CHAPTER THIRTY.
i wish she was here.

LENNON.

            Ivy must have turned into Barry Allen overnight. Because by the time I left camp, she was already well out of sight. I marched through the woodlands, swatting bugs and branches out of my face. I was beginning to recognise the terrain, allowing me to know what direction I was heading in. So far, I was confident I could find the beach, the lake and the creak on my own. It was engrained on my brain.

                 After walking for a while, I came across the break in the trees that led to the creak. When I got there, Ivy was hunched over with the clothes in the water, scrubbing at them as she muttered to herself. I couldn't make out a word she was saying but I knew she was pissed. I considered heading back because why the hell was I even there? Ivy had obviously gone back to brutally hating my guts. I was the last person she wanted to see. But still, I didn't leave.

                   I approached her and her back went rigid, "Lennon, I swear to god if that's you, I'm gonna open fire." She warned, making me come to a halt. I questioned myself. Had I said something or done something to earn this obvious hostility towards me? Because we had been fine—not exactly best friends, but we hadn't been at each others throats as often as we used to be.

                   I inhaled sharply through my teeth, "Damn. Looks like you're gonna have to shoot then." I said, exhaling the air in the back of my throat, making her turn around with a glare that could kill on her face.

                    "What're you even doing here? I don't remember asking for company—especially not yours." She snapped at me, turning her attention back to aggressively scrubbing the blood out of the clothes.

                   I began approaching her again, making sure to step softly, as if she was one of the wild beasts or some kind of live wire, "Rules are rules. No one's allowed to be out here themselves—not even you." I reminded her of the rules just as June had reminded me.

                    "And you just jumped at the chance to play hero, right?" Ivy chirped, turning to look at me with a bitter smile, like she was sucking on a lemon.

                     I let out a sigh, crouching down beside her. I took June's top from her hand and collected some of the tiny fragments of pebbles from the creak floor, "I've learned that if you rub these little pebbles against the more stubborn stains, it helped break them down a little." I told her, making a show of rubbing the pebbles against the fabric of the band Tee. The friction helped pull some of the blood.

                     I handed it back to Ivy who's jaw was tight. She went back to work, but did do as I said. I sat there, staring at the side of her face, watching as the muscles in her jaw flexed.

I breathed out heavily, "Look, I don't know what I did to piss you off so badly but—"

                      "You didn't piss me off," Ivy quickly spoke over me. She pulled her head up, looking at me properly. "I mean, you did, but not intentionally. It's just—I mean... never mind." Ivy shook her head, tutting at herself as she turned back to feverishly scrubbing at June's T-shirt. I was beginning to worry she was going to cause a hole on June's favourite shirt.

                     "Then what did I do?" I pushed, licking my dry lips as I stared at her. I hoped that the more I stared, the more agitated she would grow and eventually explode and tell me everything.

                      Ivy heaved out a groan and tossed the T-shirt aside, "You were nice, alright? Like genuinely fucking nice," I blinked in confusion. "And I—shit, I can't help but doubt myself. I can't help but think I've had you wrong this entire time. I pegged you for a fake, a fucking phoney when you're not. You're actually a good person. A real, good person." I shook my head ever so slightly, not understanding why this was something that made her so mad—why it had caused an outburst.

                    Ivy's cheeks were red as she went on, "It just really sucks to realise that I was wrong, alright? Because I'm not—ever," I found myself scoffing, smiling slightly at her stubbornness. "But, fuck, I think you're a good person, Lennon. And that fact alone, it changes everything. It changes what I think of you, how I feel about—" As quickly as she began spitting her words out, she stopped, locking her jaw tight, her eyes wide as if she said something she shouldn't have.

                      I let out a laugh, "So, you don't hate me? Who fucking cares. I don't hate you either—"

                   "It's not that," Ivy interrupted, her honey-coloured eyes meeting mine. She moved a little closer to me. "I—fuck, I can't believe I'm actually saying this but..." She trailed off as I stared at her expectantly, searching her eyes with my own.

