chapter thirty-eight 

she was gone 

3rd person pov 

via sat in front of the house with everyone and she stared at it in shock. the whole thing was up in flames and she realized that john b didn't have a home anymore. she realised that she didn't have a place to go when things got hard and neither did anyone else. everything they had was gone and she realized that maybe that was how it was supposed to be. maybe that was the whole point of things, to let things burn and char until they're unrecognizable and you stare at the ash wondering if the way they are now is the way they've always been. 

via looked at john b and then at the others. kiara had her head resting on v's shoulder as did jj and the three of them stared at the house together. she could feel sarahs eyes staring at her but she didn't make eye contact or even look at the women for a second. she couldn't and she wouldn't. the way things were, they had been like this for a while and she had to see that. maybe this was a sign. maybe leaving was the best idea and she knew that now. 

"i have to go home" via whispered and jj looked at her as he made eye contact with pope and then kiara. they knew she was going home to pack her things and disappear. it was no secret that she had been feeling like this for a while and now she could finally do it. 

"I'll come with you" kiara told her and via shook her head as she stood up and so did sarah but she didn't look at her. jj stood up and grabbed her arms turning her to him and he nodded his head, she knew that he knew and for some reason that made the whole thing worse. he wanted to go with her but he couldn't. he knew that she needed to do this and so did everyone else. 

"walk with me?" he asked and she nodded as they got up and so did kiara. cleo, john b  sarah and pope  watched the three of them get up together and walk off. there was something in the way they all walked together which proved something to the others. 

"youre leaving aren't you?" jj asked her as they got far enough away that the others couldn't hear them and via nodded as she turned to them and nodded. via thought about the fact that cat probably knew she was leaving and there was nothing she could do but help her pack. 

"how long have you been thinking about leaving?" kiara asked her sister and via sighed as she shrugged and ran a hand through her hair. she looked around and then at the charred home that used to be the chateau and then at them again. 

"for a while. when we got back, nothing was the same and then sarah cheated on me and i realized that i have no purpose here. we're all changing and growing and i need to let the things go that hold me down and make me feel the way i do. i would never without telling you two. i could never do that. i wrote a letter for sarah before last night about the fact that i was leaving. i wrote some for you guys too but they're not the same. i want you guys to know that this is hard for me and I'm trying really hard to remember why I'm leaving. if this was easier, i would be gone by now but I'm not and i really hope youre not mad at me for this" she started to cry and kiara felt her eyes water as jj did too. she was their sister and they would always need her but if leaving was the best thing for her, they would have to understand and they would have to stand by her side 

"v, I'm not mad. I'm just really gonna miss you but if leaving is what you need to remind yourself who you are then ill help you pack" kiara told her and jj nodded 

"yeah i will too" he said and she smiled as she pulled them into a hug and they both sighed. the three of them knew this was hard and none of them could handle change well but this was something they all needed. so that's what they did, later that night. 

via stood in her room with kiara, jj and cat as they helped her pack and she looked around at three of them. she wished john b and pope were there for this but she could settle for the three of them. she watched as jj took a few of her things and turned to her 

"can i keep this?" he asked and she nodded with a smile as he took the tanktop that she had in her top drawer. she didn't know where she was going and she packed up anything that she didn't want and she would bring it to goodwill or a thrift shop, she gave anything to cat and kiara that they wanted and when that was done, she looked around her bareboned room and she sighed. she couldn't believed that she was actually leaving and it made her sad 

"i can't believe I'm actually leaving" she stated and she felt someone lay their head on her shoulder and she tilted her head to see jj standing next to her with a sad look on his face and he opened her hand as he put something in it and he closed her hand but she opened it 

"jj this is your zippo, i can't take this" she fought and he shook his head 

" i want you to remember me" he told her and she sighed as she hugged him and he held her tightly. the fact that she was leaving reminded him that things like this happen all the time and there's nothing you can do about it. she looked at kiara and then cat as they stared at her and she sighed 

"give this to sarah please" she said as she handed kiara the letter and kiara nodded her head and she watched jj let go of her making her walk over and hug her too. via felt the tears on her shoulder and she let hers drop too. she was leaving her best friend and she never thought she would do that. 

