┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉

SAFE HAVEN

┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉

     The Outer Banks were way more than just a tourist spot, or a popular city amongst numerous others for Lauren Sage Routledge. Of course, others could relate— a majority of the town consisted of full-year citizens. But nobody's experience could quite compare, or come close for that matter, to hers.

     Instead, it was more like one whole jumbled memory, with individual pages that she could flip through and brood over. Practically every street had a story or two attached to it securely, like a safety clip doing everything in its power to keep them annexed, or some sort of knick-knack that served zero purpose, except to collect dust on her windowsill.

     Her parents having divorced a few years aback, the whole one-house-to-the-other gig became routine. Wren's mother, who happened to own half of a company (which was the absolute epitome of a Kook trade, not to mention), made the ultimate decision to sell her half a year or two after the divorce. After doing so, Camille opted to leave the OBX in her past entirely (Wren couldn't possibly fathom why, but anyway), moving states away and hauling the young girl with her, no matter how hard she tried to run the other way. 

     Joint custody was soon decided: Camille had her daughter during the school year, and Teddy had her during the summer.

     Needless to say, summers became more than just no school for the Routledge girl.

     Her mother wasn't a total dickwad of a parent, but she sure was a rich prick. Not mother of the year, that was for sure. Caring more about the elegant designers her daughter wore with anything but enjoyment than Wren's input on it was how she rolled. Camille could list dozens more expensive jewelry brands than her daughters hobbies— it had always been that way. Due to that sole fact, it made their relationship strained, and anything like how a genuine mother-daughter bond should be. 

     Back when they were a happy, joyous family of three, Figure 8 was their home; that meant partying amongst island royalty, and typically disassociating with the poor. Camille was the number one believer in those rules, but enforcing them with her rebellious daughter who wanted none of it was challenging.

     Especially when her uncle and cousin lived on The Cut.

     John B was basically her brother; they looked out for one another as if they were siblings, and would refer to the other as so if you asked them about it. He protected her from any danger, while in exchange, she stood up for him against shallow-minded Kooks to the best of her abilities. Maybe not biological, but they were siblings. 

     Being away from him for long, extended periods of time made her feel like she was constantly walking on Legos, barefoot. His friends had come to be some of her favorite people as well— her kind of people— but they mainly knew her as the girl who popped in whenever she could sneak away from Kook-landia. She wasn't a full-time member of the Pogues, despite how much she yearned for it.  

     About a year prior to where our story picks up, Camille got her ass dragged into the slammer. Was that necessarily a surprise?

    No. Not in the slightest. Wren couldn't explain the trivial details if you paid her— that goes to show how much she truly gave a shit. Something about her mother owing a shit-load of money and being unable to liquidate it— or something to such a degree. Camille explained it to her, but the words coming out of her mouth sounded like gibberish and completely made-up when Wren spoke to her mother through the foggy prison visitation center glass. Police never verified or denied Camille's statements— Wren never asked them. So, her mother's reasoning for jails as unbeknownst to her (she didn't care). Karma's a bitch, huh?!

     Her mom out of the picture was a blooming joy— a whole-ass miracle! It meant she could live with her father for good, on the poor side of society in the Outer Banks. Perhaps that sounded odd for anyone else, but for Lauren, the grin didn't leave once as her belongings were all set up in the tiny, one-story home. 

     But of course, there's more.

     Those three, mere months were incredible. Every spare second was spent on the marsh, or in Big John's completely disheveled office, watching as he hopelessly tried to piece evidence together to come up with a solution to the great Royal Merchant mystery. John B and Lauren spent practically every dawning second together, and the girl finally believed she was there to stay. Even being inducted into the Pogues, officially!

     Teddy was often working, with his local construction company. On the days he wasn't, however, he'd often take the set of teenagers for a quality meal— meaning The Wreck, obviously. 

     That bliss was short-lived though, for Big John's curiosity regarding the Merchant lead him so far down the rabbit hole, to the point where he was killed in an accident at sea.

     Okay, according to JB, he was still out there. And Wren wasn't going to be the one to break the news; she couldn't. Not when she was screwed up over the death of her beloved uncle, herself. That man was like another father to her! It was strenuous enough for herself to come to terms that he was genuinely gone, but trying to convince John Booker that he wasn't going to be returning any time soon was something that she just couldn't pull herself to do.

     Maybe she had herself caught up in a lie. Maybe, just maybe, she had a twinge— a miniscule ounce— of faith, still. Because realistically, she couldn't bring herself to allow the words 'Big John' and 'dead' to leave her lips in the same sentence. Wren wasn't as stuck on it as her cousin, but that didn't mean she wasn't stuck on it at all, right? Routledges tended to get stuck on things, and they couldn't get un-stuck. 

     Teddy had become John B's legal guardian following— because who else would, honestly speaking? It wasn't like his mom, who split ages ago, would just appear out of thin air. She was gone, and gone for good.

     Come to find out, Uncle T wasn't an award-winning mourner, either. His brother's disappearance/death fucked with his brain, to the point where one day, he just left. He claimed that he was going to work up north temporarily, while he got back in a comfortable spot. His house was sold, and Wren moved her shit into a spare room at the chateau, that she tended to sleep over in on the regular, anyway. Temporarily turned into forever, apparently, because neither of them had heard much from him, since.

     Now that pissed Wren the hell off, that was for sure. Her own father? He was no better than Camille! 

     She was really pissed. 

     Even so much so to the point where she left the Outer Banks, and North Carolina as a whole, not too long after him. She wasn't going to do it— she did not want to betray John B, but he gave her the push she so desperately needed. 

     And ever since then, she used what little money there was left, via that wonderful (sarcasm on the wonderful, naturally) father of hers, couch surfing. Turns out, being a vagabond is a dangerous game when in a foreign land, and you're putting your trust into anyone who offers nothing but a place to rest your eyes.

     Wren had enough.

     She had enough of the men that paid for her dinner, and kindly said she could stay at their place for a short while, only to find out they just wanted to screw her, or something even more vulgar than that. Some of those encounters were way worse than others, making Lauren feel like downright shit.

     Over the course of six months, her original plans of gaining a clear mindset turned into a nightmare— and not the ones that she woke up from as a child. These kept her awake, to the point where she didn't even need a place to sleep, anyway.

     Once that point was reached, she knew that there was only one logical way to turn herself around and straighten herself out. She needed to return to her sanctuary, her actual home, her safe haven—

     —The Outer Banks.

☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