Farah Carmine was seventeen when she fell in love for the very first time. Not the superficial love that most adolescent girls experienced. She fell in love with a boy who offered her a greedy, clumsy love. He was late afternoon in the summertime, vanilla coke and broken pinky promises.

          The first time he kissed her, it was like a sigh of relief, tracing her birthmarks with delicate precision, as if she were a broken porcelain cup that had been glued back together countless times before. His kisses were as addicting as acid. Well, as addicting as practically any drug you could take at a party, not at all worrying about the consequences. And, maybe what Farah Carmine liked about the boy most of all, was that he was a good liar, making her forget all about her vulgar existence.

          And frankly, the brunette became bitter and untouchable, only opening up to the boy who couldn't feel his own bones anymore. Because she never seemed to run out of tenderness for him. He caused emotional overflow, tears and restless nights. And she was tipsy on desire.

          It had been two years, and the girl was writing about him all over again, in the little diary concealed in the back of her mind. And she was certain she would write it all so much better this time. She would let him fuck her at nineteen. Should she have given in at eighteen? She had already told him where the pain choked her body, and begged for the boy to fix her. She would say more this time. Beg on her hands and knees. Anything.

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          Farah Carmine would be the last person you would think of upon hearing the word 'kook'. Her once perfectly styled hair and pearly white smile had disappeared, disheveled curls and frowns taking their place. And yet, her aura remained a crimson red, her world the color of pearls, softly glowing in the strain of melancholic undertones. Her beauty was like the edge of a sharp knife.

          Her accidental encounter with the Pogues turned out to be full-ride. Divinity stained her fingers and mouth like cherries in the heat of the summertime. It curled its way through her veins, and she felt it in her bones, aching. Because Farah Carmine made the constellations flicker, tanned skin gripping the light of sacrifice.

          And she didn't think she would ever go back. Back to The Cut, back to the rotting hell she had made for herself. It didn't matter to her that she never graduated, that she never picked up her last paycheck from her job at the local kiosk, that her parents were probably sitting at home, smoking Marlboro cigarettes and wondering where the hell she had gone this time.

          Nothing mattered, yet she was looked at with pity masked in glassy eyes. Such a waste of a girl, leaving behind every good opportunity she had, the perfect figure of Outer Banks. Sun-glossed, coffee-brown hair whipping in the wind that cuts down from the jagged rocks along the coast, sea salt clinging to her skin as she watched Kie and JJ fish for dinner, John B. putting together a bonfire somewhere behind her. And she sat in her solitude, fingers delicately picking at the flesh of a coconut in her hands, eyes trained on the sun disappearing behind the darkening horizon.

          Full Pogue. Farah Carmine was in a paroxysm of rage. Constant visions from her past flashed across her mind, visions of a boy, visions of bodies twisted in bedsheets, bodies pressed up against one another in a crowded room, rager.

          "If you could go home to your parents house on Figure Eight this instant, would you do it?" Never, she wanted to say. Because a sweltering mid-July was what she lived for. An aging girl haunted by her own nothingness, a pathetically intense feeling humming in her chest like the sound of a radio murmuring in the distance. But there most definitely was no radio, not for miles. No Pogues or Kooks, no parents telling right from wrong. And that was how Farah Carmine thrived.

          "JJ, truth or dare?" She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of Kie's voice, eyes wandering to the big jump. Ever since they first landed in Poguelandia, nobody was able to build up the guts to make the jump, not even JJ, which was surprising considering the fact that the dirty blonde constantly lived life on the edge, all thoughts of consequence spilling from his mind.

          "Dare." And he climbed across the jagged cliffside, standing at the top, imprisoned by devotion. JJ's intentions were never to be perfect, it was quite the opposite, actually. Burdened by cruel domestic rage and a sickly reputation to live up to, Farah always admired his unconditional longing to rid of his ruined name. Because Luke Maybank was not the type of man you wanted as a father.

          Farah Carmine was blessed with the kookiest of parents. When she was thirteen, Farah stood in an art gallery, marble floor reflecting in the artificial light, as she stared at Caravaggio's painting of Medusa, her mouth open in a bloody, hysterical scream. Farah was nineteen now, and she wanted nothing more than to scream. Rage. She was told not to by her parents. Given trauma, yet, given is putting it lightly. She had it forced down her throat and into her lungs, restricting her breathing and seizing her heartbeat. Her anger was destructive, monstrous.

          "Oh my god, he's actually going to do it." Sarah shielded her eyes from the sun, looking up at the boy as he inched closer and closer to the edge, heartbeat beating in an uneven pattern. "It's highly dangerous with zero reward. Yeah, he's doing it." Farah laughed, coming to stand beside the blonde girl as they both anxiously watched, almost in horror.

           And when JJ Maybank tipped forward, plummeting into the sea below him in a messy backflip, Farah felt her heart drop into her stomach. The boy felt alive, a rush of unearthly thoughts clouding his mind as he rose to the surface, opaque waves crashing about him as he lifted his toned arms in victory. He would never get used to the feeling of truly being alive.

