everyone_takes | April 17

For the most part, Kate doesn't believe people when they say they just know that someone is gone. Every time someone has disappeared, she's noticed things that are strange, but she's never had this feeling, this intense knowledge that they're just gone, not like others have claimed. Sometimes she wonders if they're just telling themselves they knew to make themselves feel better when it takes them several days to notice.

That's sort of how she feels when she finds herself standing in the middle of the hut Harry used to live in, a box of jewellery in her hands. It's been two days since she last saw him, but sometimes that happens. Sometimes they both get busy and they miss each other instead of connecting, that's just life and she's taken it for granted. So a little part of her wants to tell herself that she's known all along, but the truth is that she's only just realized it now and she feels stupid. Lost. She feels like a child playing at being grown up and suddenly all the things she's been doing over the last few months don't matter.

Clutching the box against her stomach, she makes her way home and she sits in the front yard, letting Chang crawl into her lap even though he's far too big to do it. He crushes the box, but she doesn't bother moving it. She isn't even sure why she took it. Harry never gave any of it to her and now he never will.

So many people have disappeared and she hasn't cried. She isn't going to start now, but when Chang whines and licks her chin, she wraps both her arms around him and presses her face into his fur.

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"If I was going to become a drunk, I would've done it a long time ago," she pointed out, although a lot of that was Harry's influence. They'd certainly managed to get into trouble together and it wasn't like either of them had been totally clean cut, but somehow she'd felt more balanced with him around. Maybe that was her problem, maybe it had been stupid to rely on a guy to make her feel balanced.

"Like, when I was twelve, probably," she said. "Does mead even exist on the island?"

"Not that I'm any expert, but I've noticed that people here are really, really good about making alcohol."

It was, after all, just some chemistry. Most alcohol didn't even require a lot of exotic ingredients, it was just a matter of trial and error to perfect it.

"If not, I'll find out how to make it and we can have beer tonight and mead another night."

"Beer sounds like less work," she admitted, looking at the box she'd taken from Harry's hut for a second. Then she nudged it toward the door with her toe and left it there. It wasn't going to go anywhere, it would still be there for her to be depressed about when she got back.

"Make sure I don't do anything dumb, okay?" she asked. "Like, for the next few weeks. It's pretty much guaranteed I'm going to get wasted and try to hook up with someone to forget all this shit."

"Okay," Sam said with a nod, taking her request absolutely serious. He didn't want to see Kate do anything that she would really regret later. Losing someone you cared about was miserable and Sam could see all too well how badly someone might want to get involved in some destructive behaviors because of it.

"Just to be clear, I will be checking up on you about this. I'm not going to go full on stalker mode or anything but I care about you too much to not check in on you, okay?"

"Gotcha," Kate answered and she appreciated it, even if she'd probably react poorly while she was drunk. Right now, she just felt weird and sort of numb, but she knew that wouldn't last. Eventually, she'd start to feel sad and restless, like she needed to crawl out of her own skin. That was when things would go back.

"I don't even know what to do right now," she admitted. "I know I said beer and... yeah, okay, but I don't know. I'm just sorta... numb.

Sam couldn't even sympathize with her, this sort of thing wasn't something he could comprehend. If Cassie disappeared he knew he'd take it really hard, he just couldn't even begin to imagine what he'd do.

"We can start with beer and go from there," he said. Really, there should be some sort of pamphlet that told you how to help people deal with this. "Hey, did you know you have a double on the island? I just remembered that. Not- not that it's relevant at all."

"Oh, yeah," she said and if it sounded like she'd only just remembered that, it was because she had. Suddenly pretending to be someone else didn't seem like that much fun anymore, not when there was a good chance she'd just disappear anyway. She'd regret wasting that time with her friends.

"Yeah, Reggie met her," she said. "It's weird." Jenna would be disappearing, too, in the next little while. Hopefully no one would miss her.

Sam nodded. Going to find out what your cone was up to was probably not the sort of thing that Kate was up for right now. If ever.

"Oh, hey, I know what we can do!" he said. "Although it probably should involve not getting a beer. But, I know a guy that has a jet ski that we can go use."

"A jet ski?" Kate repeated, lifting her eyebrows a little, even though a hint of a smile curved the corner of her mouth. "I kind of feel like you and I and a jet ski might end in disaster even without getting a beer first."

But that definitely wasn't a no. Anything distracting would be good for her and having an ocean disaster might be exactly the right thing.

"A jet ski. Come on, it'll be awesome. We can take it all around the island. Have you ever been all the way around?" he asked. Sam had only been twice on the jet ski, but it was pretty awesome.

"We can bake in the sun, then come back and get drunk. Guaranteed way to completely pass out from exhaustion and some dehydration."

Kate shook her head in response to his question. "I've never been all the way around," she said, then smiled a little, even though she didn't feel like it. Sam was really trying and she appreciated that, even if she still felt mostly like crap.

"Okay, let's do it," she said. "Who's this friend of yours?"

"Yes, jet ski time!" Sam said, fist pumping. He wasn't quite that excited about it, but he figured that for Kate's sake he would up the enthusiasm just a bit. Besides, jet skiing was lots of fun.

"His name is Wilke. He's our age. Great guy, and not just because he lets people use his jet ski."

"Never heard of him," Kate said, which wasn't totally unusual. She had the people she was close to, but she hadn't exactly been the most social of all the butterflies in the past few months, dealing with Esther and all the crap that had followed.

"I need a bathing suit, I guess, huh?" she asked, looking back toward her hut. Everything seemed like such a great effort in that moment.

Sam gave a bit of a shrug. A bathing suit was probably standard protocol when jet skiing, but it wasn't absolutely necessary.

"We'll have life vests," he said. "And it's not like you're wearing a jean skirt. Just... just say fuck it. We'll go in our clothes."

Kate looked down at herself, then shrugged. "Why the fuck not?" she asked, because most of the time her clothes weren't exactly the kind someone wore for coverage. "It's not like that stupid box won't give me eight more pairs of bright purple shorts, because it thinks I hate them or something."

"Bright purple shorts are so you though," Sam told her with a nod. "I think of you, and I think of bright purpose shorts."

He didn't know if he should be trying to comfort her or not right now. She didn't seem like she really wanted that sort of thing, at least not right now.

"Wait, did that come out really, really weird?"

"Super weird, but that's okay. I like weird," Kate answered with a little smile. "Come on, let's do this." She didn't know if it would actually work, but it was worth a try. Plus, distraction was pretty much the name of the game, she figured.

April 17

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