                   She inhaled slowly and shakily, her eyes momentarily flickering down towards my lips—at least, I thought they did—before she shook her head, "Nope. Fuck that." Within a second, she got to her feet, tossed the shotgun over her shoulder and shoved the wet clothes into her backpack.

                   I flew to my feet, "Ivy!" I exclaimed, reaching out to grab onto her wrist.

                  Ivy spun around, wrenching herself free of my grip, "Don't touch me, Lennon." She barked, her eyes threateningly looking into mine as I stared at her, my jaw loose, wondering what the fuck was going on with her. That's when I noticed her eyes were watering ever so slightly, as if she was about to cry. Something was truly bothering her.

                   I retreated, taking a step backwards and holding my hands up. Ivy scoffed before turning around and stomping away from me. I stood there, watching her go, a million thoughts running through my brain all at once. What the fuck had happened? What was she going to say? Why was she acting like such a bitch?

                  When I finally brought myself to move again, I headed back to camp as quickly as I could. When I got there, Evie was sitting beside Coach Stratford who was awake, helping him eat his portion of dinner. I gave her a smile in passing, heading straight for June. Somehow, I had a feeling in my stomach that my sister had said something to Ivy to make her start acting so weird again. And I wanted to get to the bottom of it.

                    June was standing with Ethan and the closer I got I realised they were talking about Nationals—how it would be over already and how a team would have been crowned State Champions. It felt surreal. I hadn't even given Nationals a single thought in what felt like forever. Over a week ago, it had been all I could think about. I anticipated it. Marked the leaving date on my calendar for when we would win—because I knew we would. But now, I didn't even spare it a single thought. Somehow, the most important thing in the world to me had become nothing.

                   "No, cause, like, that's what I'm saying. Whoever did win aren't the true winners, cause if we were there then we—"

                  "June," I spoke up, cutting her off. She turned to me as I came to a stop. "Can we talk for a minute?" June exchanged a glance with Ethan before giving a nod and walking with me to a more secluded part of the camp, where we had hung up our wet clothes.

                    "What's up? How'd it go with Ivy?" She questioned me, but her curiosity only made me believe I was right. My sister was meddling somehow, I was sure if it.

                     "That's what I wanted to talk about. Did you, like, I don't know, say something to her earlier today?" June's lips parted at my question. I pressed on. "Cause one minute she was low key not hating my guts, and now she's back to definitely wishing I was dead."

                     June winced, reaching up to rub at her temple, "Uh, yeah, that might actually be my bad." She admitted, screwing up her face.

                   I gave her a flat stare, "June, what did you do?"

                  My sister threw her hands up, "Nothing! I just—I told her to go a little more easy on you and then we kind of talked about you. We spoke about that kiss that happened last—"

                     "You what?" I exclaimed, my eyes widening. I grabbed onto June's elbow. "June, why would you do that? I—we haven't even spoke about it! Why the hell would you bring that up?" I demanded, feeling my cheeks begin to burn.

                     "I didn't. Ivy did." I stared at June, barley blinking. What the fuck? I thought to myself. If I were in the Office, I would have seriously have looked directly into the camera because why the fuck was Ivy bringing up the kiss?

                    My mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, "She brought it up?" I croaked, my voice barely above a whisper as I felt myself glance in Ivy's direction. She was standing with Kitty and Evie, sharing a small packet of sweets.

                     June nodded, "I think she might have freaked herself out a little, you know? She told me she doesn't hate you and that she actually kind of thinks you're a good person," My went slack. June slowly began smiling before she shrugged. "I don't know what went on between y'all, but I think she might actually like—"

                  "She does not like me," I refused. I tossed my hands in the air. "June, she can't stand me!" I exclaimed.

                   June pulled a face, "You can hate someone and like them a the same time, you know. Like, with me and Imani. She's a bitch and I can't stand her ninety percent of the time but I'd be willing to throw fists in her honour." She said, giving me an example of what she had meant. I realised she was right. Because for all that I insisted I hated Ivy, I had actually just envied her. And I'd wanted her to like me, so when she didn't, it was a hell of a lot easier to pretend like I hated her too.

