Meet Phoebe*
Phoebe Byrd Thomas*
Face Claim - Madelaine Petsch
Nickname(s) - Byrdie, Pheebs
Birthday - May 13th, 1999
Gender - Female
Current Age - 26
Age of Super-Serum Enhancement - 20
Education - Completed high school (barely)
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Content Warnings:
They're from Florida, absent parents, drug abuse, overdosing, death of a parent, death of a grandparent, mention of illness, death from illness, physical and mental abuse to an adolescent (minimal detail), scholastic struggle, US Navy and BUDs training, mention of a gunshot wound and diagnosed PTSD, Phoebe is basically a textbook OC (broken past, traumatized, and all that good stuff)
Word Count ~ 1.4k
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Phoebe’s childhood was spent moving back and forth between her mother and father’s houses in Florida. Kimberly Thomas and Chuck Grant never married, having split up before Phoebe had even turned one. Many weekends were spent at the county courthouse, both of her parents and her grandmother, Louise Thomas, fighting for custody of the girl. Chuck and Kimberly were more worried about where they would get their next supply of drugs. Ultimately, the decision was made for Phoebe to live with her grandmother in West Samoset.
On Phoebe’s seventh birthday, her grandmother received a phone call from the medical examiner's office a few counties south of Manatee County. Kimberly had overdosed in an alley behind a gas station in North Port.
Two months before Phoebe’s ninth birthday, her grandmother fell deathly ill, rendering her unable to care for Phoebe any longer. Phoebe was sent to live with her father in Sarasota. And, just like her mother two years ago, they got the call on Phoebe’s birthday that her grandmother had succumbed to the illness.
That’s when Phoebe decided she absolutely hated her birthday.
That’s also when she met Bob Reynolds; the boy with sad eyes and poor posture who lived next door. And, of course, they found refuge in each other. They were each other’s light in the darkness.
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After Bob dropped out of high school, Phoebe lost all motivation for anything she had been involved in. She quit all of the clubs she was in, her grades started slipping, and any extra curricular was forgotten. Her best friend practically vanished off of the face of the earth. She had no one else.
Her mother was gone.
Her grandmother was gone.
Bob was gone.
Chuck had a habit of taking his anger out on Phoebe. Screaming matches became a nightly occurrence. If Phoebe was lucky, that’s where it would stop. Luck was a rare thing in her life. So many nights, she would go to bed with new bruises, a black eye, or cigarette burns littered across her arms. She tried her best to cover it with the makeup she kept from her grandmother, but old concealer that wasn’t really her color could only do so much.
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Phoebe never got out of her academic slump. She barely passed the four years of high school, even with a tutor and an after-school program.
She became very close with her tutor; a sweet lady in her late 60s with greying hair that always pulled into a neat bun and bifocal glasses. In some ways, this tutor, Mrs. Catherine Loucks, reminded Phoebe of her late grandmother. She found herself staying at Catherine’s house in the guest room when things got bad with her father, which was most nights. It was Mrs. Loucks’s husband, Redford, who had inspired Phoebe to join the military.
Red Loucks was a Vietnam veteran, having served in the Navy for the last year of the war. He was as tough as they came. His voice was gruff but kind and his eyes the same. He rarely ever smiled, but when he did, the corners of his eyes would crinkle. Red’s hair was grown-out and still dark, but he was starting to go gray at the roots. When his thin-framed reading glasses weren’t perched on his nose, they were tucked into the collar of his shirt. He told stories of his time in Vietnam and the camaraderie he had built within his troop.
Phoebe looked up to Catherine and Redford like they were her own parents. By the age of seventeen, she had moved in with the Loucks’ fulltime. They never had any children of their own and gladly took Phoebe under their wings, doing everything they could to make her feel loved in the year that she lived with them.
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Phoebe joined the Navy right after she barely finished high school. She walked across the graduation stage, and a week later, she was flown out to Great Lakes, Illinois for the first part of her BUD/S training.
Phoebe and the rest of her squadron went through two months of preparatory school, a three-week orientation, “Phase One,” which was physical conditioning that included ‘Hell Week’, “Phase Two,” which was learning combat diving, and “Phase Three”, which was learning land warfare.
‘Hell Week’ was a five and a half day period of continuous physical exertion, sleep deprivation, and mental stress, designed to be the ultimate test of stamina and determination. It really lived up to the name.
Phoebe almost quit on the third day. She stood in the pouring rain, outside of Admiral Pearson’s office, in the middle of the night. Her hand hovered next to the rope that hung from the bell. Three tolls and she would be free. Three tolls and she could be wrapped in a cozy blanket and flown home. Phoebe inhaled and closed her eyes, her hand starting to move closer to the rope. Her fingers wrapped around the braided cord and-
“Thomas! No!”
Phoebe was tackled to the ground, the air being knocked from her lungs. She landed with a grunt, her hands immediately fighting against the assailant. The two of them rolled on the ground in a fight for dominance until Phoebe ended up on top with her hand on her attacker's throat. “Price? What the hell?” Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath, letting her weight off of the other trainee and raising to her feet.
Hailey Price, the only other woman in the platoon, wiped the blood from her lip, where Phoebe had landed a punch. “I’m not letting you cop out like that. No way, Pheebs.” She sat up, using Phoebe’s hand for leverage to stand. “We’re in this together.”
“Damnit, Hailey. I was this close.” Phoebe held her hand up, her index finger and thumb pinched together and almost touching. “This close to getting out of here. I can’t do this anymore, Hails. I can’t.” Her voice cracked, tears starting to roll down her cheeks and mixing with the rain.
Hailey shook her head, grabbing Phoebe’s shoulders and looking her dead in the eye. “Yes, you can, Phoebe. If I don’t get to quit, neither do you.” Her expression softened, as she wiped away the tears in Phoebe’s cheeks with gentle fingers. “What would Redford Loucks say if you quit, hm?”
It was now Phoebe’s turn to shake her head, a watery exhale leaving her lips. “Oh, come on, Hailey. That’s not fair, and you know it.”
A sly smirk broke out across Hailey’s face. “It may not be fair, but it’s working.”
Phoebe groaned, looking up at the rain and taking a deep breath before letting out a shaky giggle. “Fuck you, Price.”
“I love you, too, Pheebs.” Price slung her arm around Phoebe’s shoulders, guiding her to the bunks. “We gotta get back before we wake Pearson up and he reams both of our asses.”
From that night on, Phoebe was constantly plagued with the thought of ‘what would Red do?’ or ‘what would Red think?’ So, she stuck it out, completed all of her training, and did a thirteen-month tour in Iraq before she was medically discharged with a gunshot wound to her shoulder and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Phoebe moved back home to Sarasota after her discharge, staying with Loucks’ again until she got her own place down the street from them. She started working in a little retail store as soon as possible so she could to distract herself from… well, herself. It’s not that she wanted to go back to Florida. In all actuality, she wanted to be wherever Bob was. Where she truly felt she belonged.
Chuck Grant was practically dead to Phoebe. People would whisper about him when they recognized her at the store, mentions of him being evicted from the house, living on the streets, and eventually getting arrested. Phoebe couldn’t find a single care to give about her father or his wellbeing or his whereabouts. He never cared about her. Why should she care about him?
All Phoebe wanted was the boy next door back. She wanted Bob back.
She needed Bob back.
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It's back, lol. Made some changes and created a storyline that will hopefully help me plan out this series how I want it to go. I hope you enjoy it, my loves! I will be working on Chapter 1 (Prologue) throughout this week!