Step 1: Dig a deep hole of denial and bitterness.
Nearly a whole week had passed and she still hadn’t gone to see him yet. She couldn’t bring herself to.
She knew Jet, the way he looked, the way he acted. His skin was tan, splattered with freckles from the hours he spent out in the sun and always slightly sunburnt no matter the season due to his refusal to wear sunscreen regardless of the long hours he spent outside. His black eyes were bright and full of so much life, love, and mischief.
His smile, which was different and rare compared to the smirk he usually held or the scowl that would appear depending on whose company he was in, was wide and lopsided. It would scrunch up his cheeks and crinkle his crooked nose, showing off his even more crooked teeth. Whether it be a blade of wheatgrass or a toothpick, he always had something to chew on sticking out of the corner of his mouth.
He was warm to the touch. Not in the way that a fire or a furnace is hot, but rather like a sunbeam. When he’d ruffle her hair, clap her on the back or shoulder, lean his head against hers, or lace his fingers with hers and Longshot’s, he emitted that familiar, comforting heat without fail. She could not imagine him without it.
He was a fidgety person by nature, always full of more energy than he knew what to do with. He would often shuffle from side to side without pause, or shake his leg when they sat. He was lively and animated, and he often spoke with his hands just as much as he did with his words, even when he wasn’t using sign language. She often had to duck out of the way of his wild, flailing hands.
He was also loud and proud; both of himself and of his friends. If he had an opinion or a grievance, big or small, he let it be known regardless of how much trouble it would often get him into. His laughter was loud and filled up a room better than anything else she’d ever known, high pitched and entirely annoying. It was an ear grating sound that you had to get used to before you inevitably ended up finding it endearing in a way.
She knew that if she went to that cold, cold hospital room, where it smelt of bleach and lemon and death, she wouldn’t see Jet. Not her Jet, anyway.
She would see a pale, lifeless version of one of her best friends that was covered in wounds and attached to so many machines he wouldn’t even look human anymore. She knew for a fact that this is what she would find; The Duke was still young so he didn’t exactly have a filter. She still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that they’d let the younger boy into the room with him, but she supposed it would be far more cruel to keep him away. The thought of it alone was the worst thing she could ever imagine seeing, the reality was probably far more painful.
If she didn’t go, she could pretend it was not real. So, no, she has not gone to see him yet.
Longshot had tried to convince her to go more times than she could count in the past weeks, and the bitterness of their most recent argument over it sat heavy in her throat and stomach as she stormed down the overgrown park path that led to their secret spot. Tears well up in her eyes, but she pushes them down with a growl of frustration. She shoved a branch out of her way with so much force she heard it snap, the sound nearly as loud as a gunshot in the otherwise quiet park.
The cuffs of her pants were thoroughly soiled by the mud at this point, and her shoes were surely beyond saving. The rain that had been pouring down relentlessly for a week straight had left the usually firm ground squishy and difficult to walk on with a clear head, let alone with the anger-fueled strut Bee had settled herself into. She stumbled more often than she would like to admit, catching herself on the rough bark and ignoring the way it cut open her fingers and palms.
It didn’t matter, none of it did.
She had refused to believe it when she first heard that Jet was in the hospital, and she still kind of did. Even with all the flights he got into at school and the reckless nature that got him in trouble more often than not, he had never been hurt enough to warrant going to the hospital. Never.
She was so sure that they had to be lying to her. It had to have been some sick joke, a twisted prank he and Aang decided to play on everyone after they got separated in their search for Appa. However, after several increasingly hysterical phone calls and frantic texts, she found out that it was painfully true.
They were all desperate to find Aang’s dog that night after the kid showed up to Bee’s house in tears asking if they had seen Appa anywhere. It was raining really hard, after all, and they didn’t want anything to happen to the poor animal. They figured they would find him easily enough if they went out in one big group, armed with flashlights, his favorite squeaky toys, and a bag of dog treats. Oh how wrong they were.
The rain had only gotten worse as the night progressed, and with it the conditions of the sidewalks and roads. She still couldn't figure out how they got separated; all she knew was that Aang and Jet were there one minute and gone the next, with her phone ringing not long after that.
None of them could have expected Aang to spot Appa on the opposite sidewalk and step out into the road just as some jackass came speeding down the slick asphalt. They couldn’t have expected Aang to freeze up. They couldn’t have expected the car to slide when the driver slammed on the breaks. They couldn’t have expected Jet to act before anyone else, jumping into the street without a second thought and pushing the boy out of the way like the self sacrificial idiot that he was.
He should have died that night; it was a miracle that he hadn’t. His ribs were shattered, as was his collar bone, his spine broken in more places than Bee liked to think about. The operation to remove the worst of the bone shards from his abdominal cavity had been long and laborious, and they almost lost him several times in the process. And that wasn't even beginning to mention the brain bleed that they had been frantic to solve, or the swelling they were afraid would kill him before they had a chance.
No one could really explain just how he was able to hold onto life until the ambulance found its way to him through the rain and the darkness. Jet was stubborn though, anyone who had met him even once in their lives would know this. Bee knew that he was hanging on out of pure spite and medical intervention, and that was what scared her.
She pushed past the last tree and stumbled as she finally reached the muddy bank of the pond Jet showed her and the rest of the rest of their friend group so, so long ago. It was a sh*t hole, if she was being entirely honest. It was a small, crappy, polluted pond situated deep in the forest surrounding the local park with water that was most certainly not safe to touch. There was trash floating on and just below the surface, and it smelt a bit like a sewer when the weather became too warm. The water was a bit higher today due to the heavy rain, the rocky bed smaller. That strong stench of sewer was not only present, but extra strong.
She had long since stopped caring about the putrid sight and smell, though. To her, the place was a home away from home and the only place she could go to clear her head. And today, that was something she needed more than anything.
