"None of Us Were Whole"

JJ Maybank was never a hero. He was a time bomb—one word, one touch, and there were fists, screams, smoke. He had a father who should have been caged and thrown into the ocean. He had friends he would give the shirt off his back. He had a heart—a hell of a lot, but it was taped shut and held together by sheer willpower.

Haillie had entered his life quietly. Like a shadow. The new girl in town. No one knew exactly where she came from. She didn't talk to anyone. At school—no eye contact, no smiles. Always in black, like she was trying to disappear.JJ noticed her the first day. Not because she was pretty. Because she was – but that wasn’t the point. He noticed her because she looked the way he felt. Like the whole world was fucking her and she didn’t have the strength to fight anymore.

It all started in the grocery store.

She was standing by the cereal shelf and shaking. Literally – shaking all over, like she was having a seizure. JJ was on his way to get some cheap beer and chips, but when he saw her, something in his stomach turned.

“Hey. Is everything okay?” he said, a cigarette in his mouth and one eye blackened from his last fight with his father.

She looked at him. And then he saw. That look. It wasn’t fear. It was terror mixed with self-loathing. Like she was carrying something inside her that she couldn’t get rid of.

“Don’t touch me,” she said sharply, though JJ didn’t even flinch. “Just… go away.” He didn't leave.

"I don't have to touch you. I just have to be here," he said, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the store. Like a jerk, but seriously, he didn't care what people thought.

And he sat there. Until the attack passed.