𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐞 ❧ 𝐉𝐉 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤

01. 𝑯𝒐𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝑷𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞
[𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒖𝒏𝒌𝒆𝒏 𝒃𝒐𝒂𝒕]

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THE OUTER BANKS, paradise on earth. That's at least what most people liked to call it. Those that usually owned two houses instead of working two jobs. But even then, a lot of the lesser fortunate people called it a paradise. Because even with the rich folks treating you like you were scum on the bottom of their shoe, you still had the beach and the waves, and the sun scorching your skin. You could surf all day and have bonfires on the cool sand at night.

Who wouldn't believe that was paradise?

Well there was one person; Marina Emery, or Mari as her best friend Kiara liked to call her. She was kind of the black sheep when it came to the outer banks. The kooks found her weird because her father was a drug dealer, even though he literally supplied half of their addictions. The tourists found her scary because she would often sit alone on the beach with her black sunglasses on, smoking a joint as her blank stare looked at people walking by. And the pogues, well,  that's where it got dicey.

There was one of two reactions she would get from them. The first being; they found her cool enough to hang out with during shortened periods of time and the second being, well, they avoided her at all costs because they were scared of getting a bad rep with her father. Yes, her father often scared off many potential friends she could've made.

But she didn't need friends. Not when she had Kiara Carrera. Marina swore they were platonic soul mates. Never would she have fathomed she would be friends with a kook, but Kiara and her had met when they were thirteen and that was only because Marina had punched a guy who was making Kiara uncomfortable. Now, when Marina said Kiara was a kook, she really wasn't. Her mom was and that just made her one by default or at least half kook.

Did that stop her from hanging out with people her parents most likely didn't approve of? Not one bit. And maybe that was why Marina and Kiara had hit it off so well. They understood each other better than anyone else in the world and they most definitely would go to bat for each other over anything and everything.

Growing up in the outer banks wasn't exactly a luxury in Marina's eyes. Sure, she loved to surf but she'd rather not have the constant reminder that her life was going nowhere. When she saw the big houses and the yachts, the big parties and the expensive shit they paraded around, she realized she would never have that.

Not even with her father being a drug dealer, not even if she worked her ass off to get there. She wouldn't ever make it. And she didn't know if she even wanted to. Marina didn't know what she wanted with her life. She'd rather just go somewhere private and live alone or travel the world instead of being confined in one space. But without money, that was pretty difficult.