          "I actually thought I was going to die." Farah handed him his dry shirt as he shook out his hair, sending droplets of water flying about him. "You looked like you were going to die." Farah laughed, rubbing the boy's back gently as he slightly shivered from the cold.

          And Farah Carmine often wondered where her motherly instincts arose, because in all honesty, her own mother bore a girl with a gun for a mouth. And the bullet holes were in her lungs, if her mother ever truly cared she would patch them up with an undying tenderness. Her mother's daughter turned into a blood-thirsty hound — after years of licking her own wounds and biting her tongue.

          But girls contain multitudes. Made up of so many odd parts. The reason the monster in Frankenstein is so memorable is that, when it opens its mouth, out comes the voice of an alienated teenage girl.

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          The sunrise looked heavenly upon Farah Carmine's glowing, tanned skin, like melting salted caramel you would get on a green apple at the county fair. And she was made of ash and wild cherries, her eyes looking out at the sea, its sharp smell dangling in the air around her. She looked like some swan princess, who enchants one's imagination in childhood, unashamedly romantic.

          And this was her ritual. Waking up before the rest of the group, watching the vastness of the horizon bound only by the vault of crystalline sky above. And this morning was supposed to be just the same as the previous. Except it couldn't be because there was the unusual robotic hum of kook life that haunted her breath.

          "There's a plane." She caught sight of it only seconds later, rushing to wake the others as she kept an eye on its rough outline. "Guys, wake up." The engine grew louder as the pogues came to their senses, pointing and shouting. "Hey! We're over here!"

          "Someone light the signal fire." Farah frantically looked around, making eye contact with Pope, who hurriedly grabbed a lighter, Cleo following him. "We're down here!" They all shouted in unison, like a chorus gone askew, voices hoarse and begging. "Please!" She was a body of impulses, running into the water, carried by legs that betrayed her body, thrashing about in the waves as if it would catch the attention of the helicopter. Anything, anything to be seen.

          "He's turning around!" She wailed, pointing and sobbing at the reality. "Guys, he sees us." She turned to them, relief and anxiety coursing through her boiling veins. She observed the aircraft, following it with dilated eyes. "The pond! He's going to the pond, come on." She ran up the shore, following the others as they met up with Pope and Cleo near the pond.

          "Hey there." The helicopter landed in the pond, disrupting the stillness of the serene water. A man, maybe in his 40's, disheveled brunette who could use a haircut, climbed out of the cockpit, an unusually large grin stretching across his face. "Well, what do we have here?"

          "Just a couple of castaways. Jumped off a boat." John B. returned the smile, Sarah coming to stand beside him. Farah couldn't quite make out what the man said, but after a moment of disappearing once again into the helicopter, he emerged again with a bottle of rum and first aid kit. "I got just the thing for y'all."

          Farah couldn't understand what exactly about the man she found unsettling, but his demeanor set her off. And maybe he thought the same about her, giving a once over of her blotchy red and frustrated skin and tacky looking complexion, heavy breathing from the frantic activity of just a couple minutes prior. He was strange, his happiness suffocating in such a situation. She looked over at Sarah, and the blonde had a similar, skeptical expression strewn across her face, eyebrows furrowed together in concentration.

          "You think he works for your dad?" John B. turned to his girlfriend, his once exuberant behavior completely changing when he saw the distress in her eyes. "Don't stress, Sarah, it's okay." He comforted her, running his fingers up and down her arm before turning back to the man.

          "I'm Jimmy Portis, I'll be your captain today. There's seven of you?" They piled into the back of his helicopter, The Flying Fish, a stupid name for a run-down generation old aircraft. "Yeah. Is that too heavy?" Worry overtook John B. once again, looking at the man and then eying the helicopter in skepticism.

          "Nah. I mean, technically, maybe, but we could always throw somebody overboard right?" Jimmy attempted to crack a joke, which to his dismay, got no reaction from the castaways. "Just tuck in, let's get this shit going." Farah gave the island paradise one last look, musing over memories.

          And she fell back into the same pattern, running out of ways to forget her loneliness, the ill fate of summer's past coming back to haunt her. She is both the dead woman in the attic window and the young girl looking back at her from the courtyard, wondering if she's imagining things. She was bleeding with the midsummer kind of longing; the type of longing that is simultaneously patient and unconditional.

          "So what were you doing all the way out here?" JJ, just as mistrustful as the rest, inquired from his seat, just as the man started up the engine in a concerning, inconsistent manner. "I got a little guide outfit in Saint Vincent. Just spotting fish. The usual. Wahoo. Also, I'd hang onto something. It gets a little rough during takeoff."

          Lies. Wahoo were never found in the area surrounding the island. Farah's eyes almost immediately met JJ's, and the girl shook her head slightly in disbelief, grabbing onto whatever she could find around her for support in the process.

          She couldn't handle it, couldn't handle the way they kept falling into trouble again and again, like a never-ending cycle of misfortune and rage. Rage, a funny word, like a prayer, unanswered, ricocheting in her ribcage. She imagined her heart to be a revolver, the cylinder is empty. No miracles left at all.