❝MARBLE STATUE ROUTE.❞

third person.

after sage and john b had calmed down, the pogues all relocated to the dock. sage was sitting on the ground between morgan and jj, the maybank boy tracing patterns on sage's kneecap while the routledge twisted little braids into morgan's hair, the holcomb girl leaning her head towards sage so she could work easier. there were several opened cans of beer either sitting on the railing of the dock or on the floor by where the routledges were sitting with jj and morgan.

kiara was strumming her ukulele, the sound of the small instrument being the only noise aside from the small whisper sage would make when she needed another hair elastic from morgan, who had a ziploc bag of the little hair ties sitting on her lap.

"how much was it again?" jj finally asked.

"four hundred mil." pope breathed.

"alright, let's talk the split." jj said, stopping his tracing on sage's knee, but when the girl immediately grabbed his wrist and pulled it back to her leg, he continued almost immediately. "now, before you say evenly, let me remind you that i'm the only one who can protect us from those groupers who're after us. protection? not cheap."

"you almost shot pope tonight." morgan deadpanned, sage nodding in agreement with the redhead.

"you haven't trained." pope added. "you've literally done zero training."

"youtube, bro!" jj exclaimed. "that's at least a five percent bump."

"personally, i think we should give the gun to pope." morgan said sarcastically, turning so her back was facing sage, the routledge girl having braided all the hair on the right side of morgan's head.

"do i hear any objections?" jj asked, pausing for a moment, kiara, sage, and morgan all raising their hands, but jj closed his eyes. "nope, don't hear any."

"what're you gonna do with your eighty mil, pope?" kiara asked the boy.

"pay for college in advance. and textbooks, those are expensive." he added.

"boring." sage mumbled in a sing-song voice.

"okay, sage, what're you gonna do?" pope fired.

"i'm sure as hell not going to school." she stated bluntly. "i'd probably open my surf shop."

"really?" jj asked, sage nodding.

"mhm, i'd cater to the pogues, though." she explained. "everything here is all marketed to the kooks, we don't want that fancy, high-end shit, mainly because we can't afford it.

"what about you, kie?" sage asked, the carrera girl shrugging.

"i just wanna make a double album. about obx, the pogues. record at marley studios, peter tosh producing..." kiara trailed off.

"peter tosh is-" pope started, but kiara cut him off.

"peter tosh is dead, i know." she replied, holding the can she had in her hand up. "the spirit of peter tosh will never die."

"actually, i know what i'm gonna do." jj said suddenly. "i'm gonna get a big ass house on figure eight and go full kook."

"you're gonna go full kook?" pope confirmed.

"like topper full kook, or morgan full kook?" sage asked.

"morgan, for sure." jj replied to the routledge girl.

"i'm flattered." morgan told the maybank in a fake bashful tone.

"i'm gonna get a marble statue of myself." jj added. "i'm gonna get a koi pond, fill it with a bunch of those fish."

"i'm not gonna be visiting." sage deadpanned.

"i'm with sage." kiara laughed.

"and i don't have a marble statue of myself, jackass!" morgan exclaimed, hitting the blonde boy on the shoulder. "you're pushing topper territory."

"he's gonna throw you in the ocean." sage warned the redhead, who jj was looking at offendedly.

"what about you, jb?" pope asked, everyone turning to the routledge boy, who had been silent until that point.

"to going full kook." he told the pogues, turning towards them with a smile on his face.

"to going full kook!" everyone exclaimed, holding up the cans they had sitting on the ground next to them and taking a drink.

"i might go marble statue route myself." sage said bluntly.

"i will murder you myself." morgan replied, but she was laughing as she said it. the sound made sage smile at her, despite still having a pit of emptiness and a numb feeling across her whole body. the tape was still lingering in the back of her mind.

"i'm gonna call it a night." jj said, picking up his and sage's now empty cans, taking an additional one from morgan's hand. slowly, the rest of the pogues got up and followed, john b leaving last.

sage and morgan, however, were still sitting on the dock.

