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Later on that day, the group of friends sat in John B's van together, driving toward the Redfield Lighthouse together. Rory had been able to shower and wear some different clothes, but still, even as though she acted like she was fine, she clearly wasn't. Perhaps it had been just a chicken she had killed, but it still bothered her.
JJ had tried to make a joke and tell her to go vegan, but it was clear that it was a shitty joke and it didn't make Rory feel better in the slightest.
"I mean, it's obvious, right?" John B asked his friends, breaking the silence, "A family heirloom. What better place to hide a message? He had to know it was gonna get back to me, right?"
"Yeah. It's possible," Kiara lied to John B, solely to make him feel better while JJ and Rory exchanged a look.
"It could also be possible that you're concocting wild theories to help, you know, deal with your sad feels," Pope spoke up, causing Rory to turn to give him an annoyed look.
"Bro, you know how Rory and I process our sad feels," JJ spoke up in a happy tone, "Dank nugs and the stickies of ickies, that's how I do it."
"I'm not concocting, okay?" John B complained, growing fed up with his friends, "My dad is trying to give me a message."
"Is that so, JB?" Rory taunted John B and Pope rolled his eyes when he turned his head to see Rory was in the middle of rolling a joint.
"If it helps you believe, John B," Kiara replied in an assuring tone.
"Look, I-I don't need a therapy session, okay?" John B complained in annoyance, "Look, I'm not trippin' out."
"It's okay to trip, bro—" JJ began to say, only to be cut off.
"Look, my dad is missing, okay?" John B snapped at the group as he turned to shoot JJ a look, "Missing. You don't know what it's like to have the person closest to you vanish and then have no idea what happened. Just wake up every morning wondering. None of you do."
JJ slowly turned to Rory with a sad look, noticing the way she avoided contact with all of them. She did know how that felt. Her dad was gone, longer than he ever had before. He knew she was worried that he wouldn't come back this time. And despite all that he had done and what he became, Rory idolized her father. They had a close bond, closer than the one she had with her brother.
She knew better than anyone how John B felt, yet the latter seemed to fail to realize that.
Rory noticed that someone was looking at her and turned her head, seeing that JJ was giving her a sympathetic look.
She shrugged it off, continuing to roll her joint as she tried to hide her sadness like she always did.
"It's been almost a year, John B," Kiara told John B in a soft tone.
