23. hurricane
37611 / 50000
I've been finding it difficult to write today and I'm not sure if this is even any good at all, but whatever, I'm way behind so it'll have to do. Ugh, I kind of feel like some things are HAPPENING WRONG but I have no idea how to make it right. I mean, generally I approve of characters having minds of their own, but it isn't half annoying.
23. hurricane
JJ.
1773 words
JJ hardly sees Katie for a week, apart from at college, and even then she looks stressed out. One time she snaps at him in History, but that's probably because he tries to correct her on a point she's written down; Freddie always tells him that people don't like to be corrected, but JJ isn't sure why it's apparently better to let people carry on in ignorance. Still, it's definitely his fault that she snaps at him, and that's not a good thing. He tries to concentrate on the rest of the lesson but he's too busy trying to figure out if he might have done anything else to annoy her. Also, he keeps getting distracted by her breasts.
When the lesson is over she picks up her bag and walks off without even saying anything to him, which he thinks is probably a bit unfair, or maybe just a sign that he's accidentally done something to make her all distant. Nobody ever bothered to tell him that being in a relationship is actually quite tricky, although maybe it's just him being a spazz and normal people find it easier. He should probably ask Freddie, although he thinks that might be a bit weird, on account of the fact that he's going out with Freddie ex.
While he's thinking all this he chases after Katie, because it seems like the easiest solution right now would be just to ask her. She looks surprised when he catches up to her, but then she gives him a lovely smile and JJ thinks that possibly he was just being a bit silly.
"Hi," JJ says, shrugging slightly. "There's an excellent possibility that I'm just being a paranoid idiot, but... are you avoiding me?"
"What?" Katie looks genuinely confused; possibly she doesn't know what he's talking about, or maybe she'd just forgotten that he exists.
"You've hardly spoken to me. Is everything all right?"
Katie shakes her head. "Shit. No, I'm fine, and it's nothing to do with you, I promise." She stands on tiptoes and kisses him, right there in the middle of college. JJ can feel his ears going pink. "It's just Emily, you know?"
"Sorry, what about Emily?"
Katie stares at him in disbelief. "Naomi broke up with her. How did you not know that?"
"Nobody told me," he says. He's disappointed to hear the news; he always thought they were good together, even if Naomi did used to give him dirty looks occasionally. "You've been a bit distracted, you know."
"Yeah, sorry," Katie says. "Em's kind of gone off the deep end. She cried for about four days solid, then Dad was fucking idiotic enough to say that maybe she could get a boyfriend now, and she went completely mental. She went out and got so fucked up that when she came back she threw up all over my bed. While I was in it!"
JJ starts to laugh, but he stops immediately when Katie hits him on the arm. She's stronger than she looks.
"It's not funny," Katie says. "She's a fucking mess, and it's up to me to pick up the pieces."
"Okay," JJ says. "Well, maybe we could do something nice for her. She could come with us to that club night Thomas is putting on tonight."
"I don't think taking her somewhere she can drink herself to death is really the answer, babe."
"Oh," JJ says, "fair point. But if she's going to go out anyway, don't you think we'd better supervise?"
Katie shrugs. "I'm not going to let her go out, all right? It's a recipe for disaster."
---
JJ decides to go out anyway, with Cook and Freddie, and they end up in the annoyingly long queue for Thomas's club, waiting for him to show so they can get in.
"Just the lads," Cook says, draping his arms around Freddie and JJ's shoulders and looking ridiculously pleased about the fact. Possibly he's already a bit drunk. "Not that I'm not over the fucking moon that you're finally getting some on a regular basis, J."
JJ goes to say something in reply but he's interrupted by Katie, pushing through the queue and dragging Emily along with her.
"Change of plan," she says sheepishly.
Emily lights up when she sees JJ and drapes her arms around him, kissing him on the cheek. "JJ! I'm so happy you're with Katie," she slurs. "She talks about you all the time."
"Er, is she drunk?" JJ asks Katie, who nods and pulls Emily away from him, looking exasperated.
"She managed to drink like, half a bottle of vodka at home when I wasn't looking. I couldn't keep her in without fucking bars on the windows or something, and if Mum found out she was like this..."
"Don't worry, we'll look after her," JJ says. He glances back at Freddie and Cook; Freddie looks completely disinterested, while Cook looks like he's getting all sorts of untoward ideas. JJ'll probably have to look after him as well.