She remembered when Jet first brought them there, and how he taught her to skip stones the same day. They were all really young then; Smellerbee was still in elementary school and Jet and Longshot were only in middle school. It had been a hot, muggy, smelly day that left her sweaty and irritated. She complained the whole way there, and only stopped when Jet pulled ice pops out of the cooler he’d stolen from his foster dad and lugged all the way through the overgrown foliage.
“A tree house?” Smellerbee asked, her recently lost front tooth lisping her words. She bit into the rocket pop and moved the large piece of cherry flavoured ice into her cheek to let it melt. Longshot hated it when she did that, but she didn’t care. It was the best way to eat them.
“You bet!” Jet exclaimed, voice cracking. He leaned into her, his fingers forming a rectangle framing one of the larger trees as he closed one eye, trying to show her his vision. “Right in that tree right there. A hideout, just for us where no one can find us.”
“Are we really allowed to do that? Build a house here, I mean.” She wondered. She wasn’t opposed to the idea. A place away from all the adults where they could hang out and be as loud as they wanted? It sounded like a dream come true.
“Eh, who cares.” Jet waved his hand. “When have we ever asked permission before?”
“Alright, I’m in. What do you think, Longshot?” She asked, turning towards their other friend, who was sitting on one of the larger tree stumps with his legs stretched out in front of him and his arms behind him on the stump, supporting his weight. He looked around, tilting his head back and forth in a way that meant he was thinking about it. Eventually he nodded, and Jet cheered, pumping his fists into the sky.
“Alright, let's go!”
The entirety of summer break that year was dedicated solely to building that definitely illegal treehouse Jet dreamed of with lumber they all pitched in to buy using money earned through various summer chores around the neighbourhood. It was a mess of a base, clearly built by children with no clue what they were doing, lacking in both structurally sound walls and even footing. By a miracle of the gods, it held up pretty well over the years, though. It was hidden amongst the foliage so well that even they sometimes had trouble spotting it back when it was new. You really had to look for it to find it.
It was too wet outside to climb the rope used to gain access to the thick branch that acted as a bridge to the treehouse door, so today she stopped right at the edge of the murky water.
She dropped down into a crouching position and wrapped her arms around her thin legs, burying her head in between her knees. She gripped the flesh of her thighs tightly, fingers digging into the meaty parts in a way that was likely to bruise. Her body felt tense and painful, her head pounding with unshed emotion.
She let out a sound halfway between a shout and a growl as she threw herself backwards onto the ground, her butt hitting the muddy and uneven terrain harshly, sticks and rocks alike digging into her skin in a way she disregarded.
She thrust a hand into the ground and grabbed a handful of earth, in which she felt a large stone within. She yelled again as she hurled the chunk of earth and the rock as hard as she could towards the water. It hit the surface with a splash that sent water flying in every direction in a way that was reminiscent of a poorly executed skip.
“You’re stupid!” She shouted. She climbed up onto her knees and dug through the mud until she found another rock. She reared her arm back and threw the stone into the pond, ignoring the way some of the putrid water splashed on her face, adding to the growing amount of filth covering her head to toe.
“You’re an idiot! How could you go and pull a stunt like that, huh?!” She yelled at the water as though it was Jet, as though it would say anything back.
Mud caked under her nails, the pressure uncomfortable, but she barely noticed a thing as she continued digging for more rocks. She punched the ground when she didn’t find any, splattering herself with even more of the muck. It felt good, so she did it again and again until she was just pounding the ground, guttural noises leaving her as she did so.
Eventually she ran out of fuel and sank fully to the ground, her headband covered forehead cushioned by her tightly clenched fists, body curled up tight with her knees pulled up to her chest. She panted heavily, the smell of mud and waste making her already upset stomach bubble. She swallowed down a mouthful of bile.
She rolled onto her back in the mud after what felt like an eternity and stared up at the sky. It was still cloudy out and had been for the few weeks Jet had been in the hospital, though it had yet to rain again since early yesterday morning. It was likely to be sunny tomorrow; the thought almost made her laugh. She watched the grey and white tuff of cloud swirl together and move across the sky, her head throbbing in pain, a red hot anger burning in her chest just behind her ribcage.
She laid there until Longshot eventually came to find her like she knew he would, his presence announced by the rustling of leaves and the wet sound of mud. He helped her up and made an attempt to wipe the mud away from her face and her hands, but promptly gave up when he realized she was just too messy.
He took her hand, guiding her through the overgrown trees and all the way to his house, where there was thankfully no one else home. After making her take off her filthy shoes on the front step outside, he let her shower and change into the spare set of clothes they all keep at each other's places for situations like this. Then he sat her on his bed and carefully and gently treated the injuries on her hands that had been revealed after she was cleaned.
Thankfully she had no splinters, so the process of wiping her hands down with an alcohol wipe and putting plasters on the worst of the cuts was quick and methodical. The plasters were Hello Kitty themed, a purchase Jet had insisted on when he and Smellerbee tagged along with Longshot’s family when they went shopping. Jet was a hard person to say no to, so Longshot’s mom had caved almost instantly. That was 7 years ago and the family had just never stopped buying the childish plasters.
“Why these ones?” Longshot’s mom asked, hesitant to purchase the cutesy plasters.
“They’re awesome! Every time you look at them they’ll make you happy and you’ll forget all about the pain!” Jet’s squeaky voice argued, and Bee nodded in agreement. He made a good point. Even Longshot was nodding along.
The woman sighed and then her face morphed into a soft, endured smile as she tossed them in with the rest of the groceries. They all cheered as the small pink and white box was added to the cart.
Her hair hung in her eyes, dripping onto her cheeks and rolling down her face in a cold visual mockery of tears. She now smelt like Longshot’s expensive orange scented shampoo and his cheap Irish Spring bar soap.
