven pm that night. They'd arrive in North Carolina around three am, where John B and Cleo would be arriving to pick them up. The first ferry would leave at four, and then it would be back to reality. Sarah's job would be to keep him distracted for the day, and she intended to do just that, with her list of JJ-inspired-attractions.
As soon as they got in the airline hangar, JJ started rambling about the Stinson L-5G Sentential, and the Curtiss P-40N Warhawk, and basically about every airplane they saw. She smiled lightly as the chaos surrounding him about Kiara melted away into his special interest. This when on for about an hour, and after naming every airplane in the building and listing stats about them that made her head spin, he stopped looking around the room.
"There's no Lockheed P38 J Lightning." He frowned. "That's crazy. I was looking forward to seeing it."
As if on cue, the loudspeaker above them crackled to life, making her grin.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, theys and thems." The woman spoke. "All visitors with a flight pass may now file out to the lawn to watch the aviation show featuring the great Douglas AD-4N Sky Raider, and the Lockheed P38 J Lightning. The show starts in fifteen minutes."
JJ, who was grinning, and had returned to bouncing on his toes, pumped his fist in the air, jumped, and spun around. "Yes!" He exclaimed. "You're just not gonna top this, Sarah, it's simply impossible."
After she'd gotten a satisfactory number of pictures of him with his favorite airplanes, he practically skipped beside her onto the tarmac. He was munching on the candy and popcorn he'd bought for himself in the giftshop. As he videotaped the experience via his cellphone, never breaking his gaze from the show above him, Sarah took pictures and grinned.
She practically had to drag him onto the bus.
Their next stop, as he had predicted, was slightly less exciting. On the bus ride there, he called John B, chatting his ear off for the thirty minutes about all the planes he'd seen and their specs, and finally the air show. John B laughed along with his pal, citing that Nobody knows automotive innovation better than JJ, before they hung up.
They arrived at the bottom of a steep hill.
"What the heck is this?"
"The Hollywood Sign Viewpoint."
He grinned at her. "Not as cool as the airplane museum, but still pretty darn cool." He nodded.
They had done the excursion with the hike, and Sarah thanked whoever was listening that Kiara had decided to run away in the middle of the winter. It was perfect hiking weather, especially for LA.
At the top, they'd stopped for some photos. One of him, herself, the view, a selfie, and a faraway shot of them standing under it, JJ beaming, while she giggled.
"This is our last stop with this bus." Sarah told him while they retrieved their bags. On cue, JJ's stomach gurgled.
They wound up at a casual fare restaurant, JJ thoughtfully sucking on a cookies and cream milkshake while debating on what he should eat. The waitress brought over a plate of fried pickles, flirting with JJ, who didn't notice or care as he tried to get a cookie out of his shake glass. Sarah giggled when she walked away defeated.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Meanwhile
Kiara stared at the scar on her upper thigh.
It was a stark reminder of what she had left behind on Kildare Island, a story her parents wouldn't care to listen to and a story she had never worked up the courage to tell JJ. Now that she had settled into a seventy-two hour stay in sunny Los Angeles, her past was beginning to haunt her yet again.
Kitty Hawk had been a harrowing, haunting, disgusting experience for her. The male guards that lurked in the reflection cabin had taken advantage of not only herself, but all the other girls that had been in that forsaken room as well. The scar on her thigh was a reminder that her fighting had failed her, and that man had taken something from her that she couldn't get back no matter how hard she tried.
This fixes girls like you.
The thrashing, the screaming, the other female counselors looking on and letting it happen. She'd cut her leg open on the bedframe, a gash deep enough to leave a scar but it didn't need stitches.
This fixes girls like you.
Being thrown in the van. Her parents watching them kidnap her after she cried about her own kidnapping to her mother.
This fixes girls like you.
The only one that cared enough to come and save her from hell had been JJ.
This fixes girls like you.
She squeezed her eyes shut, turning away from the mirror, and walking over to her ocean front balcony.
Shame and guilt had become a staple in her everyday life and as much as she hated the bitterness and the traits that were beginning to show, she did what she had so often chastised her boyfriend about doing. She ran. Off into the night with no explanation and no communication.
She winced again. After last night, he wasn't her boyfriend. He might not even want to be her friend again.
The look on his face that she saw when she was with that guy was something she'd never quite seen on him before. He came after her. As he always had, as he always said he would. But now she doubted he would ever speak to her again.
Rape had never been an experience she expected to live. Being molested was almost somehow worse. At a place that was supposed help young girls but often made issues worse by forcing feelings of shame and guilt on them. PTSD they didn't ask them as their parents send them off to a place where male counselors take advantage of underaged girls. The women didn't bother to help. Some of them would watch.
And when it wasn't happening to her, she was watching it happen to another girl.
She shivered.
Now that she had made her decision, it was too late to decide anything else.
She was going to give LA a chance and get space from her hometown. Clearly, she needed it.
When the dust settled, she would return.
Although the more time that passed while she was away, the more anxious the thought of home became.
She pursed her lips, wondering where JJ was. Did he stay? Did he run off from Sarah?
She squeezed her eyes again thinking about how she had treated her friend.
She felt like a shit. She swallowed thickly, slamming her fist down on the table as her lip trembled, and she began to cry.
Going home anytime soon was not on her bingo card. It simply wasn't.
She put her head in her hands and sobbed.
JJ had wound up getting a double bacon burger with all the fixings, curly fries, and a grilled blueberry muffin.
Sarah opted for a lighter fare, a BLT with onion rings and beer battered fries.
As they munched quietly, a silent understanding was made. Him and Kiara were no longer together. That was obvious. Him and Sarah had a stronger bond now that they'd had this experience.
He broke the silence.
"I'm worried about Kiara." He finally spoke.
Sarah didn't look at him, dipping a fry in her shake. "Why's that?"
"You don't find this weird? You don't find her being anti-Pogue weird?" He asked her. "It's been on my mind that she doesn't do shit like this. She's acting like me. And I act the way I act because I have other issues." He reasoned, pushing his now empty burger plate away, and reaching for his muffin. "What is her issue?"
"If she had an issue, I'm sure she'd talk about it, JJ." Sarah scoffed.
"Really? You think hard-headed Kie is gonna talk about something that makes her feel shame?" He asked, and finally Sarah looked up to meet his eyes. Identical blue-green orbs met each other in a staring contest.
Sarah swallowed. "Maybe you're right. But she still had no right to act like that."
"I know. Doesn't change what she did but it puts perspective on it, doesn't it?" JJ nodded at his own question.
That sullen feeling was back again, gnawing at him, and he pushed it as far back as he could. Which wasn't healthy, but hey, sometimes old habits die hard.
After they paid for their meal, JJ looked at Sarah and grinned. "Where to next, Princess?"