PROLOGUE.

   You cannot turn people into home.
That was the last thing Nadia Kennedy told herself before she packed her bags and left the Outer Banks without so much as a goodbye.
She told herself she was leaving nothing behind. A house filled with poisoned memories and a mother who could barely string a sentence together. That is what home meant to her.

     But home was also the two brothers she loved in a way she never had to think about— despite convincing herself they were only born to get under her skin. Not in the complicated way she loved her parents. It was the red headed girl who eventually would marry into the Kennedy name. It was the boy who lived halfway across the island that would tell her he loved her but yet put an engagement ring on someone else's finger.

It had been two years since she left that stupid note with her scribbled handwriting stuck to the fridge with a silly little 'Kildare Island' magnet, a half explanation of where she had gone and that she was okay. Not that that made anyone that got to read it feel at ease.

Gavin/Eli
I'm only writing this to let you know that I am okay. I̶'m̶ m̶o̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ t̶o̶. I'm leaving to stay with Faye for a while. I worked enough shifts to book a flight to New York. I know this isn't much of an explanation, but I hope you can understand. Y̶o̶u̶ s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ t̶r̶y̶ a̶n̶d̶ g̶e̶t̶ a̶w̶a̶y̶ t̶o̶o̶.. You can call me any time.
Nadia.

She had a sinking feeling in her chest all morning. Waiting patiently with shaky hands for the water on the stove to boil when her phone started buzzing furiously against the wooden counter. It wasn't unusual for Phoebe Sinclair to call her at random hours of the day, she had been checking in constantly nearly every day for two years. But 7am was different. And that gut wrenching feeling seemed to creep into her throat the minute she muttered out a "hello."

There was silence for what felt like hours, just a shaky uneven breath until the brunette girl spoke again. "Phoebe it's 7am," she huffs out a laugh.

"Nadia," the red head murmurs. Her voice was muffled, barely above a whisper and it had the Kennedy girl sitting up straighter from where she plonked herself onto a kitchen chair, tapping her fingers against her work apron.

"You have to come home," she whispers. That almost made Nadia laugh again— she was still getting lectures about coming home. And to less of her knowledge her next words were a lot crueler than they were intended. "Phoebs I have to go to work— unless someone is rolling over in their grave then please I don't want to have this conversation again, i'm doing good here," she grumbles, squeezing the fabric into her fist, letting out a heavy exhale.

She didn't need the girl on the other line to say anything else. The sob that came next was enough. "God Nadia I wish I could tell you this in person," she cries.

     "I got a call about an hour ago. An officer offered to call you but I just couldn't let that be how you found out. Nadia i'm so sorry— it's really crazy here a lot has happened and—"

      Her voice trailed off after that. She had barely heard the next five minutes of the Sinclair girl shakily talking down the other line. But she didn't cry. Not even a drop. But she couldn't breathe either— like the world just ended and all she could really do was stare blankly at the water that was now boiling over the pot onto the stove. She couldn't cry. Because crying would be selfish, she reminded herself.

     A part of her knew she would one day have to go back. To attend a stupid ceremony or maybe when her older brother finally decided to marry Phoebe Sinclair. But never for something like this.

    For the murder investigation of Eli Kennedy.

    "Are you there?" Phoebe croaked. The red head was pacing outside the Kennedy home, occasionally glancing through the window at the police officers who were in a heavy discussion with her boyfriend, who was sat on the sofa with his head in his hands.

    She didn't really have anything to say. And now she could hear Ada's crying from down the hall and the brunette girl decided that she didn't have time to process a word she had just heard. Or maybe she just didn't want to process it, because that made it real.

      "I'm here. I have to go to work. I'll book my flight tonight."

   And she hung up.

You can try not to turn people into home, but you will. No matter the circumstances and how much you try and shut them out those people will live inside you and you will see them in everything you do— even when you are five hundred miles away. And maybe she had yet to admit it, but when Nadia Kennedy packed her bags and convinced herself she needed to be somewhere different— to be somebody different, she left behind people that would have crawled to the end of the earth for her.

    And they did. Even from five hundred miles away.

bella's thoughts/
it begins🫢🫢🫢🫢🫢