Bee turned her head to the side when Longshot glanced up at her as he unwrapped another plaster. He wanted her to talk about it. “It” being anything. Jet, her refusal to see him, their fight, her anger, any of it. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
He seemed to understand that she wouldn’t budge, because he just sighed in an almost disappointed way that tugged at her heart as he smoothed a plaster down across her knuckles.
They spent the rest of the day in silence, and she didn’t even say anything to his parents other than a muttered “thank you” when they invited her to stay for dinner and said she could sleep the night. The pity in their eyes did nothing to lessen the growing anger in her heart.
They went to sleep that night on opposite sides of the room with Smellerbee on the old blowup mattress, their backs turned to each other. The absence of another body in the room was far too noticeable, for her as well as for Longshot. She didn’t sleep that night, the rage building up inside of her too hard to ignore. She stared at the popcorn ceiling out of the corners of her eyes as she let it fester.
Step 2: Bury them under a mountain of anger.
She got suspended a week before school was supposed to be let out for break. She would be a fool and a liar to say she regretted it even in the slightest.
The curling anger had been too much for her to handle, and it had only grown in the weeks following her outburst at the treehouse. Every little thing ticked her off. She found herself snapping at her moms’ more often. Car rides to school, once filled with conversation or music, were now silent and suffocating. She didn’t even wish her step mom a goodbye like she used to as she climbed out of the passenger seat, bidding her farewell in the form of a slam of the door that shook the entire Subaru instead of a wave.
She wasn’t blind to the way the older woman would hang her head, resting her forehead on the steering wheel before leaving the parking lot with tears in her eyes, she just couldn’t bring herself to feel anything other than the all consuming rage within her. It was like there was no room in her heart for anything else, not even sympathy or regret.
She became distant with her classmates and friends, unable to bring herself to interact with them when she knew she single handedly brought down the mood with her foul attitude. She firmly avoided Aang and his group, going to great lengths to make detours if she saw them and blocking their numbers so they couldn't contact her. She knew if she saw them the anger in her would bubble over and explode outward onto them. The small, rational part of her that was hidden away somewhere among the grief knew that they didn’t deserve it justforbeing there at the wrong moment.
She had tried sitting with her friends at lunch like normal for the first few days after the accident, but the empty seat where Jet usually sat would stare mockingly at her, and no one else seemed to take his absence as hard as her. She felt out of place in more ways than one. So, she chose to sit alone in the hall where her anger further stewed in solitude. No one argued with her absence, so she never went back to the table.
It all came to a head when she overheard a boy Jet never got along with talking sh*t about him during passing period. Her ears perked up the second she heard the name “Jet” come out of the piece of sh*t’s mouth, and what she heard had her seeing red. All logical thought and rational reasoning disappeared with the blink of an eye.
“What do I think of what happened to Jet?” He laughed, “ The jerk totally had it coming. We’d all be better off without him, I say. Good riddance.”
He hadn’t even seen her coming so he had no chance to counter to defend himself from her vicious attack. She tackled him around the waist, a painful shout of primal rage ripping itself free from her throat as the two of them hit the ground. They wrestled on the dirty hallway floor, stray shots hitting each other with loud, resounding smacks and sprays of blood until Bee gained the upper hand and wound up sitting atop his stomach with her knees digging into his arms, pinning them down.
She wailed on him, her fists making contact with his face again and again in a similar way to how she’d punched the mud only a few days ago, only this time it wasn’t soft, squishy soil with the occasional rock or twig she was hitting. This time her knuckles smacked against human skin and split themselves open on sharp cheek bones.
She barely remembered the attack, the only thing that stuck with her was the way her heart had been racing in her chest and the cold but hot feeling that washed over her entire body. She would learn later from a former friend, Sneers, who happened to be in the hallway at the time, that she had apparently been shouting for the asshole to take it back while he begged her to get off. Everyone, including his friend, watched from the sidelines in shock, no one quite sure what to do.
She had only come back to herself when Longshot appeared to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her off of the sobbing boy beneath her. Her aching knuckles were dripping with blood and her eyebrow was throbbing with pain as she panted, not even struggling to get out of her friend's hold.
She remembered waiting in the principals after being pulled away from Longshot, who wore a stunned and somewhat horrified look on his face as she was escorted away.
She stared down at her knuckles, whose wounds had been reopened, worsened, and added to. One of the plasters had come off and gone missing along the way, while the other was slippery and sliding down the back of her hand, wet with blood that belonged to both her and the boy she’d attacked. She blinked blood out of her eye. She imagined that she looked like Jet in that moment. He was the one who usually acted out and ended up covered in blood.
“What do you think? Makes me look pretty tough, doesn’t it?” Jet asked. He stood on his tiptoes in front of Longshot’s bathroom mirror, his fingers prodding the swelling black eye he was sporting. Dried blood streaked down his lips and stained the collar of his shirt. The bruised and clearly broken nose, the source of the trail, had stopped bleeding a while ago but it still looked really painful.
Bee rolled her eyes.
“You would look tougher if you’d won the fight.” She snarked. He pulled away from the mirror and laughed.
She reached up and touched the wound on her eyebrow and the split skin left her fingers bloody. She rubbed the tips of her fingers together, smearing the blood around. Real tough, Smellerbee. She dropped her hands into her lap and clenching them into fists so tight she felt her bones would break. She almost hoped they would.
The disappointed look her moms' gave her when they came to listen to Bee’s punishment (3 weeks of suspension and a recommendation for grief counseling- she had gotten off extremely easy given the circ*mstances) and take her home was hard to ignore, but she did her best to do so. She didn’t respond with anything other than a glare when both women sat her down on the couch and told her they weren’t going to punish her, but she better clean up her act. They talked at her, not to her, about the possibility of truly taking her to therapy, but she tuned it out.