"you coming?" john b asked his older sister, who nodded a little and hummed in response.

"i'll be in in a minute." she replied, the brunette accepting her answer and turning on his heel, starting towards the house.

"how're you holding up?" morgan asked, sage shrugging.

"all i'm worth to him is him admitting he wasn't a good dad and telling john b to take care of me. he couldn't even tell me he loved me over a tape." sage replied bluntly, shrugging again. "it is what it is, morgan, i learned a long time ago that he never cared."

big john was never the one who showed up for his daughter. she joined the volleyball team in middle school, her first tournament being a home one. she sat on the bench before the game, scanning the rows of seats for her father's mop of brown hair and his ratty beard, but he never showed up.

the pogues always did.

jj made a sign and everything, the four of them showing up five minutes before the game started. sage was first server, and jj and john b yelled louder than anyone else, the brunette boy declaring over the other cheers that sage was his sister. pope and kiara had learned all the chants the night before and went along with them the whole game. sage gave them all a crooked-toothed smile as she made it to a spot closer to the bleachers, the pogues all waving back at her.

the team won that game, sage's teammates taking pictures of her with her brother and friends. when it was all said and done, the team decided they wanted to go out for dinner. kiara had already left, so sage couldn't ask her to let her eat for free at the wreck, so jj, john b, and pope desperately emptied their pockets to try and get enough money together for the blonde to go out with her teammates, and they made the cut.

when she got home, big john wouldn't even listen to her talk about the game.

"just because it's always been that way doesn't make it okay, sage." morgan told the girl quietly, reaching over and grabbing her hand, squeezing it gently. "you deserve better than that."

"no i don't." sage whispered. "i've lied to my brother, my friends, i've shoplifted, i came within a degree of dropping out of school and accepting the fact that i'm going to spend my entire adult life eating out of a dumpster and standing on the side of the road with a sign- i'm a failure, and it's what i deserve."

"no it isn't." morgan replied firmly. "sage, you're not a failure, you're sixteen years old is what you are. the world never ends when you're sixteen, everybody knows that."

"it already ended." sage replied quietly. "the second i finished signing those papers, i wished i could go back in time and slap the pen out of my hand. i swore that i would do everything i could to protect john b when dad died, and i've been lying to his face for half a year, morgan."

"doing what's best for you isn't wrong." morgan told the routledge girl. "you need to stop thinking that putting yourself first is-"

"i wasn't putting myself first!" sage exclaimed, voice cracking as she did. "i was getting revenge. i wanted some sort of reassurance that he was finally gone after everything he did, and in a way i also wanted to get back at him, i guess." the blonde paused for a moment taking a deep breath. "he can't make me feel unloved if he's dead."

morgan didn't say anything, just moved closer to her friend, sage's head falling to rest on the redhead's shoulder.

"i don't wanna feel like this anymore, morgan." the blonde girl mumbled.

"how does it feel?" morgan asked, sage shrugging.

"i feels like i'm constantly nauseous, like if i eat anything i'll immediately throw it right back up. i'm constantly carrying a backpack full of dumbbells and have a bench press bar on my chest. it's hard to get out of bed in the morning and fall asleep at night, i hate the dark circles and sickly undertone i see when i look in the mirror- i just feel like nothing is right." sage vented.

"sage..." morgan trailed off. "when my dad died- granted, he and i were a lot closer than you and your dad- i was completely alone."

sage turned to look at the holcomb girl next to her. she was staring at the chateau which was barely visible from the dock as it was pitch black outside.

"you have people." morgan said abruptly. "you have friends, you have a brother, you have people you can talk to."

"i don't want to talk about it. i want him to stay dead." sage said abruptly.

she didn't believe herself.

when her dad was pretending she didn't exist, sure, she felt unloved, alone, and like everything was going to come crashing down on her at any second, but the weight was hers to bear alone. now that their dad was gone, the burden was shared by both sage and john b. she would rather be miserable herself than have john b suffering with her.

