𝑔𝑜𝑜𝒹 𝑔𝒾𝓇𝓁✤ - jj maybank

✩chapter one✩

This was it. The last time I'd surf in my hometown of Montauk, NY for god knows how long. It all felt like a dream. Everything about today had been bittersweet and being out in the water just made matters much worse.

Looking back at the beach I watched as two children stomped along the shoreline, their parents trailing close behind. Beside them a group of teenage girls laid out in a row tanning and taking advantage of the beautiful day.

Lucky them. I thought to myself. I bet they don't have to move ten hours away from their homes tomorrow morning. They get to stay in Montauk where their lives are, where mine was but is now being forced to move to the Outer Banks.

I bet for a lot of people my situation seems a bit first world problem-y, or at least that's how my mom reacted every time I complained about our situation, but what else was I supposed to do? I've lived here my entire life. All of my friends are here. Every single one of my favorite places is right down the street but would soon be a half a day's car ride away.

None of this whole -as my dad would say- relocating thing would've ever happened had Brenda Withers not accused my dad of getting her pregnant a few months ago. The news broke to us all rather abruptly in church one day when the woman in question stood up during my father's sermon and announced her 'pregnancy' to the entire congregation of about 300 people. I thought my poor mother was going to faint in the church pew.

Brenda could never present any real evidence that she and my dad had any sort of contact outside of church. No phone calls, no emails, no texts, nothing. Her own best friend hadn't ever heard her speak about my dad other than the fact that she talked about him being a great minister. You see, and I will put this as nicely as I can, but Brenda Withers was absolutely not my father's type. He's married to my beautiful mother, a very successful public defender for Suffolk County who graduated top of her class at Columbia. Brenda Withers is a thirty-something unemployed, single woman whose only hobby was drinking herself near death in the Arby's parking lot. And on top of all that, this wonderful woman had been to jail twice already for aggravated assault. What a catch huh?

So, there it is the reason my family has to move ten hours away is because of a drunk, pathological liar that just wanted attention.

I'm not bitter. You're bitter.

You know what though? On the bright side of things at least we aren't moving to some, middle-of-America hole in the wall. We were moving to the Outer Banks and from what I remembered visiting my grandparents there as a kid, the waves could get crazy.

Of course I'd always be impartial to the Long Island swells and nothing could beat the refreshing feeling of hopping into the cool water after a long hot day in the blazing sun but I really had to make the most out of this move because being mad about this for the rest of my life wasn't going to get me anywhere.

The subtle displacement of the water around me was enough to draw my attention back to the overhead wall of waves headed my way. I dug my arms into the cool, blue-green water and began to paddle. A small rush of force and the calming sounds of the crashing wave nearby reminded me it was time to pop-up. I stood even with the wave yet still crouched down and waited for the wave to build up a bit of a vertical so I could carve up towards the top. Thankfully the waves had been fairly decent this past week and right now was no exception. The wave I was currently on was the biggest I'd seen today, five feet at least, and breaking perfectly behind me.

I rode the wave until it began to peter out and bailed, the cool Long Island water surrounding my exposed skin once again.

Thank God mom made me wear my spring suit because without it I would've been frozen by now. No matter how warm it was or how harsh the sun was beating down, the Montauk water could always cool anyone down as it never really got above 60 or 65 even towards the middle of June.