“Am I dismissed?” She asked once they stopped talking. Their faces fell with disappointment, but they nodded yes and motioned for her to go regardless.
She made sure to slam her bedroom door extra hard.
Step 3: Fertilize them with your pleas for something different.
She receives the news that he wasn’t going to make it a week and a half into summer vacation. She’d been trying to do at least some of the summer homework she’d been sent home with after her suspension at the kitchen table when her mom came into the room with her phone in her hands and tears in her eyes. She relayed the information through a tear clogged voice.
The damage was too much for his body to recover from no matter how much the doctor tried to save him, and god did they try. His body was still shutting down in spite of their efforts. There was nothing more that they could do for him. Life support was the only thing keeping him around, and his parents had come to the hard decision to let him go instead of prolong his suffering.
She had expected to hear this since the day of the accident, but even still, the news was too much for her. It still didn’t feel real.
His parents were urging everyone to say their goodbyes because they were pulling the plug in just a few days. They only weren’t doing it sooner in order to give all of his friends this chance for a farewell. Bee still didn’t want to go. She would prefer to keep her memory of him the way it was. Part of her was unsure, though. She worried that she would regret it the rest of her life if she didn’t let herself go at least once; for his sake if not for her own.
So, she finally agreed to accompany Longshot to the hospital when he sent her a simple invitation text like he had every day since the accident.
They walked together, the hot summer sun beating down on their backs. She wore a pair of baggy shorts and a muscle top that was just a little bit too baggy on her. Her flip flops slapped against the burning concrete, providing the only sound in the air since neither of them wanted to talk. It was too hot to wear her usual headband without swimming in sweat, so she had part of her bangs pinned back with a bobby pin that had a bumblebee charm attached to the end.
The accessory wasn’t something she would usually wear. It was too “girly” for her personal liking, but it had been a gift from her stepmom when the woman first started dating her mom, and Jet and Longshot both thought it suited her so she had gotten into the habit of wearing it whenever the weather was too warm for a headband or a hat.
She couldn’t help herself in thinking that if Jet were here they would be spending this day down at the hideout eating shoplifted bomb pops, or using Longshot’s backyard to have a water fight with the younger kids. If they were feeling extra daring, they would be trying to sneak into the public pool with Zuko’s help or using Jet's car to joyride in an empty lot. She wouldn’t have had to force herself to get out of bed this morning, and they wouldn’t be walking to the hospital in painful silence.
“I think I’m going to drive out to the country this summer,” Jet said.
It was late in the night and they were parked outside of a gas station, having decided to hang out in the car after doing a late night snack run. It was cold and there was frost creeping up the chilled windows; the sound of the heater was loud in her ears. They had school in the morning.
Bee was kneeling on the seat in the back of the truck with her arms crossed over the top of his chair, her chin cushioned on the headrest. Longshot occupied the passenger's seat. Jet had his legs in Longshot’s lap, feet pressing into the door. His back was pressed against his own door with his arms folded behind his head. He spun the stick of the strawberry lolly he had replaced his wheatgrass with idly with his tongue.
“Why's that?” She asked.
“There's nothing but miles of farmland out there. Think about it, just you and the open road for hours. It sounds so liberating.” He said, his eyes and voice both full of wonder, his smile genuine.
“I guess that doesn’t sound too bad.” She said thoughtfully.
Smellerbee hesitated when they finally reached the hospital's entrance, uncertainty stewing in her belly. She looked over at Longshot for reassurance and he nodded his head once. He placed a hand on her sweaty back and gave her a gentle shove forward. She took a deep breath and pushed onward.
The automatic doors opened with a beep and Longshot took the lead towards the front desk where a young woman with black hair dressed in turtleduck scrubs was sitting typing away on a chunky computer. The woman smiled at Longshot as he approached, and Smellerbee lingered just behind him trying to make herself invisible. The receptionist gave him an enthusiastic wave and Bee had to hold herself back from sneering and rolling her eyes.
“Hey, Longshot!” The woman said and Bee’s stomach twisted at the familiarity behind the words. Longshot had visited enough to become well known by the staff, and she hadn’t even been here once, “I’m sure you know where Jet’s room is by now- Oh, hello! You’ve brought a new friend with you, I see! What’s your name, dear?”
“Why do you care?” Bee snapped at the woman, equal parts anger and regret immediately making themselves known to her.
Longshot served her with a disapproving look and she shot him a glare right back, but the woman didn’t appear to be bothered by Smellerbee’s hostility towards her. Longshot put his hand on her back and steered her down the hall after giving the woman a nod of his head.
Longshot pushed the button for the 4th floor and they waited for the elevator in silence. It arrived with a chime and they stepped inside. Bee silently thanked the gods when it turned out to be empty. Once the door closed, leaving them alone in the small box, Longshot turned to her and gave her a look.
“What! Maybe she shouldn’t have been so in my business.” Bee said, crossing her arms.
“All she did was ask your name. You did not need to be so rude,.” Longshot signed, his movements almost stiff and punctual, giving off his disappointment.
“I wasn’t-!” He gave her another look and she deflated, letting her arms fall to her side. “You’re right. I’m upset, but that doesn’t mean I should be taking it out on someone who didn’t do anything wrong. Sorry.”
“I’m not the one you should be saying sorry to.” Longshot signed. Bee sighed, knowing he was right again. She would apologize to the woman on their way out.
The elevator stopped on their floor and again she hesitated, but this time she pushed through it all on her own, taking a deep breath and blowing it out through her nose. She let Longshot lead the way down the long hall since she was ignorant to which room to even head to.
