Her heart was so golden, it rivaled even the sun.
In which a girl is tired of living by everyone else's rules, so she decides to make her own.
[Outer Banks season 1]
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LOSING A LOVED one was unimaginable, but seeing their body in your own home was even worse. Emerson had never experienced such a devastating loss before, much less seeing the sight of a murder on the floor in front of her. She knew she would never forget those moments, forever engraved in her mind. She wished she could unsee her father's open, lifeless eyes and sickly pale face. She wished she could unsee the blood that spilled from his stomach and the gaff hook still implanted there. She wished she could forget her mother's deafening screams and having to call 9-1-1.
Everything that happened after that was a blur. The police and paramedics showed up and Emerson and Ashley were hounded with questions about where they had been and what happened, if Duncan had any enemies, and so on. They were forced to pack up their belongings and stay in a hotel for the night because now the house was considered a crime scene. As if those four walls didn't already house enough demons and nightmares.
Three days passed like it was nothing and everything all at once. Emerson spent them sitting on the uncomfortable hotel bed, staring blankly out the window. Her mind was a jungle of thoughts, swarming about everything that happened the day her dad died from the fight with Barry to her screaming match with JJ.
It still felt surreal to say her father was dead. It felt like a bad dream walking back into the house she had found him gaffed in, cleaned and sparkling spotlessly the way it always had. It was like nothing ever happened, and she knew that Ashley was going to pretend like nothing ever did. But Emerson couldn't forget.
Everything seemed to go on normally once they settled back in. Ashley drowned herself in her work even more than she had before and Emerson rarely saw her. Her friends texted her constantly to check in and see how she was doing once word of Duncan's death spread across the island. But Emerson felt stuck. She felt like she was standing still while everyone moved around her. How could the world go on when hers had been completely upended? She knew that her family hadn't been perfect and that Duncan wasn't without his issues, but that didn't mean she didn't love him. She had always hoped one day he'd get his shit together and things would go back to the way they were when she was a child. But now that would never happen, and her family was even more screwed to hell than before.
She found herself thinking of all the things she wished she couldn't have said to him and done with him. She longed to tell him she loved him, to hug him, to go on one last boat ride with him. And when those thoughts ran out, she switched to all the things she'd never be able to experience. He wouldn't be at her high school graduation. He wouldn't witness her open college acceptance letters or move into her dorm room. He wouldn't be able to give someone his blessing before proposing. He wouldn't be able to walk her down the aisle.
The worst thoughts of all were the ones regarding his death. Her father had been murdered. She wondered who he had crossed so badly to end up dead and who had been so angry at him that they felt the need to kill him in such a violent and gruesome way. She was angry at them for taking her father away from her, from completely ruining her life, and for leaving his dead body in her own home. She rarely even left her room now because she couldn't bare to step foot in the kitchen.
