Sally's sigh rang quite loudly through the desolate beach. Montauk was never the hot stop of teen socializing and it hadn't changed at all since the last time her parents took her here.
Her parents.
Sally didn't cry much, she thought that if something bad happened to you, crying wouldn't help. You had to get up and do something about it. When her parents died is one of the only instances in her 22 year old life that she can recall crying.
She remembered that day clearly.
She had been staying at her Uncle's, waiting for her parents flight to get in so she could get away from the nasty man. Her Uncle was a drinker and a smoker, everything Sally hated all rolled up into one. She was sitting at the island in the kitchen, drawing some messy lines on a sheet of paper with the measly crayons her Uncle had supplied her with.
There was a knock on the door.
Sally, being naturally curious at such a young age, let out an excited giggle and a, "I'll get it!" Just loud enough for her Uncle to here in his lounge.
She bounded off the bar stool, sprinting to the door and preparing to throw it open and embrace the people on the other side. It was her parents, it had to be. They were already 2 hours late and they promised that they'd be home in time to leave that night. Sally knew her parents never broke promises.
She opened the door widely, a grin set on her face exposing the few teeth she had. It wasn't her parents, but a man. A man in a uniform Sally didn't recognize. She cocked her head to the side in confusion, her tiny eyebrows raised in question.
"Is your Uncle in the vicinity, little one?" He asked.
The woman remembered a lot of feelings after that. Pain, fear, slight confusion (she had just been 5, she had no idea what the situation held.), and sadness. A overwhelming sadness without abandon threatened to consume her when her Uncle finally summed it all up,
"Mommy and Daddy won't be coming home."
The tide was rising, the water was gently licking at her feet now. That's what pulled her out of her reverie and into the present, which honestly, wasn't much better.
She was a dropout, forced into it, to take care of her Uncle. Her Uncle's funeral was today as well. Sally Jackson finally knew what it meant to be utterly alone.
Sally had arrived here right after the funeral. She couldn't take the, "I'm sorry" 's of the people who would not understand. Never understand.
So, she had come her to seek refuge in the place that had made her happiest in her earliest childhood memories. And it came through.
The gentle breeze that played with her hair, the sound of waves lapping at the shore, and the distant sound of children's laughter somewhere down the beach.
The sun was sinking down for it's evening slumber, and Sally supposed she should too. With a huff, she stood and grabbed her heels, turning and walking back toward her cabin.
Leave it to her to zone into the sand and not pay attention to her surroundings. She was jerked back into the present when she ran into someone. Literally. The sand wasn't very nice to falling butt's.
Sally winced as she landed and glanced up at whom she had hit.
He was tall, strong, but not burly. She had tousled black hair and sea green eyes that twinkled with the setting sun. He was staring down at her with an even gaze, a slight smile tugging at the corner of this mouth.
"Here," his voice was gruff, like callouses on the hands from excessive work. It took Sally a minute to realize his hand was extended to her.
A/N: And that, lovies, was the first chapter. What do you think?