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༉*ೃ༄ ( prologue, ivory/rory )
Ivory Schuyler had always despised her name. It seemed to encompass everything she detested about her life.
The white, squeaky clean pristineness that all Kooks in Kildare were expected to confine to. Her name symbolized wealth and high status, the Schuylers being what you'd classify as "old money rich."
Anyone who knew anyone knew of the Schuylers. They were highly regarded amongst the island, even most people who lived on The Cut. While families like the Thorntons or the Camerons tended to hoard their money, the Schuylers were overly generous.
Ivory had spent her whole life trying to be known as anyone other than a stuck-up spoiled Kook, and so she liked to help out on the island wherever she could. She regularly organized beach cleanups and volunteered at charity events. The girl even ran multiple fundraisers once at Kildare County Private School to help provide shelter for hatching turtles, because her brother Tyler had traumatically witnessed one being eaten by a Seagull.
The Schuylers seemed to showcase the perfect nuclear family, a happy marriage with happy kids living in a big white house with tall white fences. Everyone in Kildare admired their generosity and love for one another.
Which is why it was such a surprise when that all seemed to vanish.
One day Ivory and her siblings were out and about, shopping locally and helping people cross the street, and the next they were gone. No more beach cleanups or fundraiser events, just complete and total silence.
At first people thought that maybe they were gone on a vacation, simply taking some time for themselves. However, when Robert Schuyler started attending work again and his children returned to school, people could tell that something was off. They denied any and all ideas that something had happened, simply claiming they'd just taken a week off for some "family time."
It was a wonder to them all how well they maintained the cracks. Everyone had noticed that Grace Schuyler was missing from their usual outings. There weren't as many generous gestures being made, and when there were everyone's smiles seemed just a little bit more dull than they were before.
Yet, no one questioned anything. If anyone tried to ask about Grace the topic was swiftly changed. Who were they to interrogate the Schuylers when it was their money that kept them going? As long as they kept paying to house the homeless and provide food for animal shelters, Kildare County wouldn't question where exactly Grace Schuyler had gone.
All of this just made Ivory hate her name even more. She was forbidden to talk about her mother to anyone other than her family and the doctors that frequented their home, because God forbid the people of Kildare County know that the perfect Schuyler family wasn't really so perfect after all.
Ivory poured herself into her charities. If she wasn't allowed to be happy in her own home she might as well try even harder to make the people on the island happy, right? If she ever felt that familiar feeling of tears pushing against her eyes, or the tightness in her chest right before a panic attack, she'd simply go out to the Cut and help however she could.
The girl found herself working multiple jobs for completely no pay. She was stocking shelves at Heyward's one day and then intricately braiding friendship bracelets with Lana Grubbs for her farmers market stand the next.
If she didn't stay busy, Ivory would be stuck alone with her thoughts. It felt like she was drowning, forced to bottle up every single negative thought she had just to keep up with her family's bright and cheery facade. So, she'd distract herself with helping others, because it was the one thing she'd found that still made her feel alive.
She decided she'd focus on the things in life she could control, like her name. She started to go strictly by Rory, because hearing people call her Ivory just hurt too much. The girl swapped out her Louboutin sandals for sneakers, her gold tiffany jewelry turned into string and beads.
Her father would nag that she was starting to look more like a Pogue than a Kook, but she just couldn't bring herself to care. If the Kooks were the reason behind why she felt this way, why would she want to be anything like them?
Grace was always encouraging her kids to be their authentic selves. She knew deep down that Rory wasn't happy with her Kook friends who's idea of fun was playing golf at the country club and making fun of Pogues. She was a sweet and sensitive girl who saw the good in everyone.
She allowed Rory her freedom because she knew that at the end of the day it was Figure Eight she'd be returning to. But, with her gone, Rory was stuck with her father who worried more about their social status than her feelings, or her "friends" who just wanted to party and talk about how rich they all were.
She was left with the choice to sink or swim. Become the person her father wanted her so desperately to be, or blossom into the girl she knew she was in her heart.
Rory tried desperately to stay afloat. She started to spend more and more time on the Cut, feeling more comfortable there where she could be herself rather than the mask she wore when she was in Figure Eight. She began hanging out with her friend Pope more than her other friends because she found that she felt less judged around him.
Everything about her had changed in the matter of a year, and she couldn't decide if that made her absolutely overjoyed or incredibly depressed. Would her mother be proud of who she'd become? Or, would it make her even more disappointed to know that she was the reason behind why she was like this.
Rory Schuyler was stranded in the middle of the ocean, treading water waiting for someone to come and rescue her, and she couldn't help thinking that maybe this would all be easier if she'd just let herself drown.
author's note.
welcome to slipping through my fingers! i literally have been trying to write this book since season one of outer banks came out and am just now publishing it on season four's release day, rip. updates are probably going to be a bit slow but i'm going to try very hard not to procrastinate 😭 feel free to comment or vote if you enjoy and i hope you all come to love rory as much as i do!