When she thought of hospitals she thought of these places with white walls and white floors, devoid of life and colour. Somehow the wooden trim running across the bottom of the painted teal walls, along with the grey flooring, was in a way worse. It was like it was trying to be homey and failing miserably. The fluorescent lights above their heads certainly didn’t help with the eerie atmosphere.
It smelt of bleach like she thought it would, but in the background was an almost minty smell; some other kind of cleaner whose scent was so familiar that she was sure Iroh also used it to clean the kitchen of his tea shop. It burned her nostrils.
A nurse shuffled by them with an armful of blankets, a tired look on her face. A patient moved past them, dragging an IV stand along with them as they turned their head away from them and kept to the opposite wall to avoid coming close than necessary. Bee kept her eyes on the ground from that point on. She hated it here with its air of depression and confinement.
Thankfully, It was not long until Longshot stopped at the door numbered 217, which was near the very end of the hallway, where a window sat overlooking the traffic on the nearby highway.
Longshot turned the door handle and pushed it open without giving her a chance to prepare herself.
She stood frozen in the doorway as Longshot walked over to Jet’s bed. She only budged from her spot when Longshot looked over his shoulder at her and tilted his chin to the side, motioning for her to come in. On legs like Jell-O, she walked into the room, which had the same smell of bleach and mint, along with the warm spice scent of Jet’s laundry detergent. She jumped as the door closed loudly behind her.
Longshot moved to the side as she drew closer, and her heart raced in her chest, tears that she refused to let fall welling up in her eyes. She had a basic idea of what she would see when she came here, but somehow it was so much worsethan the horrors her mind had conjured up in the time she spent avoiding this place.
The first thing she noticed was that he looked small. He had always been on the thin side, but now he just looked unhealthy, he looked young. The excessive amount of blankets he had covering his frame only added to the frail appearance. Her eyes were drawn to the topmost blanket and she found that it was the knitted one made up of reds and blues with stray bits of brown or orange running through it; a birthday from Longshot when the other boy was just starting out on his knitting journey. It was one of Jet’s most prized possessions, and she knew that, for the most part, it lived on the back of the front seat of the old truck he’d bought last fall using his savings.
Someone must have brought it all the way here for him.
The next thing she noticed were the bruises that covered nearly all of his visible skin. Some were faded, others not so much. Those that weren’t were made up of various shades of deep purples and blues, marred occasionally with splashes of red and ugly lacerations, the worst of which she could see peeking out from the top of his gown. Any bit of skin that wasn’t covered by physical trauma was a sickly pale grey colour; nothing like his usually healthy tan.
The third, and most obvious, thing that registered in her mind, were all the tubes and wires. The ventilator and feeding tube both looked horrible and invasive. The many IVs that they had him on were leaving bruises of their own where they pricked into the crook of his elbow and the top of his boney hands down by his sides. It all served to make him appear even smaller than he already did in the large hospital bed.
She reached out, her trembling fingers brushing against the back of his hand. He was cold to the touch. This was so, so wrong.
Her breathing picked up and her already racing heart increased in speed. Her legs moved before her mind could catch up and before she knew it she was out in the hallway once more. She heard Longshot run after her, but she was faster than him, always had been. She didn’t bother with the elevator and instead pushed her way through the door that was labeled as stairs. She raced down the spiraling staircase, her steps echoing loud and metallic in the small square space. She stumbled halfway down, but caught herself on the railing, her knee banging against the metal step below. She kept pushing onward despite the throbbing pain in her knee.
She reached the first floor and pushed the door open with her shoulder as hard as she could. Stumbling, she clumsily righted herself before running for the front doors. She shouldered past a man she barely noticed was there and ignored his angry shouts. She also ignored the receptionist when she called out to her.
Her vision blurred around the edges as her feet hit the burning concrete outside, and it was then that she noticed she had lost her shoes somewhere along the way. She bent at the waist and planted her sweaty palms on her knees, heaving for air. Bile rose in the back of her throat and she swallowed back a thick mouthful of saliva.
She barely made it to the bushes that sat against the wall on the outside of the hospital before she was vomiting what little she had eaten that morning into the shrubbery. She gagged and spit into the dirt, trying to get as much of the taste as she could out of her mouth.
Jet shouldn’t look like that.
He should be happy and smiling and enjoying the summer break just like the rest of them. He shouldn’t be in bed hooked up to all those machines with only a few days left to live.
Maybe if she had convinced the others to call the search off the second the rain took a turn for the worse he wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Or maybe if she had been there, if she had stuck a little bit closer to him they wouldn't have gotten separated, she could have stopped Aang before he ran into the street, or she could have been faster than Jet. Maybe it would be her in that hospital bed, not him. She wished it was.
She thought back further: if she hadn’t invited Jet over to watch low budget horror films with her that night, he never would have been there when she answered the door and he never would have gone out with them to help the kid find his stupid dog. If she hadn’t insisted Jet be the bigger person and make friends with them after his and Katara's break up in the first place back in their first years of high school they wouldn’t have ever come to her house asking for help. They wouldn’t have had a reason to.
Why couldn’t Aang have been the one to get hit?! Why did it have to be Jet?! Why her best friend instead of the kid they barely knew!? Why couldn’t it have been anyone else on the end of those headlights? She immediately felt bad for the cruel thoughts, and she gagged as more bile rose into her throat, which she spit out with the rest of the mess.
She knew Jet wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to change the outcome. She would give anything to go back in time and change whatever it took about that night to avoid losing one of her best friends.
Maybe if she had visited him more before his time was so limited something might be different. She couldn’t help the guilt that flooded her when she thought of him in that room so far away from her while she wallowed in anger that she couldn’t logically direct at anyone. Why couldn’t she have just come sooner? Why couldn’t she have been there for him? Maybe he wouldn’t be on borrowed time if she just sucked it up.