                    I put my hand over my face, rubbing at the bridge of my nose where there was a small indent from breaking it two years ago, "I'm getting a headache." I grumbled, continuing to massage the area around my nose as if it would magically cure my oncoming headache.

                    June gave my shoulder a light punch, "That's probably from the amount of head injuries you've had since the crash." She joked, a wide grin spreading onto her lips playfully.

I had began to notice that every now and again, June's mood would perk up and she would get all smiley. It was the way she typically was when she was in possession of drugs—but I knew that couldn't be the case. There was no way she was that stupid to try and smuggle in drugs to Nationals.

                     "Funny." I said dryly, though, there was a smile on my lips.

                     A yawn escaped June's lips and I raised an eyebrow at her, "Tired, are we?"

                    "Fuck yeah," June replied with a chuckle, stretching her arms out in front of her. "These last few days have been so insane, its barely left any time for sleeping. I might just go take a nap." She told me, a sleepy look crossing her face.

                    I mulled her words over. She was right. We hadn't had the chance to properly rest up the last few days—there had been so much happening that sleep wasn't even an option, or when we did try, we were too busy being haunted by the nightmare we were living through. Within the space of days, we had lost two of us, discovered creatures on the island and amputated Coach Stratford's arm. It was beyond exhausting and even though my body had been giving me signs of how tired I was, I hadn't paid it much attention.

                     I pouted my lips together, "Up for a twin spooning session? I could really go for a nap too." I suggested, nodding towards the plane.

                     June grinned at me, "Hell yeah." She agreed, nodding her head feverishly.

                    I decided to tell the group to try and have an early night and that any other chores could wait until the morning. Of course, keeping the camp running smoothly was a priority, but so was everyone's health. Most of us had agreed to take turns of watching Coach Stratford through the night. Evie had took first watch, relieving Hattie of her duty who had to be escorted into the plane by Ivy as if she was some worried mother.

                   Slowly but surely, everyone began retreating to bed. We had carried Coach Stratford inside and allowed him to have the spacious spot at the back of the plane, wrapping him in blankets and whatever else we could find to keep him comfortable. June and I had curled up at the front of the plane, close to the cockpit doors we mostly kept shut. We had taken down the red curtain that used to hang in front of the doors where the catering suite was before entering the cockpit, deciding we could use them as blankets instead.

                   I was the little spoon whilst June lay behind me, her arm over my waist. There was small chatter on the plane, the girls having their last conversations before going to bed. Crickets were chirping outside, owls hooting. I listened to those sounds, finding some sort of comfort in them. At first, I'd hated the noise of the forest, but now I relied on it to help me sleep.

                   "Do you think it was this hard for mom?" June suddenly spoke up, surprising me.

                   I answered after a few seconds, getting over the shock of the question. It wasn't often June spoke about mom, "Probably. Who knows. You know mom, she didn't like to talk about it." I reminded her, thinking back to any time I had ever asked mom about what happened on that island. She would sip on her wine and switch the conversation. But of course, I had read her journals—so I knew it had been hard. It had been really fucking hard on her. Her journals had been full of horrors, confirming everything the tabloids had ever said about the Island Witches. But of course, I couldn't tell June that.

                      June sighed, "I wish I knew." No, you don't, I thought to myself. June was lucky enough to not know what mom and her team had gone through. It had been Hell for them, and the longer we were out there, I was beginning to wonder if we were going to end up just like them. Doing whatever it would take to survive, despite how inhumane some of it was.

                    "Mom never wanted that for us, June. She tried to protect us from the truth." I said in a heavy tone, my chest feeling tight. It made my heart ache to keep secrets from my sister, but this was one I couldn't tell her. If she knew, it would shatter the memory of our mother in her mind—she would no longer be Jackie Sawyer, our mother who loved to paint and bake home-made croissants. She would be someone who participated in the horrors of the world.

                        "I wish she was here," June confessed before stirring slightly from behind me. "Is that wrong?"

                     I paused for a moment, "No. I wish she were here too."

             AUTHORS NOTE.

              What do y'all think Ivy was going to say to Lennon👀?

               — taylor xx