Preface.      the beginning and end of everything

EVERYTHING AFFECTS EVERYTHING.

The Butterfly Effect is the theory that one small action or change can cause a large change farther down the road, that the single flap of a butterfly's wings can create a small amount of air big enough to cause hurricanes on the other side of the world. How strange it is to think about such a tiny creature being able to create such havoc?

How strange it is to that the decisions you make can have major effects on what happens in your life, and the world, next. Everything affects everything.

If a hurricane was in the form of a person, it would be Bridger Fitzgerald, the wings of the butterfly. A boy full of rage and ripped stitches. If you went around and asked about him they would all tell you the same thing; that Bridger was self destructive, self righteous,  and dangerous (to himself,  at least). A boy of only seventeen but with a lifetime of bitterness tucked away in his bones.

The Kook prince was a better name for him. He was an old money boy — the generational wealth of the Fitzgerald family dating back years and years all the way back to his great grandparents and passed along to his mother and father. The family practically bled green. Jana and Dawson Fitzgerald made a name for themselves as being owners of Fitzgerald Pharmacy,  one of the many pharmacies in Kildare. On top of it,  they were members of the extremely lavish country club, meaning everybody on Figure Eight knew who they were. 

You could say that Bridger was spoiled but that wasn't a strong enough word. He allowed the money to go to his head as did all of the rich kids who lived on the island. Super rich kids whose parents weren't around enough. At the ripe age of nine years old, Bridger's father had raised him to be a man, to always be proud of who he was and to never let anybody make him feel ashamed. Now, he was seventeen and his teenage years were as golden as they could get. In his eyes, his very blind eyes, his life was perfect.

Until he was old enough to figure out that it wasn't. 

They say that money can't buy happiness but it wasn't until a few years ago that Bridger realized it was true.  The fighting between his parents became more clear, the became aware of how drained his mother was becoming and the violence of his father. But he chose to believe that nothing was wrong. His life was perfect. Crystal clear. Untouchable. What could possibly happen to ruin it?

Oh, how naive he was (poor young, stupid boy.)

When Bridger was twelve years old, the rumors of his father's affair broke out on Kildare Island. He wasn't sure how the rumor started or who started it for that matter, and the mother and son chose to not believe it for a while, until it came out to be true. A twenty year marriage flushed down the drain. At thirteen, Jana and Dawson got a divorce and the mother moved out of their house to the other side of Figure Eight. It was a messy divorce. Suddenly, Bridger was caught in the middle of their dynamic and he would stay with his mother at her new house on the weekends, his dad having prime custody of him (because it was his money, his house, and nobody dared to go against what Dawson Fitzgerald wanted – not even a judge).

Soon as the years went by is when Bridger's rage began to form. His heart grew darker, the resent started and his downfall began. He resented his father for being unfaithful to his mother. He hated the man. He loved his mom. At some point Dawson had stopped trying to control his son because he knew how teenagers were;  he was just going to go against his word anyway. The late night sneaking out is what lead him to become friends with Rafe Cameron, the eldest brother of Sarah Cameron, who was his age and whom he became very (drunkenly) acquainted with at a house party and a friendship between them blossomed.

Rafe looked at Bridger like another sibling, a brother he always wanted, the sibling he wished he had; he found it in himself to take the younger boy under his wing. Every party they went together along with Rafe's other Kook friends that soon became Bridger's friends. He discovered how wild the Cameron boy really was,  how crazy he got when he was drunk, but Bridger wanted to impress his new friends. He was only seventeen. So everything Rafe did, he did. Everything the guys did, he did.

Bridger had it handled. He got good at sneaking back into his house at late hours (his dad was never home anyway) Everything was okay. Until Rafe started doing drugs.

He would be lying if he said he was innocent. He got drunk so many times that he would often forget what day it was but drugs, that was a whole new level. Bridger would watch his friend pour all of his hidden pain and suffering in numerous amounts of colorful pills and crystallized chemicals. At every party, he would watch his friends drown themselves in the snow white powder and crumbled up bills would be thrown at the table from anybody desperate to have a go at it. Bridger would get scared seeing his friend, his brother, not have control of his own body. Rafe turned into a completely different person when he was high.  He made a promise to himself that he would never fall down the same hole as him.

