A story inspired by my love of Veronica Mars and Broadchurch and anything involving mysteries. I don't know just run with it. This is a prelude, and the story will begin properly next chapter.
For readers of any of my other stories, I apologise, but they're all on pause for now. The harddrive containing all of my writing and work for university has broken and until I get it fixed, I won't be writing for them because it breaks my heart to rewrite what I've already done. This shouldn't take too long but as a warning, and anything additional will be put on my profile.
An average day in a small town like Priscilla goes a little something like this:
You wake up at the crack of dawn, partly because you can't remember a time you didn't but mostly because the rooster from the farm the other side of your fence doesn't like to be the only one awake. You shower, you brush your teeth, you pick up the milk from outside the door and have breakfast, all to the tune of the fuzzy radio station from two towns over. You wave as Trevor Sanders cycles past your kitchen window facing out onto the quiet street. Occasionally you'll try a smile, but there's only so much effort you can muster at half past five in the morning and sometimes it falls flat.
You grab your apron and shoes from where you dumped them last night before leaving the house, earphones plugged firmly in as you round your home to the little side gate hidden in the hedges. Walking down the eroding steps carved into the cliff side, you let the wind whip through your hair, the sand of the beach between your toes and the salt of the sea tainting your lips. Its peaceful and empty, the way you most enjoy it. The music drowns out your thoughts. The twenty stolen minutes are your only escape.
The journey to work is a short one (everything in this town is a short walk away; you can walk from one end to the other in no less than fifteen minutes). As you stroll along Sandy Avenue, lights begin to turn on as families wake to prepare the children for school. The mayor, Reginald Posen (more affectionately known to you as Uncle Reggie), cycles up Willow Road as you turn up it and he stops to chat for a few minutes. You respond where necessary and nod in mild interest as he tells you of his daughter's upcoming nuptials, and soon you are back on your way to the library, where the cafe you work part time resides on the second floor.
Lily, the librarian and one of the mysteries of the town, is stepping out of her home across the road as you unlock the library doors. She is a woman of few expressions and fewer words, so you are not surprised when she just nods her greeting, slipping through the door as you hold it open for her. She heads straight to her desk and you jog up the stairs to prepare the cafe for the morning rush.
You serve a total of 14 people. 'The morning rush' is a loosely given term since it mostly just consists of whoever forgot to eat breakfast before work, and the usual gaggle of mothers after dropping their children off at the local school. Time drifts by and you take to putting the returns back on their shelves on the ground floor for something to do. The earphones are back in so you almost miss the arrival of the sheriff, whom also happens to be your father. He picks up the lunch you make him every day and you brush off his concern when he comments on how tired you look.
Work finally ends and you take a nap at home before showering again to leave for your main job. You pick up your younger sister on the way and she gives you a strained smile as she runs down the garden path. The walk to the town bar, Cynthia's, is ten minutes of comfortable silence, the only amount you will both get for quite some time. Her bones are protruding more than usual, and you make a mental note to take the bulk of the work tonight. The bar is busier so the hours pass quickly, full of forced smiles and fluid movements of presenting beer bottles and taking empty ones in one sweeping motion. People ask how you are and try to engage you in conversation, but you're a pro at dodging anything too personal so you make it through the shift in good enough spirits to check in on your father with your sister - which only ends with you both leaving soon after, disgruntled and ready to clamber into bed.
At the stroke of midnight you fall asleep on the sofa with the tv still playing sitcom reruns. Your last conscious thought is about how many nights will pass by until you snap and kill the clucking alarm clock over the fence.
This is a typical day in the life of Beca Mitchell, 22, miserable and trapped.
People live in small towns for one of two reasons - they're trying to escape, or they can't. Beca is the latter. The tendrils of the town her family has called home for two hundred years are wrapped tightly around her neck, and she is trapped by her sense of obligation and guilt. Stacie needs her to keep from crumbling. Ashley is pregnant and Aubrey might just go insane from the pressure of her wedding. Her dad needs someone to look after him now, just as much as Lola. Cynthia needs the help at the bar and who would drive Eliza to her doctors appointments each month?
As she stares at the battered and bruised face lying amongst the sea of pillows and tubes and wires, Beca can't help but feel that this stranger might need her too. With no identity and no apparent link to anyone in town, he is probably the biggest mystery to pass through town in its history. Everything about him is locked away inside of his swelling brain and her curiosity is burning. What's his name? Where does he come from? And most importantly, how did he come to be on their beach, face down and bleeding?
Beca stares down at the zip bag of waterlogged possessions the doctors had found on him. A plastic, dollar store lighter; a disposable camera with half the film used; a receipt with the ink washed away; a gold button and two bobby pins; they seem so strange and useless, yet they are the only items that can suggest anything about the man's identity. The clues are strange but clues nonetheless, and the longer she sits and stares, the more she finds herself wondering something she never thought she'd catch herself thinking.
What would her father do?