Would it have even mattered if she had, though? How full of herself she must be to think that her voice out of the sea of people Jet knew would be what pulled him back from the edge. She wanted it to though. Gods how she wanted it to. She would give anything, doanything to see Jet again. The real Jet, the happy, smiling Jet who gave her noogies and teased her relentlessly.
How could she do that? How could she turn back the clock? Logically she knew she couldn’t, it was impossible in every conceivable way. There was no going back, it was all set in stone, and it was bullsh*t.
Why couldn’t things be changed? Someone tell her why it had to be this way, why did her best friend have to die? Wasn’t there anything that she could do?!
She jumped when a hand settled onto her sweaty, trembling back. She looked up to find Longshot crouching above her, her black flip flops held loosely by the straps in his hands. He was panting slightly, clearly out of breath after having ran after her, and his brow was glistening with sweat. He looked concerned.
“Tell me how I can fix this, Lon,” She begged, voice hoarse from vomiting “Tell me what I can do to make this better.”
He didn’t have an answer for her; not that she really had expected one. They both knew that there was nothing to be done. He simply wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a hug. She clung to him, fingers diggingdesperatelyinto his back as she trembled.
“Do you want to go home now?” Longshot pulled away to ask her. She nodded, and that was that. As much as she wanted to go back in there and say her goodbyes and tell her friend she loved him, she knew she wasn’t strong enough. She should never have come.
Later that night, laying in her bed with the covers pulled up over her head despite the summer heat, she scrolled through the pictures on her phone. She hadn’t taken any new ones in months, so the most recent photos dated all the way back to March, and nearly all of them contained Jet.
There were pictures of them hanging out at the mall, at the vintage wares shop, the new years party at Jet’s, last year's fall festival, shopping at the farmers market, and a plethora of them hanging out at each other's houses or at the treehouse. Her favorite photo by far, indicated even with the little heart symbol it held in her gallery, was a selfie of her and Jet. They were at the little thrift shop that was hidden away in the shopping district, where they’d been shopping for a birthday present for Longshot.
In the picture, she was wearing a ridiculously oversized pair of pin striped, star shaped sunglasses and she was sticking her tongue out at the camera, her arm stretched out of the screen in order for her to take the selfie. Jet had his arm thrown around her shoulder and he was wearing a pair of rose tinted, heart shaped glasses that had rounded white lenses. He wore a smirk, his forefinger and thumb framing his chin
“Check these things out.” Jet said, stopping them at the rack of sunglasses near the thrift shops cash registers.
“These are hideous,” Bee laughed as she pulled the star shaped glasses off of the rack and put them on.
“Oh we have got to get a picture in these bad boys.” Jet said, throwing his arm around her shoulder wearing his own pair of shades. Smellerbee rolled her eyes, but pulled out her phone to take a picture anyway. The flash of the camera burned her eyes, but still she smiled and laughed as Jet looked over her shoulder to see the resulting photo.
She sniffed and blinked back tears as she switched her phone off and shoved it underneath her pillow. She buried her head into the plush surface and held onto it hard, trying not to cry. Gods, please, please, please don’t take her friend away from her.
Step 4: Water them with your tears.
She felt hollow as she sat in the stiff, uncomfortable pew. The minister droned on in the background, but she heard none of it, the words going in one ear and out of the other as she stared at the back of the row in front of her. She knew without a doubt that Jet would hate this.
He was not a religious person by any means, and yet here they were in a church with big stained glass windows and candle stands taller than her and rows upon rows of uncomfortable seating that had little bibles tucked into cubbies situated in the back while a priest said prayers in “honour of Jet’s memory”.
What a load of bullsh*t all of it was.
Jet didn’t want a funeral in a church in the first place. He didn’t want a priest. He didn’t want bible verses or hymns read in his memory. He didn’t want stuffy old ladies and aunts and cousins he rarely ever spoke to, singing songs about his soul passing on. He didn’t want a closed casket service. The state, who took over his funeral arrangements since he was never formally adopted by his parents, didn't give a damn about what he wanted, though.
She wanted to feel angry about it. She wanted to storm out of the church the second she realized how wrong it felt. She wanted to cause a scene, something, anything. But…she couldn’t bring herself to. Her head was spinning and she felt like someone had reached inside of her and scooped out her feelings and soul, leaving her empty and inhuman.
Her mother sat on her right, her stepmom the next seat over. Longshot sat on her right, his hand tightly clenched in her own, the contact feeling similar to that sensation you get when you touch something after your limb has fallen asleep. He had tears rolling down his bright red face as he stared ahead with a straight back. He was trying to appear strong despite the tears streaming from his eyes arguing otherwise.
She didn’t know anyone else there, their faces all blurry masses that refused to register in her mind. Maybe that was for the best
She blinked and next thing she knew she was standing side by side with Longshot with her mom’s hand on her shoulder, watching as they lowered her best friend into a deep hole. It was sunny outside, mockingly so, and incredibly hot in the suit and tie she had worn to watch her friend be buried. The rays beat against her back, pressing against her from every side. They felt like eyes, like laughter, like an otherworldly force telling her this was her fault and she would never, ever see him again.
When they began to shovel the dirt into the hole, all other sounds, such as the crying and shuffling and shifting of clothes, became static in her ears. All she could hear was the stab of the shovel digging into the dirt and the loud smack as shovelful after shoverful hit the mahogany casket
It was loud, as loud as a gunshot breaking through the silence. No, that wasn’t right. It was as loud as a strike of lightning cracking through the night sky as rain poured down, beating against her skin with bruising force. It was as loud as the default ringtone to an old phone screeching from inside of her pocket. It was as loud as the guttural sobbing from the other line, the connection crackly and unstable due to the bad weather. It was as loud as her knees hitting the concrete sidewalk, too weak to hold her up in the wake of her denial.
