ओह! यह छवि हमारे सामग्री दिशानिर्देशों का पालन नहीं करती है। प्रकाशन जारी रखने के लिए, कृपया इसे हटा दें या कोई भिन्न छवि अपलोड करें।
//chapter one • the sunken boat we found
IF THERE WAS ONE THING that Hayley Rippton was, it was realistic. Growing up poor, you learn your place in society very quickly. And growing up in the Outer Banks only pushed that narrative. A Pogue. A low life. A poor kid. Trailer Park Trash. Hayley knew what she was and where she came from. When you live alone with your single mother who gave birth to you when she was a teenager, a mother who was the most lax mother you've ever seen, you grow up learning lessons the hard way.
When she was seven, Hayley got expelled from her Kildare elementary school for stabbing a pencil through the hand of the class bully. She was diagnosed with explosive anger issues and was supposed to have counseling but her mother never felt like taking her. She probably should, but when Hayley didn't want to, her mother didn't push it. Instead, they moved to North Carolina for several years before they moved back a year ago.
Landry Rippton was an eccentric woman. Heyward has always told Hayley that she was so much like her mother, maybe that was why Landry never worried about Hayley's anger issues. Landry wasn't neglectful, but she let Hayley have her business more and more as she grew up. Landry would go to her convenience store job and Hayley would go to her own job and that was their daily lives. Sometimes Hayley would come home and if Landry was still awake, they'd sit out on the couch with junk food and watch movies but that was most of their bonding.
Hayley worked for Heyward, running deliveries with Pope. It wasn't hard to get the job, Landry and Heyward got along, and Heyward liked Hayley, even if he gave her a hard time. Though, Heyward was only harder on her because Landry never was.
The day after hurricane Agatha, Hayley went out to the yard to see the yard in shambles, branches everywhere and a tree knocked over. Hayley walked down the steps and lifted a large branch off the rusty metal bonfire pit. There was so much lumber, but if Hayley cut enough up and let it dry, it would be good bonfire logs.
Hayley pulled branches out of the yard and pulled them to one side. One of the dogs from across the trailer park started barking in the distance. She heard the back door of the trailer open, she didn't have to look up to know it was her mother. Hayley smelled the cigarette smoke first.
"Well shit. Agatha put up a good fight." Landry Rippton commented, leaning on the door frame of the door as she took another draw of the cigarette between her fingers.
"How much damage do you think a hurricane would have to do to be called Hurricane Landry?" Hayley asked her mother teasingly.
The woman snickered. "It'd have to rip the islands in half. What do you think Hurricane Hayley would do?"
Hayley shook her head, tossing a heavy branch on top of the rest of the pile. "I don't want a hurricane names after me. I'll have a forest fire named after me."