"be safe kie" she reminded her sister and kiara nodded sadly as they let go and kiara handed her the chocker that rested on her neck and put it around hers. via smiled sadly and then she finally looked at cat 

"thanks for being here, cat" she said and cat walked over as she hugged her too and they both let out a sigh. their entire life was flashing before them and she remembered meeting the girl when she was younger, the way things used to be and she wished she could go back to that now but she couldn't. she reminded herself of that. 

when she let go, they brought the boxes out to her car and she smiled. first she drove to goodwill and dropped off the boxes of things she didn't want. there was a total of 6 boxes that she dropped off and when she got back home,she grabbed the rest of the boxes which was 5 of them. then she closed the trunk of her car and looked at them one last time

"ill miss you guys" she called as she started the car and she watched them wave goodbye as she started her car and she drove off leaving them to stare at the back of her car. she felt the tears drip down her face as she drove out of the city of outer banks. she drove past the burnt down chateau, jjs house, heywards shop, sarahs house, and every other location that she had been in from the ages of one to seventeen. she didn't think she would ever drive out one last time and never see any of this every again but here she was. 

the tears drifted down her face and she tried to wipe them but they kept coming. it started to rain and she knew that driving while crying and when it was raining was not a safe idea but she didn't care. as long as she got out of there as fast as she could thats what she would do. the feeling of dying wasn't something she was scared of but she promised that she would be safe and yet here she was. 

she didn't realize that she was pumping the gas harder or the fact that the rain was coming down faster or harder then before. she knew that she would pull over and wait it out. let herself idle on the side of the road and wait but she didn't and that was a mistake because there it was. 

a 16 wheeler truck coming at her and she didn't see it. the rain and tears made it harder and the person slammed on their brakes but it was no use because their truck spun out and hit her car. her car took the brunt of the impact and she ended up hitting a tree. between the mix of the tree and the back of the 16 wheeler hitting her. she was dead on impact and the last thing she remembered was the note that she wrote to sarah which went something a little bit like this. 

"Dear Sarah, I dont even know why im writing this. After everything you've said and done,I'm still sitting here because i think that if i write this, it'll make me feel better or like you care but i know you won't. I don't know if you're ever going to get this, I don't know the future or anything but I know that leaving is the best thing for me right now. the one thing i want to say is thank you for the past year; after everything that happened, becauyse I now know I couldn't have done it without you. everything that happened with you was supposed to happen and i wouldn't be writing this if it wasn't for you. some things are meant to happen for a reason which sucks but i know that now. I wouldnt have been able to survive. I know that without you, the world and I would be different. I love you, Sarah Cameron, even after everything, even after the pain, fighting, anger, and sadness. I still love you, and I have always loved you. I have always loved you for your kindness, your love, your smile, and just you. You have always been there for me, and I love you more than I should. the idea that I'm leaving us and you behind because of something you did hurts me more then anything else and I've been shot but thats not the point. 

i never thought that it would get to this point but it has and i don't know how. i think us being stuck on that island and never experiencing anyone else or anything else made us become the way we are. i shouldn't have held you so tight and i should've gave you space but i wish that i didn't. 

I will miss you forever, im not sorry for leaving in the first place. I'm not sorry for going to find me and what I want and need. You, Sarah Cameron, are the only person I have ever truly loved in that way, and I know that losing you hurts more than loving you but loving you hurts just the same. If and when you get this, don't come searching for me because im gone, and im not coming back, not now. Not ever. This has been a long time coming, and I think im coming down from the high of being in this relationship.

I love you, Sarah, but this is goodbye. 

- Vianna June Carrera" 

when sarah read the letter, she didn't know that vianna was dead but she got the news soon after because kiara called her hyperventilating telling her that she needed her and that she couldn't do it alone. the entire group went to the Carreras house and kiara told them the news. it hit them all differently but sarah, jj, and kiara got the brunt of it. Kiara looked at them all as john b stared at the ground and let himself feel it, he never thought that he would truly lose her but he did. 

pope didn't say anything because he didn't know what to say. what do you say? you can't say anything because nothing ever prepares you for this and you know that now but you want to say something. your throat is tight, the air around you swirls and you lay there wondering why it wasn't you. 

cleo didn't have a reaction because she didn't know her that well but with the way everyone else was acting. she could feel that via was a good person who never deserved that and that she didn't need to die. there was something in the way she saw jj reacting which made her think differently. 

jj stared at the ground and felt his chest. he let himself grab the necklace that he stole from her and he was wearing her shirt too. everything about her was with him and he was feeling it all. he hated that he wasn't with her in her last minutes and he realized that he could have been. she was everything to him and now she was gone and he had to deal with the idea of never seeing her again or never asking her for help with pope or never getting patched up by her again. he had to deal with the fact that she would never call him late at night and ask him to go swimming. he had lost the one person who felt like his sister and who did everything for him. she wanted to run and find her car. he wanted to hold her and beg her to not leave but he couldn't do that now. 

