Ask anyone and they'll tell you; grief is like a wave, and Kathryn Elizabeth Darcy is drowning. It's a common assessment of the situation made by friends and strangers, a conclusion so easily made that there was no doubt. Her lungs were filled with grief and she couldn't breathe, anyone would agree on this.

Well, Kathryn Elizabeth Darcy isn't just anyone.

She really disagrees with everything. Grief is not like a wave, she isn't drowning – she's got this. She has to, because everyone is completely freaking out and she knows why, she does, but at least one of the four has to keep their heads in the game, otherwise this won't end well. It never does for them.

And anyway, grief is nothing like the waves, or the sea. She knows a thing or two about it. It's a good friend of hers. Her oldest friend, really.

Grief is like heat. For someone that's been burning at every end for years, she knows about fire. It's suffocating, it clings to your body. There's no way for it to let you go, or for you to get it out from under your skin. Because once you're already butt naked in front of a fan, praying to be at least a little less hot, at least a little better, and nothing changes, you're just burning and frustrating. The need to rip your skin off gets to your head. But that, that may be just Kathryn.

There's nothing more she wants than getting this sickness from under her skin.

She should be familiar with heat, though. After all, she's lived in Outer Banks for most of her youth, and about three months now. She should be able to handle it. Well, she's not.

Going to the docks had become too much of a chore, too much of a toll on her. Waiting endlessly for someone to come back, it's not healthy. She never had been, of course, but that was beside the point.

The point is; as soon as Kathryn stopped going to the docks, all hell broke loose for their group of friends. Everyone had seemed to agree that this meant there was no hope anymore, that it was the end. John B wasn't coming back. It was time to move on.

And that's what she did. Tried to do. Failed, really. Now that they were sure he was gone, she had to build her life around that fact. Specifically to avoid that fact. It's a vicious circle she never quite knew how to break. At least, now, she wants to.

There's only so much anger the Pogues can take after losing their best friends, but Kathryn can't help it from getting out of her mouth. Everything she does is snide remarks and scoffs and tears behind closed doors. She keeps lashing out, again, and again, and again, because if she lets people in, she'll just bring them down with her. It's like she's back to square one, and John B isn't here to tell her it's okay.

Anyway, if they do end up turning their backs on her, it'll be her fault. She's the one who killed John B.

So, she keeps to herself, standing a bit further from the Pogues in front of the tree in the Château's backyard. Pope ripped some of the bark off, and JJ carved John B's name on it. It's a small ceremony, and she hates everything about it.

She clenches her jaw as the others play pretend.

JJ raises a silver flask. "To John B."

"And to Sarah," Kie adds after a moment.

They all look so solemn, it's bullshit. Complete bullshit. John B and Sarah aren't even here, why are they doing a toast to a defaced tree? No one's there to hear it! No one, except the four of them, standing there like idiots, crying over a body that's not even there.

JJ takes a swig of his flask. She figures it must be alcohol inside. Has to be, they've all been all over the place. Pope is falling apart, Kie is tagging walls, JJ is drinking, Kat is a ticking bomb. There's no upside to this. The only understanding is that they're all burning together. The one thing she never wanted.

She stays back, again. She doesn't dare to step forward. She never wanted the wildfire of her anger to reduce everything to ashes, yet she let it. She had been letting it go wild for years, since she came here, because it was easier to deal with when she was alone than now. Now, she has to navigate it, actually do something about it. If it's not for her, it's for her friends.

But sometimes, she can't help but let herself sink and lash out like she does so well. Push them away – all of them. It's easier to drown alone than to try and keep all of them afloat. However, like she said earlier, Kathryn is not drowning. She's got this.

That's why she keeps away, as they dig a hole in front of the tree, and Kie puts a little wooden box full of the trinkets she took from John B's house, the week prior.

Even then, Kathryn scoffs. The sound is barely even audible, but she still did, because this is ridiculous. All of this is ridiculous.

When they all turn to her with frowns, she realises it was a mistake. "What?" Pope asks.

She purses her lips, molten lava under her skin. "Nothing," she answers, crossing her arms.

"Clearly there's something," Kie adds, bitter.

Kathryn doesn't want to fight, she doesn't. She never wanted to. But it was too late now, she had become this monster since John B died. Since she drove him straight into a storm.

It seems a monster is all she can be these days. "You keep doing all of this," she says, the words spilling past her lips. "But it's pointless. What, you think he's going to rise from the dead and get the box? He wouldn't even be able to, because he's not buried there, he's at the bottom of the freaking ocean!"

I put him there, she adds inwardly. She doesn't say it. If they agreed with her, she thinks it'd be too much to bear.

Without adding it, though, it still seems like she said too much. They stare at her, scowling, shocked even to hear the words out of her mouth. She keeps fucking everything up, doesn't she?

"You know, Kat," Kie starts, angry. "Not all of us get stuck in the 'anger' part of grief."

