Friday, 6 days before.
IF YOU TOLD NADIA KENNEDY five days ago that she would be stood in the Outer Banks one week from now; she wouldn't have believed you. But if you told Nadia Kennedy five days ago she would be stood on the front porch of Tannyhill one week from now— she would have laughed in your face.

Frankly it had been a blur how she had really ended up there, she had walked the entire way home from the bar the night previous, called her aunt and spoke to her daughter for an hour, hearing Phoebe and her brother come in stumbling at 2am; and falling asleep with that unbearable aching feeling in her throat.

It was an act of blind rage really, a phone call from Deputy Shoupe that morning and a now coffee stained wall in the station interview room from where the brunette had hurled her coffee hearing about what Rafe Cameron had done to get her younger brother off the hook.

   It did not slide past the brunette's head like the two officers in front of her thought it would, hence the coffee incident, and the storming out of the station with Phoebe hot on her heels asking what had happened.

Maybe she was just looking for someone to blame, how she left the car running and grabbed the first object she could find as she practically ran up the driveway of the Cameron residence; launching it straight at the stupid white pillars that adorned the front door and watching the plant pot crumble against the white tile.

"Fuck," Phoebe mutters, swiping a hand across her mouth, sinking further into the passenger seat with widened eyes that were moving frantically between the Kennedy girl and the expensive mess she had just made.

    "You sick son of a bitch— kept that one quiet huh Rafe?" she spits, looking wildly between where Grace had appeared in the upstairs window and their porch now covered in soil and what once were perfectly planted flowers.

Three broken plant pots is what it took for the door to swing open, his expression awfully twisted and a hand frustratingly slamming against the door frame.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"You like paying drug dealers off Rafe?"

    The rage was radiating from her like his world was on fire.

Another plant pot.

"What are you talking about?"

Another.

He had seen it too many times now, that flash of hatred,"don't you dare play dumb," it came out just above a whisper. And Phoebe had already swung her body out of the car as if she could see it too.

He didn't want to say anything else, just letting her take her anger out on his garden in loud huffs and words she was barking that he could barely comprehend anymore, he planned to let her do just that, jaw tightly clenched and folding his arms across his chest.

   "Nadia," Phoebe murmurs, shaking her head.

"You got him killed."

It had practically echoed, it had the Sinclair girl freezing from where she was attenpting to drag the brunette away, and Grace's jaw fell open just as the words slipped past the Kennedy girl's lips.

   The silence that came next was unbearable, just Nadia's menacingly narrowed expression at the Cameron boy, knuckles turning white from where she was digging her fingernails into the palm of her hands.

  Rafe scoffs.

"You whore around with the Detective and now you believe everything he tells you?"

   She exhales heavily, a bitter laugh escaping her throat and his words from the night previous echoing in the back of her mind.

<I just wanted to talk, like friends.>

"You're a liar Rafe, you want to know why? — because me and you—" she breaths out, digging a finger straight into the middle of his chest, "we will never be friends."

   "I think that's enough, you need to go Nadia, now," Grace nods quietly from the doorway, although, there wasn't a touch of anger laced in her tone, only disappointment, confusion maybe.

Phoebe tugs again slightly on the brunettes arm, expression pleading that she has said enough.

    So they left Rafe and Grace on the porch staring after the pair, still just as shocked as the next at the outburst neither of them expected so early on a Friday morning.

   "Her brother died Rafe, she's upset, she needs to blame someone," Grace whispers, watching him watch her being escorted to Phoebe Sinclairs truck that was still running.

   "Yeah, right," he mutters, running a hand over his head in a heavy exhale, turning away from the blonde, slamming the door in the process. She stayed there for a few more minutes, motionless and listening to the crashes and occasional shout from the other side.