Once inside, JJ tries to embark on a mission to keep Emily from going completely off the rails, by buying her non-alcoholic drinks and hoping she won't notice, but he isn't terribly successful. She's very small, and that means it's easy for her to slip away from him and go unnoticed in the crowd; he can't even spot her by her hair, because the lights are all blue and that makes red show up as black. Katie doesn't do any better at keeping track of her, and after a while she looks incredibly stressed.
"This was the stupidest fucking idea in the world." Katie has to yell over the music for JJ to hear her. He finds himself nodding in agreement before he realises that he probably ought to try and be reassuring.
"I'm sure it'll be fine," he says, and when she looks confused he repeats it, louder. At that point the lights swing round and he spots Emily in the middle of the dancefloor, dancing by herself, and he points at her. "Look, she's fine. She looks like she's enjoying herself."
"Just as long as she doesn't end up puking everywhere again," Katie says, but she looks a bit more relaxed. If JJ were a normal person he'd probably ask her to dance at this point, but he's an absolute nightmare on the dancefloor and he knows that Katie isn't fond of being humiliated in public, so he offers to get her another drink instead. She asks for vodka and cranberry, and he smiles, starting to feel a little more in control.
It all goes horribly wrong when he returns from the bar.
Katie's dancing now, but Emily's disappeared. He pushes through the crowd to hand Katie her drink, and when she rewards him with a kiss he almost forgets about Emily--or, he wants to, but he can't, so reluctantly he pulls away from Katie and goes off to search for her sister. If he didn't, Katie would only be annoyed with him later.
There are entirely too many people in this place--JJ starts to wonder if maybe it's a safety hazard, but he doesn't think it would be very wise to tell Thomas that he ought to turn people away--which makes looking for Emily difficult, but eventually JJ spots her hiding away in a dark corner of the club.
When he realises what she's doing, his eyes nearly fall out of his head.
When he realises who she's doing it with, he practically faints.
Because that's definitely, definitely, absolutely one hundred per cent, no doubt about it, definitely. They're kissing and groping and he's pretty sure there's a hand under a skirt, and it's not right, because Emily loves Naomi, and--
JJ's getting locked on.
He feels a hand on his arm and he grabs it, spinning around to find out that it's Cook.
"You all right, J?"
"No," he gasps. "Absolutely not." He gestures at where Emily and Effy are and says, "What do I do?"
A grin spreads over Cook's face when he sees what they're doing. "Sit back and enjoy the show, mate."
"But--no. This is exactly the sort of thing that Katie didn't want Emily doing, but it's also the sort of thing that Emily would tell me to keep secret, and I don't know what to do!"
Cook tears his eyes away from them and grows serious. "Personally, I don't think it's any of Katie's business who her sister fucks, but it's your decision, JJ."
"Right, yes," JJ says, nodding. He has to tell her, because she'd go mental if he didn't and she ever found out about it. He turns back to the corner just to make sure that it's definitely, definitely Emily and Effy and he hasn't made some horrible mistake, but--they're gone.
"Oh, bobbins," he says. Cook gives him a funny look, but there's no time to explain; JJ rushes off to find Katie, fighting his way through the throng of people on the dancefloor until he reaches her and manages to pull her to one side.
"I saw Emily." He watches Katie's eyes narrow like she knows he's going to tell her something bad. "She was with Effy. They were..." He struggles to get the word out; he's getting locked on again just thinking about it.
"They were what, JJ?"
"Fornicating." He manages to spit the word out eventually. "Or at least, I think they were. I don't know--it was dark, and I'm not entirely sure what that would even involve, but there was definite kissing going on at the very least."
Katie looks angry, more angry than he's ever seen her look before. "So where the fuck are they?"
"I don't know. They disappeared."
"Christ on a fucking bike, if she's actually gone off to fuck Effy I will kill her," Katie says. "I'll fucking kill both of them!"
"Maybe we can still find them," JJ says, and Katie nods, suddenly energised. He follows behind as she rushes outside, her head snapping round as she searches the street in both directions.
JJ sees them a second after Katie does, only catching a glimpse as Effy bundles Emily into a taxi that quickly drives off.
"Fuck," Katie said, and she no longer sounds angry but defeated. "What the fuck are they doing?" She takes out her mobile and tries to ring both their numbers, but gets no reply. JJ takes the phone from her so she doesn't end up smashing it on the pavement, and when he pulls her in for a hug, she starts to cry.
There's no possible way this can end well.