"i don't think you do." morgan whispered. "you're feeling guilt, sage. everything that you're describing is guilt. i felt it too, i've been-"

"no you haven't!" sage exclaimed, morgan appearing taken aback by her outburst. "you haven't been here before, you haven't. you didn't go behind your brother's back and say your dad was dead, you weren't neglected, and you were never the black sheep. morgan- nobody loved me!"

"yes we did." a voice spoke from the dock, both girls snapping their heads up. jj was standing in front of them, the look on his face one mixed with a blend of pure terror and heart-crushing guilt. "we still do, sage- do you really think nobody loved you as a kid?"

"no one ever took the time to show it." sage mumbled. "you heard dad on that tape, he didnt even mention me until he was telling john b how shittily he treated me- the tape wasn't even for me. he forgot i existed just like everyone else did."

"no one ever forgot you existed." jj scoffed. "who spent the night here when your dad and john b went off on their fishing trips and left you here by yourself?"

"only when you didn't go with them." sage shot the maybank's attempts down quickly, turning to look out at the water. "you both should go."

"sage, i'm not leaving you." morgan said firmly.

"no, no, go ahead, everyone else does." sage replied, blinking the tears from her eyes rapidly. she wanted both of them to stay more than anything, and she hated the side of herself that shut everyone out when she got upset, but in the heat of intense emotional moments, sage wanted nothing more than to be left alone to her own thoughts, no matter how much they degraded her mentally. "i'm used to it, go on. you're going to eventually anyways."

"sage, don't be like that." jj said, noticing the way morgan had deflated at the girl's comment. "we wanna help."

"you can't." sage said through gritted teeth. "unless you can undo the last sixteen years and make dad care about me in another timeline, there's nothing you can do."

"i'm gonna leave you guys to it." morgan mumbled, standing up and walking down the dock at an alarmingly fast pace.

"what're you doing?" jj asked quietly when morgan was out of earshot.

"being an emotionally disconnected bitch like i always am- that is the label you put on it, correct?" sage asked, turning to face jj just to throw the words he had said to john b when he thought sage couldn't hear them when they were thirteen.

"okay- stop!" jj exclaimed. "we're all trying to help you-"

"no you aren't!" sage exclaimed. "everyone is trying to help john b because he wants dad back because everyone else thinks that he's the perfect parent, because even when mom left he supposedly stuck around for his kids, but he didn't. he was there for john b, but he was never there for me-"

"we were!" jj yelled back.

"yeah- you guys aren't my dad!" sage shouted, a few tears running down her face. "jj- just go!"

"no. i'm not going. you're not gonna be right this time, i'm not leaving you." jj said firmly, sitting down across from the girl who was wiping the tears out from under her eyes, blinking the new ones away.

"go have fun with the others, my pity party is invite only." sage mumbled, pulling her legs to her chest and resting her head on her scarred knees.

"the bouncer let me in." jj joked, a comment that in many of sage's other mentally distraught states would have helped her, but not this time. jj knew sage well enough to know that this wasn't something she would let him help her fix, no matter how much he pried at her. in fact, if he tried to get her to open up more than she wanted to, it would backfire and she would shut him out completely.

"leave me alone." sage said again, voice more shaky than the prior times as she refused to look at jj.

"no." jj deadpanned. "you don't deserve to be left alone."

"i've heard that before." sage replied sarcastically.

"you don't." jj said firmly. "you deserve love, sage."

"are you quoting me to me right now?" sage asked, tone slightly lighter than previously as she finally turned back to her blonde haired friend.

"you've got some pretty wise words." jj told her, shrugging as he did. "and besides, it's true."

"not everyone gets what they deserve." sage told the maybank bluntly. "you will, i know it. you'll find someone somewhere someday who loves you like you deserve to be loved."

"and you will too." jj told her.

"whatever helps you sleep at night." sage mumbled.

"i'm serious." jj told her bluntly. "you're a good person, sage. you'll find your person."

"thank you."

"of course."

kens speaks 🪐

i had a different ending to this before but i changed the whole thing and the other version never saw the light of day (mara knows what it was despite not even reading the book)