Drift

Chapter 1

The alarm clock went off.

The bright red digital lettering read "6 AM", as the little clock face shone dully through the early morning darkness of Lia's room. Her hand immediately flung from her bed and smacked the off button on the clock, putting a temporary halt to the highly pitched beeping which pierced the empty air.

Her excitement for the upcoming trip was persistent and had kept her tossing and turning restlessly until the time came to get ready to go. She jumped out of bed, full of energy and ready for the next few days that lie ahead.

Those next few days, she would be going on a boating trip with her closest friends.
This wasn't just any ordinary boating trip, though. She and her friends live right near the beach, only about 10 minutes away, so boating was certainly nothing new to them.

This was going to be a voyage of unknown length in the lap of luxury.

They were going to be tracing along the coastline of the Peninsula of Florida...
In a super yacht.

On said- super yacht, they would be eating good food, which had been carefully planned, prepared, and packed away by the Yachts chefs and small cooking team. In addition, they'd be fishing, tubing, working out in the yachts gym, reading in its study area, and everything else fun that you could possibly think of to do on a 160 foot yacht with jet skis attached.

This fabulous vessel of dreams was owned by Lia's close friends, Symone and Richard "Rich" Rook, who were, well, rich.
Rich was a young lawyer prodigy who made millions off of his first case and then somehow was able to retire at 28 years of age. He was hated by a lot of people because of that particular case, but respected by the majority.

His wife, Symone, came from rather humble origins as an artist, who genuinely could have been a supermodel if she wanted to. She had even been offered a few runway gigs. However, she preferred a brush, paint, and canvas over a dress, strut, and runway.
Her business skyrocketed after marrying Rich, due to how somewhat famous he was at the time.

Contrary to what many thought, she and her husband were not married because of her looks and his money or anything of the sort. And unlike the typical rich-guy-marries-beautiful-woman scenario, Rich was actually the same age as Symone, just three months older. They really did love each other, and had actually just had their five year anniversary.

And what anniversary doesn't call for a celebration?

They wanted to celebrate, though, not by having a party, but by doing what they loved with a passion (boating and all that goes with it,) with friends whom they loved as family: Lia and her brother, Ben, as well as siblings Ivy and Willis, who both had oddly red hair. The four of them were in their early to mid twenties, while Symone and Rich were both 30.

You'd think that this nice couple would have more than four people accompanying them on this trip, being that the boat is huge and rich people tend to have a lot of "friends".
But Rich and Symone were different from a majority of the wealthy.

They were much deeper than the money.

They valued friendship and people, and didn't particularly appreciate the fake ones that came along only to see what they could get out of the relationship. Because of this, they truly enjoyed the company of the select few who actually took the time to get to know them and associate with them for who they were.

Lia and Ben, two brunette oddballs, loved being with the Rooks. They had both known Symone for many years. She used to babysit them when she was a teenager and they were still just little kids. Later on, Ben would often third-wheel for her and Rich when they were dating, so they eventually became really close as boy-band-buddies, leading to Ben being the best man at their wedding. The two boys were both fairly white, very nerdy, and very close, so people often called them the "Tighty Whities"... a name they somehow carried proudly.

Willis and Ivy knew the wealthy couple because they had all gone to the same art classes for years. Willis had a knack for art, just like Symone. Ivy and Rich, however... not so much. Willis thought his sister would enjoy art classes, (which she eventually did,) so he'd convinced her to go with him every week.

Symone had only gone to those classes to refine her then-current skills, which were already top-notch. Rich, too, had gone for a couple of years, but only as a inconspicuous way to get to know Symone. That's how they officially met, was in the art class.

And then, of course, the two sets of siblings met through Rich and Symone.
They were all so close that Rich and Symone would have invited them on the trip, regardless whether they wanted to or not.

They were all excited, but there was perhaps no one more excited than Lia, aside from maybe the happy couple.

She had always had a deep love for boating and the ocean.

She loved it so much, that even though she's the exact opposite of a morning person, she had managed to wake up at 6AM, just to have enough time to shower, shave, and wash her hair, along with everything else she needed to do. She didn't have to leave the apartment til 8 to meet the group at the docks, but she wanted to make sure that she was 100% clean, that her legs were 100% shaved, and that her hair was 100% soft, clean, and silky.

She's all about that 100%.

And making sure that she was 100% ready for boating for several days was going to take at least 45 minutes, and that's in the shower alone. Then she has to fix her hair which typically takes a good 25 minutes, due to it's incredibly curly nature, and then she has to double-check her things that she had packed the night before and make sure she has everything she needs, which only takes about 5 minutes, thanks to a hearty checklist.

And after that, because she and her brother share an apartment, she needs to make a filling breakfast not only for herself, but for Ben as well, which takes about 15 minutes to make and 10 to eat (that is, if they're not rushing themselves.) And then she has to help Ben pack his things efficiently, because he's the type of person that packs his things on the day of departure, rather than the day before. That takes about 15 minutes, and packing all of their things into the car takes about 5 minutes. By the time all of these things are done, it's 8 o'clock and it's time to leave.

Lia is a very punctual person, and everything she does is carefully planned out and written down, with any and all setbacks taken into consideration. Including morning traffic, of which there should have been none, because it was 8 o'clock on a Monday and people were typically at work or school by 7:30 at the latest.

She was perfectly ready for anything that could possibly have happened that could delay them from getting to the docks on time. Because of her careful planning, packing, and emergency-kit-creating, there was nothing that could stand in her way of safely enjoying this fancy and friendly voyage.

Things come up, but Lia was prepared for each and every one of those things, were they to happen.

She thought she was, anyways.