then there was sarah. she kept thinking that this was her fault and in some sad fucked up way, if she hadn't cheated with topper, none of this would have happened. via wouldn't have left she wouldn't have driven in the rain and she wouldn't gotten into the wreck. sarah didn't know what to say because she couldn't say anything. she read the letter, she thought of the whole thing and how somehow she thought that they would make their way back to each other but that wasn't what happened and she knew that now. stared at jj and kiara, she saw via in them and she saw how they were taking it. she did this and now she couldn't fix it but how does one fix this? the love of your life died in a car accident and you just have to be normal? you can't be and she wouldn't be for a while. 

and finally kiara, she had lost her sister. the one person who understood what it was like to be treated differently for not only liking girls but also because she was trying to be that she wasn't. kiara had gone to via for everything but she couldn't go to her for this because this was about via and her death. she was alone now and she had to deal with her parents alone and the feeling of losing the one person who understood you more then anything. kiara stared at herself in the mirror and all she could see was her dead sister and the fact that she lost her to something so evil as a car crash. losing your sibling is something that no one should ever go through and yet here she was. 

as the group sat together, there was a silence that settled over them and they all stared at the ground. kiara thought about the way mike and anna reacted, they lost their daughter and she felt sorry for them as did everyone else. the whole thing was something that shouldn't have happened and kiara remembered one of her late night conversations with jj and vianna as they laid on the floor high off of their asses and they all sighed 

"do you ever wish that you could be in different bodies? there's this thing that I'm researching , its called onism, its the idea that youre life is restricted because you're only in one body and not in multiple. i wish i could be in more then one bodies to be able to experience the world deeper" she told the two of them and they both stared at her in shock. it was a strange idea but they understood her in more ways then one 

"yeah i get that" jj told her and she smiled at him as he smiled back and so did kiara. they fell asleep that night laying on the floor together and high off their asses. 

jj and kiara now thought of that night and how via would hate that she died so soon and that she didn't to experience more in her life because she died so young and she would be stuck in the some body for the rest of her life in that car with one thought. 

the funeral was going to be planned and they would have to stand there and watched her casket be lowered into the ground as would her body be and that would be the end because that was it dor her and she wished there was something more to life but there wasn't and there never would be. 

she would now be experiencing ONISM for the rest of her life 

- ABBYS NOTES-

soooo hi! i was Reading this earlier, and I realized how I hated how I ended the book and I wanted to rewrite the whole thing. In the original version, I left out a lot and sort of ended it with the fact that she died and that she wrote a letter. But I wanted to deep dive more into the idea of the fact that people understood she was leaving, and they wanted to be there for her. Originally, when I wrote this chapter, it only had to do with cat, via and sarah. However, when I looked over it, I realize that Kiara and JJ had been such a big part of Via's life that I didn't want to leave them out and act like they didn't exist. And when I put this chapter out in the first place, there was many people asking about the fact that they wanted to see JJ's reaction or Kiara's or anything else. Originally, when I wrote this book, I wasn't gonna kill via but when I continued to look over everything, I realize that I had been writing this book for 2 to 3 years and I couldn't spend the rest of my Wattpad life writing the same book or character and a lot of it had been repetitive. I wanted to this book on a sad note, but also on a way that tells you more about everyone and their reactions because that was something that I didn't do in the first place and I wish I had done before. when I was reading it, none of it made sense and I realize that I was confused about my writing and all alone just like tired of it then I assume that the readers would be. I also have a tendency to write for the viewers, and the readers and not for myself, which is something that I tried to not do. So that's why I rewrote this to give myself more of a sendoff and to give via more of a sendoff to. If there are still people reading this book, thank you for sticking around for so long, and I hope you do like the new rewrite of this chapter. 

Sadly via won't come back and there will be a season four, but she won't be there and I will not be writing season four for this book, but I will be writing it for my other Outer Banks books. To the people who have supported this book from the beginning and have given it the love that I so deeply appreciate thank you so much and I hope that you continue to support me on my journey of writing and figuring out what I wanna do with writing. This note is a lot longer than it is, but I wanted to explain my reasoning, and I wanted to give people more of a insight of the whole thing. So ending with that thank you so much for reading and I love you.

abby and via, out 💋