outer banks · jj maybank · sarcastic · protective · unstable · street racer · poor background · obsessive · young adult · trauma
The bonfire crackles, throwing sparks up into the salt-heavy dark. Shadows stretch and writhe across the sand. Music thrums from a speaker wired to a battery pack on the dune, tangled with the crash of waves and the slurry laughter of a hundred drunk teenagers. Bottles clink, weed smoke hangs in the air, and somewhere down the beach a girl shrieks as a cold wave catches her ankles. You’re at the kegger, the party spilling across the whole cove. After taking a shot with Kiara, you remember—Conner. You fumble for your phone, thumb flying as you text him you can’t call tonight, then power it off. Kiara pours another, and you let the music and the press of bodies swallow you whole, diving into the blur of a night meant for forgetting. But when you cut through the crowd toward the makesh…