Kathryn scoffs. "Yeah, because tagging Ward's walls with 'Murderer' is just proof of how chill you are right now."

"Guys can we not fight, please?" JJ asks, walking between the two.

She clenches her jaw, hard enough for it to hurt. She has to if she wants to keep her mouth shut. Kie just shakes her head and looks away. She struggles herself with pent up rage after letting Sarah go with so many things left unsaid. She knows the kind of rot it creates in your mind now.

Kie can't hold it against Kathryn no matter how much she would want to. They were one in the same now, somehow. And Kie would do anything to keep her friends together after losing so much already. Including putting up with her best friend's sour mood. They were burning together, she didn't have to keep this burden all to herself.

But it was all Kathryn had ever known. Keeping it to herself, nurturing the fire. It's an endless tale that's been told before. Letting go of this habit is like trying to replace the blood in her veins. She can try as hard as she can, at the end of the day, it'll still be hers.

So, she has to leave if she doesn't want to make things worse. It's the only way she knows how. She gets away so that they don't burn with her – it didn't matter if it was already the case. It was the only way she had to protect them. They lost Sarah and John B, she didn't have to put them through the process of losing her too.

Because that's what was going on. Kathryn had managed to put the scraps of herself back together over the summer, but they were all blown to bits again. She was losing track of who she is, and she never had a good understanding of who that was in the first place.

Pope stares at her as she turns around. He noticed it maybe even before JJ did. She was slipping out of their grasp, and had been since she stopped going to the docks. It's like she left a piece of herself there and it never came back. The person she was when she had just come back to Outer Banks wasn't even that bad. She was angry, yes. Fuming.

But the girl that kept walking away was nothing short of lost. Somewhere stranded in the middle of a raging ocean, with no clue on how to get her out of it.

"KD! Hey, Kat."

There was no need to turn around to know who's yelling after her. Kathryn does anyway. Maybe it was weakness, but she couldn't help herself.

JJ huffs when he reaches her. "What?" she asks, a little too abruptly.

"Can you not do this today?" he asks. "We're trying to do something for John B here, and I know it's not some fancy ass shit, but at least it's something. Don't get angry because we're trying."

"I'm not angry," she lies. "But in case you hadn't noticed, my best friend's dead and I'm the reason why, so don't expect me to be all smiley about it."

Her chin wobbled when she said those words, before she pressed her lips into a thin line. The only reason she said it to him is because she knows he'd never agree.

He gives her a look. It's halfway through irritation and completely hurt. "Yeah no, I think we're pretty aware that he's gone."

She's about to retort something vile, but she sees him rub the spot right above his heart. She remembers what he told her – it's to remind himself that he's still there. She had told him that she was there with him. But the truth is, she's not sure she is anymore. She's not sure she knows where she is.

"Don't do this," he asks, almost pleading. "Don't shut us off."

She clenches her jaw again. She's going to ruin her perfect teeth if she keeps this up. Might as well let them rot with everything else anyway.

"I just need time to cool off, if that's okay with you," she says through gritted teeth. "If I need a 'friends are the best!' speech, I'll knock on your door."

He watches her leave, she can feel his eyes on her. Deep down, she knows that if she keeps this up, the door will be closed and knocking will be pointless. If she keeps driving everyone away, she's going to end up alone, and no matter how hard she wants to convince herself that it's the best for her, it's really not. None of this is.

Kathryn never understood funerals anyway. She never wanted to hold one for John B in the first place. There was one for Peterkin too – she went there. She's not sure if it was nice, or not, if it was up to her name or if it was a disappointment. People talked, said stuff about her, some cried, and then they went home. Like they just did for John B and Sarah.

They were there, and then they were not, and the only thing they could do was talk and bury stuff. Kathryn hates funerals. Funerals don't help to keep a loved one close, they only send them further away.

Grief's heat is starting to burn her as she walks inside the Palace. She tries to take a cold shower, but it doesn't work. Nothing does. Nothing ever will. It's the kind of hurt that's here to stay.

Henry watches as she sits on the sofa of her studio, knees up to her chest, staring at a painting of the sea – almost black, nothing discernable under its waves. The only touches of colour are the two birds flying above it. One's wing is broken. He thinks that when the painting will be finished, it'll become clear that it's falling.

"Baby, wear your glasses, please."

Kathryn rolls her eyes, and puts on the glasses on her nose. She keeps having headaches, lately, since she stopped wearing her glasses over the summer. The migraines came back with revenge. Or maybe it was from crying. Wearing the glasses makes her think she's got it under control.

She settles back on her chair in the same position. Henry doesn't move. "What is it?"

"I like this one," he says, gesturing at the picture.

"No you don't," she mumbles against her knees. "It's scaring you and you want me to see a shrink."

There was never any point in lying to her anyway. "Yes well, you rarely do realism but it's still good. Scary, but good." She nods, still not looking up at him. "So, um, Billy will be here around tomorrow night. She's excited to see you."

