❝Oh, Oakley. . . What have you done?❞
Well, they say it's best to start at the beginning, but when the story gets so twisted and out of hand, who really knows where the beginning starts?
The Outer Banks is not the paradise Earth talks about. It's n...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
— ⚓︎ ⚓︎ ⚓︎—
HERE'S A FUNNY THING ABOUT LIFE. It ends. Against all odds, and all beliefs that life sometimes feels like it will never find the final line, it does, and sometimes it's in the most unexpected ways and unpredictable moments. When you're young, you never expect the finish line to come, the fog is too opaque to let you see beyond what's exactly before you, but it isn't until something happens so close to you that the fog swiftly vanishes and the finish line becomes clearer than your own surroundings. No teenager expects sudden death, but when you lose two of your best friends to a storm, how can you not believe in early death?
Oakley Clifton was in denial the first month or so, not only about the tragic loss, but about the betrayal that had stabbed her on each side throughout the chaos. At first her worries had been merely about Sarah and John B, but as time went by and reality started settling onto the island, the routine started proving the lack of the three important figures that once made up her life. The void her father has left is evident, and although her older siblings and her understand the severity of the reasoning behind it, it's hard for nine-year-old Jackson to understand why.
Why?
Why did it have to happen to them? Well, in the three weeks that have gone by, Oakley has prevailed against the magnitude of that question— Miserably failing to come up with an answer that will make her chest lighter. She ponders over it nearly every single minute of the day, but she's always left empty-handed, with a frown on her face and lone tears dribbling down her temples. She's learned not to let herself be alone too long to think it all through, but in the inevitable moments of loneliness, she finds herself succumbing to the haunting questions that overwhelm and cloud her mind. The Pogues were all dealing with their own demons as well, leaving Beatrice Clifton to wonder what to do to help her frail seventeen-year-old.
What to do?
Well, no solution seemed to bring back John B or Sarah, no answer seemed to convince her sorrows that the pain would end, and no amount of hugs would make up for the ones she'd never receive from the three missing ones. But Beatrice was too anxious watching her teenager drown deeper and deeper into her own grief, and the woman decided she'd send her to therapy as a last helpless resource. Oakley hadn't been cooperative at first, the thought of sharing her pain with someone who was still brainwashed into tagging John B as a murderer infuriated her.
But then a week went by and she realized that perhaps she was relieved to have someone to vent to. JJ had received way too many of her breakdowns, and she appreciated someone to listen to her and get paid for it. But as much as that was the reality, she would never admit it, for she hated being the only out of the four Pogues going to therapy when they all went basically through the same. So, she just acted like it was no help, and that she only went there as an obligation.
In terms of the Camerons? Well, it's certainly been difficult. While they've been trying to reach the Cliftons, it's been impossible to do so, for the family has forbidden any contact with them, as much as it hurts for Wheezie or Jackson, who take no blame. Beatrice had had a hard time believing her children in their pleads not to come close to the family, and eventually, after some hard begging and gruesome crying, the woman finally realized the truth behind the painful words of her kids.
