Letters She Wrote | Outer Banks

𝐯𝐢𝐢. 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫

[ vii. head above water ]

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FOR SEVERAL AGONIZING SECONDS, not a single sun-kissed body within the tightly packed huddle dared to move and with bated breath, no one was exactly eager respond to Willa Deveraux's prodding but otherwise innocently concerned question.  One-by-one each pair of young pogue eyes tore away from one another, but even in the silence that should have been filled with their supposed answers, Willa did not miss a single wandering glance. Kiara Carrera, JJ Maybank, and Pope Heyward were all looking aimlessly about the Routledge's open front yard in any direction that did not involve Willa, but the brooding firecracker hardly paid any of the three closely-knit, blatantly oblivious friends any regard. Instead her attention was now on none other than John B. Routledge.

"Oh, don't get quiet now, John B.," Willa scolded, her voice hoarse and crackly from having just lost her entire stomach mere seconds ago. "If you can choose to not treat me like a kook at your party, you can certainly still do the same now at your own home."

With Willa's declaration, the hot summer air grew stiflingly hotter and John B. swallowed timidly, his soft hickory eyes never leaving Willa's stern sage ones. He was the only one of his friends who had tried to look away, only to regret it and had abruptly looked back, knowing that he truly could not show Willa such callous when he had not bothered to do so in the presence of his friends the night prior, either. Besides, John B. did not want to ignore Willa. No, not in the slightest. She did not deserve it.  She was sick and she was scared.  She just needed someone on her side, someone to hold her strong against the overbearing weight of the sea, even if she did not yet truly understand the severity that her actions had just caused to her own already drowning soul.

"Look, it's nothing, all right?" John B. finally assured her. And it was nothing—to Willa, anyways. In fact, the existence of the wreck in the marsh should have been nothing of concern to any of them. If he had any say about it, John B. was not going to tug on that thread that JJ was so desperate to unwind anymore, and he hoped his friends would follow suit.

But—as any of them should have come to expect—like the explosive hot-head that JJ Maybank naturally was, attempting to forget the promise of a potential fortune was most definitely not all right to him. Seemingly forgetting that Willa stood directly across from him, JJ looked to his best friend beside him. "Come on, John B.!" He protested, beating lightly against his friend's chest, as if hoping to relight the rebellious, angry flame that had been snuffed out in the fallout of the fight.  "I don't care what Peterkin said," He exclaimed. "If the cops don't want us to go down into the marsh then that means there's something valuable down there, and you know it."

"Peterkin?" Willa voiced aloud, her brows furrowing with confusion. She was familiar with the Kildare Country sheriff, of course, but only through the older woman's interactions with her father. Alden Deveraux was a doctor, after all; it made sense for them to speak on occasion when regarding the victims that passed out of the hospital and then into the police station. But John B.? Where did he fit into that equation? "Why're you involved with Peterkin?" She prodded.