She doesn’t remember the walk back to her car, or her moms’ trying to talk to her, nor does she remember being driven home and led unresponsively into her room, where she was stripped of her blazer and tie and made to lay down.
At some point she got up to shower and change into pjs that somehow felt both too soft for her skin and like sandpaper at the same time. At some point she sat at the dinner table and picked at the food that was placed in front of her. She remembered the meal; sinigang with rice on the side, a tall glass of calamansi juice with a curly straw to go with it. She’d barely eaten any of it, the usually sour taste then dull on her tongue.
Nearly a whole serving of food was left behind in her bowl when she was excused to go to bed on a stomach that should ache with hunger but didn’t.
The weeks that passed were a blur, and she spent most of them inside in bed or on the couch in the sitting room. Occasionally, she could be found outside watering the plants, a task that her mother had given her in an attempt to get her moving and active. That didn’t last long, though. Smellerbee’s lackluster watering job had led to many of the flowers wilting or flatout dying.
She had vague memories of Longshot and the others showing up to try and coax her out of the house, but they always gave up after several minutes with no success. Longshot stayed a few times, to stay by her side and sit in silence before he too left her alone in the all too quiet house she had chosen to isolate herself in.
She barely ate in that time, only picking at the food her parents presented her with, whose portions shrank in size as the days went by in an attempt to appease her rapidly shrinking appetite. She hardly showered either, only finding it in herself to do so after the build up of grime and sweat on her body became downright unbearable or her mom made her.
The first coherent memory she had of this dark period of time in her life was maybe a month or so after Jet’s funeral. She walked through the small grocery mart a few blocks away from her home, a plastic basket held in her semi-lax grip as she roamed listlessly through the isles. Her mom had all but forced her out of the house, shoving a scribbly shopping list into her hands and telling her not to come back until she had everything. She didn't really want to, and would much prefer to lay on the couch, but the locked front door left her with few other options, so she did as she was told.
She was dressed in an oversize T-Shirt and a pair of basketball shorts, both of which were far more smelly than she would like to admit. She didn’t even know whose shoes she was wearing, she had just shoved them onto her un-socked feet on her way out, but something told her they were her stepmom’s nike sneakers by the way that they were slightly too large.
She held a can of vegetable broth in her hands, turning it over and over as she zoned out. Absently, she was aware that the broth wasn’t even on the list.
“Smellerbee! Hello!” An overly eager voice called out, somewhat breaking her out of her stupor. She turned to the voice in a sluggish manner and found herself face to face with none other than Aang, one of the people she had made great efforts to avoid for months on end.
He was dressed in an orange T-shirt and a pair of tan cargo shorts. His arms, uncovered in the summer heat, were covered in healed and half healed wounds. They cut through his tattoos in an almost grotesque way and he still had plasters in a few places. He had a few similar, faded scars on the side of his shaved head. She knew what they were from; nasty road rash he’d received when Jet shoved him to safety. His face was bright and he looked happy to see her, but she could also see an air of sadness lingering just behind the surface of his eyes.
“....Hi, Aang.” She replied before glancing back to the can. She dropped it into the basket and turned to walk away as fast as she could.
Aang, of course, moved to keep pace with her despite her obvious attempts to get away from him. She turned down the next aisle, which was the frozen food aisle. She was supposed to get shrimp or something from this aisle; or at least she thought she was. She didn’t bother looking at the list.
“I’m glad to see you out, I’ve really been missing you and so has everyone else.” He said from beside her. Aang kept speaking, uncaring of her attempts to distance herself, “I know you probably don’t want to talk about this right now in a supermarket of all places, but I haven’t had the chance to talk to you since…that night and it felt too important to say over text.”
She sighed, “What is it Aang?” She really just wanted to get this stupid trip over with so she could go back to sleep.
“I’m really sorry,” He said, and she froze, hand halfway reaching towards one of the freezers, “About Jet, I mean. I should never have dragged him, or anyone else, out to look for Appa with me. I knew it was dangerous to go looking in the middle of a storm, and I knew running out into the street was stupid, but I did it anyway and because of that Jet got hurt. Worse than hurt.”
“I…” She didn’t know what to say. She knew that had he said this to her months ago she would have lashed out at him in anger. She would have blamed him. She would have told him it was all his fault. She wouldhave demanded that he apologize for getting them all into this mess even though they all made the conscious decision to help him that night. The tears in his eyes would have done nothing to stop her from shouting at him until her voice gave out. So why did the apology hurt to hear?
“I did something stupid, and now Jet is gone, everyone is hurting really bad, and you haven’t been yourself at all. I’m so sorry, Bee.” He said, sniffling and wiping the back of his wrist across his eyes to clear away the tears.
In front of her wasn’t the boy who got her friend killed like she would have branded him months ago. Instead there stood a kid, someone no more than 3 years younger than herself, who was hurting just as much as she was, who was carrying so much guilt that it was tearing him apart inside.
“Aang…” She set her basket down and planted both hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look her in the eyes, and he did. “It wasn’t your fault. There's no way you could have predicted that this would happen. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’m still so, so sorry.” He said, eyes watery and bloodshot.
“You don’t have to be,” She said as she pulled him into a hug. He held onto her with an iron grip, and it didn’t take long for him to start crying into her shoulder, the tears creating a damp patch on her shirt. It was like that broke something in her, because after months of not letting herself cry, or being unable to do so, there were suddenly hot tears burning tracks down her cheeks. She gasped and then sniffled, holding onto the younger boy tighter.
“It wasn’t your fault either, you know.” Aang said suddenly, his words muffled by her shirt.
That seemed to fully dislodge the damn that had slowly built itself up inside of her emotions and the light trickle of tears turned into an unstoppable stream that was accompanied by hiccups and snot flowing freely from her nose. She hadn’t realized how badly she needed to hear those words. She hugged him close, her fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt as she finally let out months worth of pain and grief right in the middle of the supermarket.