But then Jana Fitzgerald died from a severe case of lung cancer – she never smoked a day in her life – and died less than a year after the divorce with her ex husband was finalized. From there, Bridger's life began to spiral. Before he knew it, he was falling into the same deep, dark, lonely abyss that Rafe was in and the only way he was able to forget about his mom was by following the footsteps of Rafe Cameron.

But even so, the drugs and alcohol wasn't enough to keep him from always seeing Jana. He saw her in every corner of his house. He saw her silhouette at every party. Heard her voice every night when he tried to sleep. It felt as if there was a gaping hole in his heart.  The grief started eating him alive. He found himself never being able to smile or laugh, his eyes were gloomy and lifeless, and he felt like he could never get himself to leave his room. It hurt to move much less to outside. His rage grew domestic and the more toxins he injected and allowed to flow through his body, the more vexatious he became.

His life had no meaning without his mother.

Everybody in Kildare attended parties at the Boneyard. It was sort of like a secret hide away for all Kooks and Pogues and even Tourons who wanted a night to escape. For a while, Bridger skipped out on any party that was thrown by his friends, but this party, Sarah just so happened to drag him to. That was when she started dating Topper Thornton, who Bridger was friends with but also knew wasn't good enough for her. Nobody was good enough for Sarah Cameron.

He remembered the night very clearly. They got there,  he was drunk,  he stumbled away because it got overwhelming and he felt a panic attack coming on,  and then was interrupted by no other than JJ Maybank, the notorious Pogue outlaw — water rat and a huge thorn in his side. "Bridger Fitzgerald needs a break from the world?" He remembered him uttering with a shocking laugh.

Bridger rolled his eyes. "More like I need one from you."

He was not a fan of any of the Pogues but JJ took the cake. Bridger wasn't sure if it was because of his father or because the wild blonde was just downright aggravating. Luke Maybank was a known low life drug addict and alcoholic. Bridger could count on one hand how many times he would see him entering and exiting drug houses, blowing all of his money on whatever he could get his crummy hands on, ultimately getting him fired from every job he'd ever had.

The more alcohol he consumed the more drunk Bridger felt. He wanted to be left alone but JJ liked to annoy him. They hated each other. They couldn't stand the sight of one another. So why was he bothering him? At some point Bridger looked his way and told him to fuck off.

But then, he couldn't look away.

Whether it was the fact that they were both drunk or that they both needed an escape from the world around them, Bridger Fitzgerald found himself in a very hot and heavy make out session with JJ Maybank. He didn't want to feel empty anymore. He longed to feel something other than the numbing pain in his bones and JJ just happened to be there. He swore to himself it was a one time thing, that the blonde was just another warm mouth and that he would never talk to him again.

But then it happened again, and again, and again.  Bridger wanted to feel again. He would sneak out of the house and drive to the cut to pick JJ up from his house and they would go driving wherever they could go to be with each other without anyone knowing. Kissing in the car, behind the closed doors of their empty houses, or by the ocean when nobody was around. JJ was his own forbidden paradise – a secret hideaway. He didn't need the drugs when the nights they spent together was enough to get him high.

Bridger told himself it was because he was lonely but the wild blonde made him feel something again. The hole in his heart was healing. What he didn't know was that JJ was healing himself with him as well. They needed each other. But that was the thing about secrets – at some point, they unravel themselves.

Everything affects everything.

The Buttetfly Effect took its place: the butterfly being Bridger, the small wind being JJ, and the hurricane being Dawson Fitzgerald. The day the man caught them together was a day that would forever be burned inside him. It physically hurt, the pain always lingering even when he desperately tried to forget, but he would never forget the sheer terror he felt when his father threw JJ out of the house and then it was just them.

It was the beginning and end of everything. Without JJ, the emptiness returned and the hunger for the crystallized substances he shared with Rafe came back to him. The Summer of 2018 haunted him every day.  Bridger did everything to try and forget. He moved on with his life. He managed to calm the storm.

But when it comes to living on an island, storms were inevitable. JJ Maybank was a storm and Bridger Fitzgerald was a hurricane. Two boys with destructive tendencies, fathers that didn't love them like they would, and mothers who weren't apart of their lives;  the longing to feel belonged are them up. 

Everything affects everything.