LETTERS SHE WROTE.
❝I hope that someday when I am gone,
someone, somewhere, picks my soul up
off of these pages and thinks:
I would have loved her. ❞
OUTER BANKS.
BOOK ONE of the LETTERS TRILOGY.
[ SEASONS 1 - 2 ]
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[ xiv. informal invitations ]
➸➸➸
DESPITE HER INSISTENT, RAGING desire to stay with JJ Maybank and Pope Heyward on the south side of the Cut to wait out the surely impending arrivals of the Redfield Lighthouse stragglers, John B. Routledge and Kiara Carrera, a maddening Willa Deveraux knew deeply in her disgruntled heart that she needed to go back to her beachfront home in the Figure Eight.
For as much as Willa liked to push the envelope with her dear, unsuspecting parents, rebelling left and right in any which way that she could, the Deveraux daughter had learned long ago—the hard way—that her mother actually suspected a bit more of her than she had originally thought. And while Willa should not have been surprised by her mother's suspicions, given that parents were often rebellious kids themselves, Willa truly never anticipated her own mother would ever be familiar with the idea of sneaking out when Maren, herself, had been raised in such a strict, formal household that forbade such behavior. But ever since Willa Deveraux came home in the middle of the night to a locked front door, back door, and locked windows, all the while Maren waited patiently in the foyer with a smug smirk for her daughter to ring the doorbell in defeat, Willa had been kept on a much tighter leash than the rest of her siblings.
Not that this was entirely unwarranted. This all had happened to Willa when she was only in the seventh grade, of course.
To Willa's relief, the parental restraints had not been nearly as bad as she had expected them to be and they had also very much loosened since she was a meager thirteen-year-old. And with the newfound addition of little Rayne to the family, Maren became distracted by the littlest Deveraux even further. That was why it had gradually become easier to sneak out to the Boneyard. It also helped that the better, more fun parties took place summertime, and under the heat and stress of six children on school break constantly bouncing in and out of her vision, Maren was a little more eager to have her space. Lenient towards giving her children freedom, yes, but still not entirely accepting.
No, Maren Deveraux was still always on the lookout for Willa Deveraux's stupidly rebellious and intoxicatingly playful antics. She would definitely still know if her eldest daughter was up to something if she did not get to see her every 48 hours or so, which is why Willa knew it was better to bite this bullet than push her already risky luck later. After all, if Willa's mother ever found out how she had spent the past two days, Maren would never let her leave the house again—and the entire island would be on lockdown, too.
On the other hand, convincing JJ and Pope to drop her off was also another obstacle in itself. For some reason, because of the simple fact that Willa needed to see her mother, JJ thought she was now part of a conspiracy theory. A kook conspiracy, to be exact. And no, do not even get her started on that chaotic conversation as it unfolded in the backseat of the rusty Volkswagen. Willa wished she could forget it now.