"I know, she texted me a dozen times," she answers with that same hollow voice. "She's excited enough for the both of us."

Kathryn loved Billy. As a matter of fact, everyone did. She had that kind of personality where you just have to love her. She graduated from Cambridge at sixteen, and dropped everything to come here to help Kathryn, which is in itself a good enough description of who she is.

She's the reason Kathryn made it as far as she did in London. They ended up in the same boarding school, something for gifted students. She's a bit ahead of Kathryn, who should have been in college already if it wasn't for... well. The fact that she almost killed herself. Yale can wait another year.

Henry sometimes thinks that being so smart is hard on her. In the sense that she's too used to rationalising her thoughts and feelings rather than actually stopping and letting herself feel. She's always one step ahead, thinking of a plan if she slips, has a panic attack, or worse.

That distant look in her eyes doesn't reassure him. "Look, kid, if you don't want to go to school on monday, I won't blame you. You can take another year off."

"No," she answers, definite. "I'm not missing another month of school because I can't get off my arse."

He immediately holds up his hands in reddition. "Woah, Kat, I never said–"

"I know, I did." She wipes her hands on her thighs, before standing up. "I'm going to go outside. I'll... I'll just go to the Château for the night, if that's okay with you."

He blinks, surprised that she'd push him away. "I... If you want to."

She nods, grabbing her stuff on a small table, and moving past him. She waves at Max on her way out, as he comes out of his room.

When he sees the upset look on his boyfriend's face, he kisses his jaw. "It's how she copes," he tells her. "She has to be alone."

"Yeah," Henry breathes out. "I just never saw her like that." He's not sure it's really her he's seeing.

Kathryn drives all the way to the Château in the dark. The silence is thick, it carries Ward's voice, telling her something about her dad, her mind blacking out, before she hears herself screaming at John B to get out of there and not look back. In a way, he did. But she never meant to.

She gets out of the car and greets the cold-ish wind with open arms. Summer is slowly subsiding, even on an island. Nothing lasts forever.

She takes her back and walks to the messed up tree, carefully stepping around the upturned dirt. She takes out her stapler, and the piece of canva she ripped earlier that day. There's a bee painted on it, sitting atop a pile of pancakes. It's stupid, she tells herself. But she staples it to the tree, and steps back to look at it.

She pushes her glasses on the bridge of her nose, feeling tears pricking at her eyes. It's ridiculous, it's just a bloody drawing of a bee. John B would love it.

"Idiot," she mutters under her breath, but she's not sure who she's talking to. "Bloody idiot."

The door slams behind her, and she turns around quickly, trying to wipe her cheeks discreetly. JJ steps out wearing ripped overalls and his red cap, put on backwards. He's the perfect picture of who he always has been, and she's a grotesque caricature of a memory.

He started living there shortly after John B's death. No one bothered to ask why. The further he is from his father, the better.

"Look, KD, if you want me to go into cardiac arrest, please just stab me instead of showing up in the middle of the night."

Then, he stares at her, at her pyjama shorts and white shirt, the way her nose crinkles up, the glasses.

"I didn't mean to scare you," she says, backing away.

"It's... fine."

"No, seriously, I didn't–" She steps right into the fresh dirt. "Shit."

Kathryn turns around, and stares at the indent on the ground, right above where they put John B's stuff. A hand flies to her mouth. It's stupid, and ridiculous, and pointless, and any other argument she can come up with, but in the end, she still feels tears roll down her fingers.

JJ notices the way her shoulders sagged, and immediately walks up to her. He checks the traffic lights bracelet he made her – green. He goes to hug her, but she pushes him away.

"No, no, I'm fine."

"KD."

"I swear..."

"It's just you and me. You don't have to pretend."

She's not sure why, but when he wraps his arms around her from behind, she lets him. She holds onto his forearms, leaning against him for support. The tears blur the vision of the messed up ground under her feet, and she's thankful for that.

"I didn't know where else to go," she says between two sobs.

He's not sure what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything. Instead, he carefully turns her around, and takes off her glasses. She buries her face in his chest as if it would stop him from seeing her.

Something constricts in his chest, hammering against his heart. He doesn't take her inside, he just holds her where she is, even when it starts raining and the tears falling on her cheeks could be mistaken for water.

Kathryn had never allowed herself to break down in front of any of them up to this point. She had kept holding back, had kept her tears at bay, trying to take care of everything, and when desperation hit, trying to keep everything at arm's length.

But there she was, under the rain, and she realises that she had this all wrong. Grief isn't heat. Grief is standing in the ocean, thinking that you've acclimated to this hollow feeling, only for a tidal wave to come and wreck you.

They were all right. Grief is like a wave, and Kathryn is drowning.

Author's Note:

I really said "spain but the s is silent" for this book uh?

Editor's Note: This is a bit too this is me trying coded for me to remain sane