✴︎ Solaris Rivera

𝕾𝖔𝖑𝖆𝖗𝖎𝖘 Rivera. Sol.

SCREEN CUTS  to the inside of the Chateau. The house is worn at the seams. The sun beams through the walls of the house, an orange halo that warms the inside of the Chateau. In the corner is a room marked by JJ Maybank. It littered with the remains of JJ, abandoned by the youngest Routledge , who now resides in his farthest room desperate to fell his father's heartbeat echoing the cracks of the room.

On the corner of the nightstand, is a picture tucked into a splintered frame. Three kids sit on the steps of a porch, no older than six . A blonde girl, hair in pigtails smiles so wide at the camera, bliss oozing out of her. The boy to her left, smiles, a torn cap a couple's sizes too big placed on his head as he leans on his sister. The brown haired girl squeezes in between two her best friends, her chin resting on the blonde girl's shoulder.

John B (V.O)

There wasn't a time Sol wasn't interlaced with the Maybank twins. The moment Juniper Maybank punched Sol's bully they were entangled together.

SCREEN CUTS to the Kildare Police station. The door labeled Chief Rivera rattles as Solaris slams it shut, echoing the abandoned station. Her whole body shakes, her breathed labor as she makes her way out the station, away from her father's piercing words.

John B (V.O) (CON'T)

Sol lives in the inner guts of the island. Her father, a man of the people. Chief of the Kildare  police department . He fits into the palm of the Kooks. His ever smooth smile eases the bite from their ivory marble teeth of the Kooks. His wrinkles around the eyes show the years of working in the dirts of the island. Sol lives right in the middle. Both Kook and Pogue and neither at the same time.

CAMERA FADES.  The screen is sort of blurry. Sort of  like a dream, you beg to become more clearer but it escapes you. When you start to wake up the taste of the dream kisses you.

JJ has his arms wrapped around Sol, pulling her close, so close their bodies would mesh and become one. He wanted her in her skin. Sol laughs at something Pope says as he lays on the hammock next to her. Juniper lays next to him shoved against him. Her hands reach out, mimicking a toddler as Kie passes her the blunt.

John B (V.O) (CON'T)

Once, Pope described the high before death. He called it the terminal lucidity— the surge. It is the burst of life moments before death. We were all buzzed, some of us more drunk than others.

Screen Cuts to the outside of the dock. Juni fell asleep in the hammock an hour ago. The Pogues settle on the dock. JJ is laced around Sol.

"Is this the high?" JJ whispers, his words whispering against Sol's neck. So close he could taste the saltwater on her skin. It was so quiet, he thought no one heard him, but she did.

The CAMERA CUTS to JJ sitting on the worn out couch on the Chateau. Beer bottles litter the floor as he is swallowed in a whole of melancholy and bloodshed abyss. 

There was a pain that ripped his chest open, and it wept for Juniper. How was he supposed to live without his twin? It was like a limb missing.

The CAMERA ZOOMS to the corner of the room. There, carved into the wall is the name of the pogues. His red burned eyes stare at the bottom two names. Sol & Juni. He lost them both.

"The high before death." He whispers. He remembers lilies and jasmine oozing from her skin, as the scent lingered on him for days. His head throbs as he remembers her now tear stained face. The way she took a step back from him. The way she was silent. Why wouldn't she yell at him? He remembers whispering to her  in that moment on the dock, ' if this is the high'. As she laughed , he could feel the vibrations on his chest, as he pressed himself closer to him and felt the high.

John B (V.O) (CON'T)

It hasn't been the same since— that night. The Pogues miss her golden smile and the way it soothes every smoldering bone in your body.

Remember how I said Sol was woven into the Maybanks, she was. She burned so bright for JJ, it left him drowning when she left.

                           I just hope Sol doesn't drown with them.