LETTERS SHE WROTE.
❝I hope that someday when I am gone,
someone, somewhere, picks my soul up
off of these pages and thinks:
I would have loved her. ❞
OUTER BANKS.
BOOK ONE of the LETTERS TRILOGY.
[ SEASONS 1 - 2 ]
****
I do not own any rights to Ou...
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[ xxxiii. nightmare on crain street ]
➸➸➸
"SHOULD IT BE EVEN humanly possible to feel this terrible?"
Willa Deveraux's body was draped precariously over the edge of the Heyward family's delivery boat that next morning, where each agonizing moment of reality brought her closer to the brink of losing her stomach contents—or worse, as if her brains were about to explode through her nose. The pitiful hour of sleep she had managed to snatch the night before now seemed like a cruel mockery.
Regret flooded her veins as she cursed every decision that had led her to this wretched state. The combination of a mind-numbing hangover and a brutal cold she had undoubtedly caught assaulted her weakened body. She blamed herself for falling asleep with damp hair. That, and the fact that she had gone to sleep in cold clothes, too. Willa had been set up for system failure the moment she fell into the marsh.
"If you're going to puke, you should do it in the cabin. That'll teach the boys a lesson."
Willa mustered nothing more than a pitiful groan in response to Kiara, her head still throbbing and her vision still swimming. She pressed her clammy forehead against the cold, sleek edge of the boat's railing. "I don't know if I can even move," She muttered, her words barely escaping her chapped lips.
"Yo, you ladies need a tow?!"
A distant, but all-so-irritatingly familiar voice pierced through the hazy fog of Willa's misery. Slowly, she lifted her leaden head all the while her eyes struggled against the glaring sun. Blurred and disoriented, she beheld the sight of the HMS Pogue gliding toward their anchored vessel. John B., Pope, and JJ radiated playfulness, their smiles widening as they closed the distance between them and the stranded trio of girls.
Kiara glanced between Sarah and Willa as the smaller boat slid up to their own. "Don't give them the satisfaction of thinking this worked," She whispered, her voice laced with defiance.
Sarah's lips curled into a mischievous smirk, a fiery spark igniting in her eyes. "Absolutely not," She agreed coyly.
"What's with the long face, sunshine?" JJ called out to Willa from below. She strained to see him, still clinging to the railing's edge, battling the treacherous waves in her stomach as the boat relentlessly rocked.
"I'd be careful if I were you, JJ," Sarah advised. "You're in the splashing zone."
JJ snickered. "Have a little too much fun?"
"If you consider falling overboard in the dead of night and waking up with a head cold from hell fun . . ." Willa dryly began. She slowly dragged herself upright, mustering the strength to walk toward the ladder. Every step was a painful reminder of her ordeal. Stiffly, painfully, she climbed down, and gratefully accepted Pope's extended hand as she gingerly stepped onto the narrow deck of the HMS Pogue. ". . . then I had a blast."
