Damaged // JJ Maybank // Outer banks

Introduction

✸JJ Maybank✸

The Outer Banks. Paradise on earth. It's the sort of place where you either have two jobs or two houses. Two tribes, one island.

There's figure 8, the rich side of the island. Home of the Kooks. so guess where we don't live.

Then there's the south side or the cut. Home with the working class to make a living busing tables, watching yachts, running charters. The natural habitat of the Pogues.

That's us.

Pogues, pogies, the throwaway fish. The lowest member of the food chain. Okay, so the downside of Pogue life is we're ignored and neglected.

But the upside of Pogue life? We're ignored and neglected, Which means we do whatever we want, whenever we want.

There's John B, my best friend since the third grade. He lives in an old fish shack on the Marsh. The Château, as his dad used to call it. His dad disappeared at sea nine months ago, looking for a shipwreck. His legal guardian Uncle T is supposedly in Mississippi building houses. This means it's just him right now, hanging with his friends, me, Liv, Kie, and Pope.

There's Kiara, or Kie, as we call her. When she's not saving turtles, or listening to Marley, or getting a dolphin tattoo she hangs out with us. No clue why, though. So she's a rich kid actually. Foot in both worlds. Her family owns the wreck, this Outer Banks institution. Total cash cow with the tourists. You know I'm not really sure how her parents feel about us. But I guess we all sort of have a thing for her.

Then there's Pope. The brains of the operation. Finalist for The Lucas T Vanderhorst Merit Scholarship, and the smartest person I know. A little bit of a weirdo, his father is this legendary character Hayward. Anything you wanted on the island, Heyward could get it for you. I'm not sure Heyward knew what to make of his oddball son, but it didn't matter. He was a Pogue, just like the rest of us.

Olivia, or Liv as we call her. The trouble maker, along with me. She's what we like to call the Pogue Princess. Pogue or not, she could get most guys in Figure 8 or The Cut. Not that she wants them but if she did, they would probably line up at chance. She's just about as fucked up in the head as me. She's a bit like Kie in the sense that we all have the hots for her, even if she is a bit crazy sometimes. Personally, I think that's what makes her so hot.

Then there's me.

JJ Maybank.

I'm about as local as they come. The last in a long line of fishing, drinking, smuggling, vendetta-holding salt-lifers who made their living off the water. Best surfer around, it's not cocky, just the truth. Mild kleptomaniac and a future tax cheat.

So yeah, that's all of us. The Pogues.

We're basically just having a good time, all the time. That's the Pogue life.