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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[ viii. diver down ]
➸➸➸
ONLY A SHORT HOUR later, Willa Deveraux found herself in the middle of the cool, quiet marsh, sitting idly on the edge of John B. Routledge's small motorboat, the HMS Pogue. Though she was quickly becoming very acquainted with the perks and tweaks of the surprisingly sturdy boat, Willa had yet to ask any of the young pogue occupants aboard what the HMS stood for—as Pope Heyward had bluntly informed her that the abbreviation went beyond the simple Her Majesty's Ship—and now Willa was almost certain that she did not want to find out the boat's true origin story.
Soon casting her eyes away from the painted side of the boat, Willa looked outwards to her peaceful marshland surroundings. In one direction, Willa could see open water for as far as the eye could see, the waves lobbing gently back-and-forth as they were pushed by the soft wind. The afternoon sun was burning brightly on youthful exposed skin as it slowly began its descent back down to the darkening horizon, painting the sky such a shade of orange that mere crafted firelight could never compare to the universe's natural glow. On Willa's other side, trees reached for the golden sky, concealing the harsh and dry land of the Cut from prying fishermen eyes and other strangers that could be just as unkind.
Between the land and the sea, patches of soggy earth were poking up, scattered amongst the marsh and now that Willa had been informed that a dead body had been found near this very location, she could only wonder what else this seemingly serene and untouched piece of paradise within the southern end of Outer Banks was truly hiding. In the corner of her eye, tiny bubbles quietly made their way upwards from the muddy banks below, disturbing the still surface of the water, and Willa could only hope that whatever rested below their boat was nothing more harmful than a small trout.
"This is empty, John B.," Kiara Carrera retorted, causing Willa to swiftly turn her head away from the cool water and back towards the others. Five oxygen tanks—one for each of them; even one for Willa, who had been genuinely surprised to be included—were gathered by the bare feet of Kiara and John B. as the former examined the scuba gear closely with a frown. "You took empty tanks?" Kiara looked over the numerous narrow tanks until finally settling on the last one in the lineup. "Okay, this one's a quarter full," She informed bitterly. "It's enough for one of us."
Pope Heyward rolled his eyes and kicked his feet up beside the wheel of the boat, currently acting as the designated helmsman for the group. "Love it when a plan comes together," He scoffed sarcastically.
"Does anybody here even know how to dive?" Kiara questioned.
From where he sat on the opposite side of the boat, JJ Maybank shook his head in answer. "It's kind of a kook sport," He insisted dryly. At the mere mention of the familiar degrading term, all at once four pogue heads automatically turned to Willa Deveraux, but JJ was the only one who dared to ask the next question, unbothered by the fact that it may be wrong to assume so much of a girl he hardly knew anymore. "Do you know how to dive?" He wondered.
