ADRIFT - jj maybank

Prologue

The day Ellory Fay was born, her parents knew she was something extraordinary. As they looked down at their beautiful brunette, blue eyed daughter, they were overcome with love. They promised her the best life. Though, that promise was not something that could be kept. For, there are too many evil people in Ellory's small world. People who would leave her and hurt her for their own benefit.

Her life started off simple enough. Her mother, Anna, a stay at home mom and her father, Easton, a big business man who worked closely with some of the biggest names on the small island of Kildare, where they lived. The Fay family lived in a large, beautiful house on the beach. They were very well off having luxuries many people on the small island didn't.

The Fay's kept a small circle of people close to them. Two families in particular were known to be with the Fays often. There were the Thortons consisting of Cynthia, her father Holden, and her son Topper. Topper was the same age as Ellory and the two were best friends some would say. Then there were the Camerons. The Camerons were the richest, most well known family on the island. Ward, Rose and their three children, Rafe, Sarah, and Wheezie, were almost royalty to the people of Kildare County and anyone in their inner circle was lucky to know them. Luckily for Ellory, Sarah Cameron was also the same age and so Ellory had built in friends between the two families. But she also had a built-in crush. From the time that she was little, she could remember thinking she was deeply in love with Rafe Cameron. A temperamental boy who was a few years older then the girl. Sometimes he seemed to return her feelings and others he ignored her.

Sarah and Ellory did just about everything together, from homework to learning how to surf together. They were as close as any best friends were. During her surfing lessons, Ellory began to fall in love with the ocean. She spent hours studying it, researching it, and exploring it. Trying to learn everything there is to know about it. And on Career Day in third grade when she discovered Marine Biology, she knew what she wanted to be when she grew up.

Her life was seemingly perfect to the naked eye. That is until all of the perfection disappeared. On one particularly stormy evening, Easton Fay was on his way home from a fishing trip with some of the other men around the island. Unfortunately, the storm became too much for the small boat they were occupying and it capsized. Some men were lucky enough to make it out. Others, not so much. Easton fought against the rough water for what seemed like hours, the other mem reaccounted, until it became too much for him and he sunk under the surface, never to return.

When the remaining Fay family heard the news, their world fell apart. Ellory, a newly 13 year old, seventh grade graduate, froze. She refused to believe what she had been told. Her mother, on the other hand, cried and cried until she couldn't take it anymore. Anna became very quiet and disappeared to her room with nothing other than a large bottle of some fancy alcohol Ellory had never seen before.

Both didn't handle their loss we'll. Anna took to drinking and gambling. Betting away all of the family's fortune and drinking until she dropped almost every night. Ellory pulled away from her friends. She began to rebel against her mother and acted like every parent's worst nightmare. Once Anna lost all of their money, the Fay's were evicted from their large house and moved into a small, rundown shack on the other side of the island. Ellory began working at a local restaurant, The Wreck, and attended a new school.

At this new school, she would meet four people who would change her life forever. Four people who watched her grieve, pull away from social expectations, and grow into her true self. That is until her world was flipped upside down one more time. And that is where our story begins.