Ellie Lahey is by no means rebellious, and by every definition simple. In fact, her personality can be boiled down to three main activities: surfing, hanging out with her friends, and running... with a heavy emphasis on the last one.
[extended summa...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Ellie didn't want to go home. Not today, not tonight, not this week, not ever— and as long as she kept running, she didn't have to.
Her feet pounded the concrete at a rate much faster than normal, but she was desperate to reach the wooded path just ahead and gain shelter from the thousand pairs of eyes she felt must be watching from their windows. Guilt and shame weighed on her like a humongous parachute attached to her back, and no matter what she did, she couldn't shake it off.
So she just ran faster.
Ellie found her path and didn't slow down. Every step she took from the Lahey house felt freeing. She never wanted to go back. She never wanted to show her face in this town again.
A droplet of sweat rolled into her eye. She wiped it away and shook her head, narrowly avoiding a nasty thicket of thorns that had grown into the skinny path. Her body wanted her to stop, but stopping meant that her thoughts would catch up to her, and as long as she could outrun those, she was okay. Currently, she was about 13 miles per hour from a mental breakdown.
Her legs, lungs, and arms were nearly screaming. Ellie was a lot of things, but a sprinter was most certainly not one of them. Regardless, she put her head down and pushed herself harder. She had no endgame except distance and no motivation except shame and panic, and she knew none of those would get her very far.
A vile feeling was rising in her throat, but she wasn't quite far enough for her liking. Her body, though, had other plans, and the next thing she knew, she was doubled over and hanging onto a tree for balance while emptying the contents of her stomach. She dry-heaved a few times and gasped for breath.
As poignant as the anniversary of a love one's death, her thoughts seemed to slap her in the face with a force that nearly made her collapse. Here she was, 16, at the helm of a broken dynasty, losing everything she had ever known.
She straightened up slowly, burped, and wiped her mouth. Then, she gave the trail another glance— wondering just how far Outer Banks could be and how long, really, it would take her to run there— before taking off down the trail yet again.
![᥅ ꪊ ꪀ [OBX]](https://img.wattpad.com/cover/270067903-64-k183834.jpg)