RIPTIDE | Rafe Cameron

01. 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘮

A home is meant to be a safe haven, to be a place to keep you sheltered from storms, both literal and personal. I've got so many memories in this house, I've lived here from the day my mother gave birth to me, and I've cherished every moment of it.

But some things have to change eventually, as my father said when he broke the news of our move three months ago, and I've been attempting to get my head around it ever since.

I wouldn't be so bothered if we were staying on The Cut, but we're not, we're moving to Kooksville, formally known as Figure Eight.

It's a once in a lifetime opportunity apparently, after my Parents' surf shop and bar started getting interest from a few of the kooks we had a visit from a property developer offering us big money to move out of the house so they can develop it into a big vacation house for tourists who want to see 'the real OBX.'

My parents were insistent that they didn't want to move, until the developers offered a larger sum of money, roughly four times what our house is worth. I suppose when you're a kook throwing money at the problem ends up being the best option, and who are we to look a gift horse in the mouth?

We aren't the first people to leave the cut for this reason, the Mackenzies and the Dawsons moved about six months ago. People think the developers are working their way from the edge of the cut, attempting to erase what our part of town really is.

So rather than choosing to stay with our people, my parents decided to use the large amount of money to buy a house in Figure Eight, hoping that a house with bay windows and finials will paper over all the cracks in our lives. Or rather, one massive crack that came from all the little cracks joining together over time.

It all came crashing down when my sister disappeared six months ago, one day she was here, the next day she was gone. Supposedly she didn't leave the Outer Banks because her passport hasn't been picked up on any systems. I spend every spare second thinking about where she could be, I feel like I've searched every corner of OBX since she disappeared, which is why I do my best to keep as busy as possible, yet here I am, staring at my life in boxes.

"Honey, have you finished packing?" My mum appears at my bedroom door, "The trucks will be here in two days."

"I'm nearly done," I nod, looking at the boxes that have taken over my room.

"You know this is for the best, don't you Sidney?" She smiles sitting beside me on my bed.

"Is it really?" I sigh, staring at the blue tack dots on my bedroom wall, "Maggie disappeared six months ago, and when she comes back she'll expect us to be here, on the cut, where we belong."

"I want Maggie to come back as much as you do, but we don't know anything about where she is, she'll want us to be happy." She smiles, tucking my hair behind my ear.

"You don't know me very well if you think I'll be happy on Figure Eight." I scoff, knowing that if Maggie were here, she'd feel the same.

Maggie is and will always be my best friend as well as my sister. She was four years old when I was born, and according to our parents, she was besotted from the day we met. We did everything together until she left, the only thing we kept separate were our friendship groups. She liked my friends, and I liked hers, but being four years apart it was never something we wanted to share.

"You can still see your friends when we move, but you'll also need to make new friends in our new neighborhood." She tells me.

"I don't want to be friends with kooks," I huff, "They're a different breed of stuck up."

"I'm sure they're not all bad," she smiles, "I dated a kook when I was your age."

"Who?" I glance at her in shock.