   Grace Walton was never stupid. Grace Walton never doubted that Rafe loved her. He did. But when thirty minutes later the blonde found him leaning over the bloody kitchen sink, when she was cleaning his cut up knuckles and kissing over the bruised skin, when his entire body was shaking like he just got told the world was ending, Grace knew that being loved by him meant nothing when Nadia Kennedy could spit out five words and his whole world was upside down.

— two years before —

    "I really just don't know what you want me to do Nadia," Rafe grumbled, watching with narrowed eyes as she sits on the edge of the bed, face resting in shaky hands.

    "I don't want you to do anything— I want you to do what you want to do, Rafe," she sounded pleading— desperate almost. She wanted him to make the decision because he wanted to, not because she was asking.

   "It's more complicated than that."

   Her head snaps up to look at him, and it was evident now she was more than just angry, eyes rimmed red and flushed cheeks, that awful look in her eye.

     Disappointment.

   "Just go," she spoke quietly.

   "Nadia—"

    "I said go, please."

    And then they were both shouting— neither of them able to hear each other over the harsh words that were spilling from each of their lips.

    "You're being so selfish," she spits.

     "You knew exactly what this was when it started Nadia you can't give me that shit."

    "This? What even is this?" she points between them, digging a finger right into his chest.

    "—Maybe this has gone on for too long."

    "Yeah? Then call it quits then."
    There was a heavy shift in the air.

    It was the first time, and it wouldn't be the last, that he had seen pure hatred flash in her eyes, even through tears it was pure and growing and he wished it didn't make him feel sick. What they had had always been so temporary, the agreement they had. An agreement they started when they met at sixteen years old. When she got transferred to kook academy on a scholarship, and when he would sneak her through Tannyhill in the middle of the night for the next two years after that.

    When Rafe Cameron, someone who didn't have friends, made his first one.
     It was temporary then, and it still was. Maybe it always would be, even if it never felt it. Not when they fought like this.

      She shoved him a few times after that, desperately trying to get her point across until he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to him as she choked out a frustrated cry.

    "I hate you."

     He just let out a shaky breath, running a hand up her back when she clutched onto his shirt tighter.

    "Yeah, I know," he breathed.

    They stayed like that for awhile, until he licked his lips as he opened them, tone hushed, "—I think we do need to stop this, Nads."

"I know," she spoke quietly.

     She was still clinging onto him for dear life, like she knew she needed to just let go, but nothing would let her. Or maybe it was just because he wouldn't let her either. In all senses.

   He opened his mouth to say something else but car wheels crunching against the gravel outside caused him to shut it again, frowning ever so slightly, trying to peer over her and out of the slightly open curtain.

   "Who's that?" she sniffled.

    It didn't take long for her to find out. A heavy banging on her front door and a heavy voice echoing through the crack in the letterbox.

   "Open the fucking door Eli."

   Panic flooded her entire demeanour, pulling herself away from where his grip tightened around her.

   She brings a thumbnail between her teeth, "who is that?" she hisses.

   Rafe exhales heavily, shaking his head, watching as she pulls back the curtain to try and get a better look. Until she's stumbling back into him, tears pooling in her eyes again.

   She didn't see much— he had his hood up, and frankly she was too scared to remember anything else after seeing him waving a gun around. She was desperately searching for her phone, shaking her head and muttering to herself about calling the police.

   "You stay here? Yeah?" Rafe says firmly, pushing her shoulders until she's seated at the edge of her bed, nodding his head at her, waiting for her to agree. But she shakes her head.

    "We should just call the police," she hissed.

    He shakes his head, "No police, you have to stay here."

    She argued a bit until he eventually got her to calm down, pleading with her to let him figure it out.

   And ultimately she listened. She always listened to him.

   Rafe Cameron spent the rest of that day paying off three different drug dealers Eli Kennedy had fallen into heavy debt with, and Nadia Kennedy would never have known.

bellas thoughts/
hii i'm back eeeek
im hoping that i can keep my promise of updating regularly again, i had such a busy few months with graduating university and my final coursework deadlines.
thnk u for being patient with me ❤️