Eventually they pulled away from each other and she wiped her face with the hem of her shirt, cringing at the gross wet patch left behind. Aang did the same but with the back of his wrist. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot, his face still streaked with tear tracks. She assumed she looked no better.
“I’m sorry for dropping that on you in the middle of your shopping trip…” Aang said after a moment, sniffling deeply.
“It’s fine,” She said, wiping her eyes with her palms one more time before wiping them on her shorts and picking up her basket, “I think I needed to hear that.”
“I would offer to help you find the rest of what you need, but Gyatso is waiting for me and I can’t keep him much longer. I…I’ll see you around, Bee?” He asked hesitantly, shuffling backwards awkwardly. She shifted from one foot to the other, equally awkward.
“See you, Aang,” She said, and she felt like she really meant it. That made him smile, and with a small wave, he ran off, disappearing around the bend of the aisle.
She felt briefly embarrassed when she saw a worker peek around the same bend to her with a perturbed expression, but she couldn’t bring herself to be too upset about it. She felt lighter somehow after the interaction. She felt as though she had shed several pounds that had been sitting on top of her shoulders and the fog had been lifted from her mind. She still didn’t feel okayexactly, but she felt better in a way. She picked up her basket and finished picking out everything the list told her they needed.
With grocery bags in hand, she walked up the steps of her house and waited to be let in. Her mom, who looked stressed and tired, broke out into a small smile when she saw Smellerbee actually came back with the grocery bags. The smile grew when Bee made an effort to help put everything away and prep for dinner.
“You seem to be in a better mood. How are you feeling?” Her stepmom asked at dinner that night. Another bowl of sinigang sat in front of her, steaming and delicious smelling. Tears blurred her vision as she dug her spoon into the meal, and they fell as she brought the utensil to her mouth.
“Bee?” Her mom asked, alarmed at the sight of her daughter crying into her food.
“I think I’m going to be okay now.” She replied in a shaky voice as she swallowed the food and took another bite, and another, and another. The sweet, sour taste exploded across her taste buds.
Step 5: Give them time to grow.
The grass crunched under her feet as she made her way through the cemetery with her hands stuffed deep into the pockets of her bomber jacket. She shivered a little in the autumn weather, wishing the thick jacket had some kind of hood to protect her against the elements. Stupid Jet; he couldn’t even leave her a jacket with a hood on it.
She stopped when she reached the headstone she was looking for. This was the first time she was visiting him since the funeral a year ago, and therefore it was the first time she was properly seeing the stone. Longshot had offered to come with her to make sure she found the right one, but she told him she needed to do this herself, so he’d stayed in the truck to wait for her.
It wasn’t a large stone; coming up to just under her hips and just a little bit wider than her. Jet Macabuhay: Son, Friend, and Beloved member of the community , the carving on the light grey surface read. There was a bird in flight carved into the stone beneath the lettering. Around it rested flowers in various stages of life, some old and some newer. She hadn’t brought flowers, but she kinda wished she had.
She plopped herself down into the grass in front of the stone, being careful to avoid hitting the flowers as she crossed her legs and dropped her hands into her lap.
“Hey, Jet.” She said into the open air, “It’s been a year since you f*cked off, I guess. I’m as old as you were when it happened, which is… really weird to think about actually. I’ll be older than you soon, and that’s…even weirder to think about.”
She took a deep breath and sighed, reaching her hand up to shove her finger under her headband and pick at the scar that was left on her eyebrow from the fight she’d gotten into weeks after his death.
“Me and Aang have been hanging out more lately. Funny that I was the one who insisted that you make friends with that lot, but I never realized how uninvolved I was with them. They’re good people. Aang still feels awful for what happened to you. He carries a lot of guilt over it… I do, too. We make sure to beat it out of each other, though, don’t worry. I know you wouldn’t want us to be so hung up on it. ‘I made my choice, this isn’t about you’ is what you would say…or something as equally as infuriating as that.”
She laughed, running her hands through her hair. It was getting too long, she would have to cut it sometime soon.
“We all really miss you, you know. The Duke has trouble remembering that you aren’t coming back. He asks about you from time to time, and I know it breaks his heart every day that you aren’t here. It still breaks mine too, if I’m being honest. It’s hard coming to terms with losing you after you were such a big part of my life, you asshole.
“I don’t think I will ever forgive you for leaving us behind like this. You were supposed to hang around until we were old and wrinkly. We were supposed to make the world a better place together, that’s what you always said. You were supposed to watch The Duke and all the other kids grow up and graduate. You promised to teach me how to drive and how to make pandesal, and now I’m going to have to do those things all by myself ....”
She wiped a few stray tears away from the corners of her eyes.
“I’m glad we got the years we did together, though. You were one of my best friends in the world, as childish as that sounds. You really helped me become confident in myself, you helped me grow into the person I am today. I’m grateful to have got to meet you, and I’ll always cherish the memories we had together
“I think… I think that I’m finally ready to move now, I’m ready to let you go. As much as I wish you were still here, I’ll be okay without you. I love you, Jet, thanks for being my friend.”
Her fingers brushed against the stone as she stood, and another, stronger, gust of wind blew by to ruffle her hair and cause her to pull the jacket tighter around herself. She waved goodbye to Jet before taking off through the graveyard, heading back towards where Longshot was still parked in the lot with the truck. The plan for the day was to take a drive out to the countryside, see where the day took them.
“How did it go?” Longshot asked as Bee closed the passenger side door and buckled herself in. “Did you say everything you wanted to?
“Yeah,” She replied simply, “I think it went well.”
The knit blanket was warm against her back as she watched the cemetery grow smaller the further they drove from it until it finally disappeared out of sight, closing a painful chapter in her life.
