soulofstaars

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I. Jean-Marc Vallée. II. Gregorio Lazzarini + The Mountain Goats. III. Chelsea Wolfe. IV. Robert Berens.

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Moe is five years old when her father dies in a boating accident. And that is what marks the end of everything that could possibly be good and sacred in her life. From then on she learns to live perpetually in the shadow of a tragedy; for, girls like Maureen Reeves were never really meant to live out from under that shadow.

It is easy for Moe to understand that her mother blames her. But Moe wasn't there. She was at home with crayons and a colouring book, eating apple pieces; though Ainsley blames Moe for most things. For being born even. Ainsley Reeves has never been very kind to anyone but her eldest daughter and Moe is used to this but Moe is also insurmountably angry.

If Maureen was a house and her skeleton was plaster walls and support beams, then her anger would be like a black mould. Like rot at the very core of the thing.

Black mould is nearly impossible to get rid of entirely, and the best way to make sure it stays gone is to rip out everything that it has touched. Maureen is not sure how far this analogy stretches out to fit her life— she is a house full of black mould, she is a teenage girl filled with rage. What does it mean to strip a house down to its bones just to get rid of the rot? Is that house even your house anymore when most of it is gone? Is your mother still your mother if she does not resent you? Are you still yourself if you are not angry?

Maureen— Moe— has no identity if her mother does not hate her a little; if her father is not dead; if her older sister is not the golden child. She is defined by the rot inside of her. There is no story for her if there is no tragedy to begin it.

Moe is not the only person on the Cut that falls victim to this sentiment. She can count on two hands how many kids she knows with cookie-cutter-white-picket-fence lives and then on one, how many of those lives are actually cookie-cutter perfect. Even the Kooks on Figure Eight are fucked in the head the same way that she is. Something about Kildare Island she supposes. Riddled by the same rot that's inside her.

There is something remarkable about it still. Something complex that twists and churns inside of her. It is her home, it is her prison. Sometimes she thinks she could live forever under the warm North Carolina sun, and other times she wakes up in a cold sweat worried that she'll never get away from the Outer Banks. But isn't that the way everything feels when you're sixteen? Like your life ends when you turn twenty and not figuring it all out beforehand is the end of the world as you know it. Or at least that's what it feels like to be a teenager in the Cut— where not getting into college means you're going to be stuck forever in a job you got at fifteen.

But that's for later. Right now, the days are long and the sun is hot. Summer is the axis that Moe's life spins around. A few months every year that she gets entirely for herself. The rot doesn't go away but she lets herself forget it.

Or at least she tries.

It's harder as you get older. When your problems become more potent. As you verge into seventeen and you can't make yourself forget the way your mother talks to you because it reminds you of the way you talk to your best friends when you're mad. Because filth teaches filth.

She tries her best to distance herself from the cloying of her semi-serious boyfriend. Summer is sacred and always has been for her and her friends. How does she reconcile spending time with a boy she thinks she loved once but doesn't even stick around to see, and this group of people who have long ago nestled their way into her heart?

It feels like splitting down the seams as Moe comes to realise that she will always choose these people over a boy that might want to build a life with her one day. Because what is a boy you've known for less than a year next to people you've known since you were eight? What is a boy you've never really let meet your Mom, next to your best friend who sleeps at your house most nights a week because it's where he feels safest? What the fuck are you supposed to do when all you can think about is the way your best friend looks at you like you've hung the stars?

Here's the crux of it. Girls like Moe don't know what to do with love when they finally get it. Mac was never going to be enough for her, she's just loathe to realise it. It means admitting why she could never love Mac the way that he deserves. Something she can't even admit to herself.

Instead, she buries it. Down, down, down.

And then, when her best friend John B sends them on a wild goose chase across Kildare to find the Royal Merchant gold the summer after his Dad vanishes, Moe thinks she might just be forced to dig her buried feelings for JJ up with it.
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ella purnell ⠀⠀⠀ Maureen 'Moe' Reeves

rudy pankow ⠀⠀⠀ JJ Maybank

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timothée chalamet ⠀⠀⠀ Malachi 'Mac' Steinman

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jessica chastain ⠀⠀⠀ Ainsley Reeves

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olivia cooke ⠀⠀⠀ Lauren 'Lo' Reeves

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nikolaj coster waldau ⠀⠀⠀ Harvey Reeves †

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☼

matthew sato — John B Routledge
madison bailey — Kiara Carrera
jonathan daviss — Pope Heyward
madelyn cline — Sarah Cameron
carlacia grant — Cleo Anderson
alexa barajas — Adelaide 'Addie' Escarra
alisha boe — Tierney Sutton
leighton meester — Jennifer Cameron
aaron paul — Andrew 'Andy' Maybank
adam brody — Justin Nichols

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☀️ hellllooooo long time no see. many a thing going on in my life. working a 9-5 and haven't written in maybe six months so bear with sporadic updates. but i miss moe, i miss summer, i miss being unemployed 😣 so i give u tidal renewed and revamped!!!!!!!! (but no no new graphics because i gave up paying for photoshop)