❝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...
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WE ALL KNOW THE FEELING of being so incredibly close to a goal it feels unreal to imagine how the world would shift if we reached it. Running a marathon and feeling your legs completely lose all senses when the finish line enters our peripheral vision— Who would ever reach it? It seems to get further and further away, and the steps that would get you anywhere in a blink now seem to slow down and make the shortest of distances feel like they're kilometers away from you. Leaning over the side of your bed to grab your phone only for it to get away from your grasping fingers every time you put more strain into grazing it. It's like the law of life, the closest you are the furthest you feel.
When the Pogues discovered the final clue to the whereabouts of Denmark's cross, a pessimistic as Oakley found it in herself to refrain from crying victory so soon. It'd been so easy and so abrupt, it feels like the world is just pulling another one of its humorless pranks on them. Even when they'd all cheered and sung in delight, hopped in the Twinkie in that same light of hallelujahs— She smiled to follow the stride but kept the possibility of the end never reaching them pretty close to her.
And thanks to that defective state of mind, her dismay when the truck slows down right before the river formed due to the high tide isn't as immense as it is for the crew that sits in the back.
"Ah, crap! The tide!" Pope exclaims in frustration, making Oakley hum in shared distaste.
The road they once sped through, leaving no more than a trail of marked tires in the mud, is now glimmering brown waters, so deep they can't even see the reflection of the road beneath it.
"Oh, this doesn't look good," he adds and the girl leans over on the passenger's seat to watch the depth of the water with squinted eyes.
"How deep is that?" Kie asks and Oakley puffs out her cheeks in discouragement.
"I'm not sure. But the road's bye-bye, I'll tell you that much," she replies with a forced chuckle, leaning back on the seat when the truck comes to a dry halt.
"Tide rose faster than I thought it would," JJ speaks, leaning between John B and Oakley's seat.
"Just a little bit,"
"Uh, John B, how high are the spark plugs?" the blonde asks, making Oakley turn to look at his facial expressions when he replies— something that often gives the brunette away.
He looks back at the road, his eyes full of uncertainty and his head giving a curt nod that seems to work as an attempt of reassuring himself more than the others, "They're good. We're fine,"
"No, how high are they?" Pope, JJ and Oakley all simultaneously demand, looking at him skeptically.
"Oh, um. . ." he leans out of the window, "Uh, just above the taillight," he cringes, looking at them with a grimace.
