𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐲𝐚 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐬 • 𝐣𝐣 𝐨𝐛𝐱

prologue

"emily could you please smile? would it hurt? really, the air in this car is being contaminated by your negative energy." my mom said while she was looking at the road in front of her. i just looked at her and sighed.

i was in a bad mood.

you see, three weeks ago my mom caught my dad in a hotel with his assistant in a bathtub doing something i don't wanna think about. that happened because her brother, who works at the same building as my father, saw him leaving with his assistant after work and decided not only to follow them but to call my mother right away. 

she was pissed in a whole other lever. 

after that she threw his clothes from our apartment window, screamed at him, said some bad words that i never even heard before and kicked him out.

we lived in a apartment in New York like the perfect family. well, not anymore. two weeks after that incident, barbara parson decided to go back to her roots in Outer Banks and forced me to go with her.

i didn't have many friends to left behind. i am very annoying and weird. i mean i still cry about One Direction when the other girls are on the Shawn Mendes vibes. but i had Alice and Lucas. they were the Patrick and Squidward to my SpongeBob. i met them when i was 12 and since then we are inseparable. i was there for Alice when her grandma died and when Lucas told his dad that he was gay. they were there for me when my dad left. we swore we were never going to leave each other.

until now.

of course they understood but i didn't. why did we have to leave beacause my dad was an asshole?

my mom was putting that strong facade for me but i heard her crying every night for the past three weeks. i didn't complained when she decided to move but i wasn't happy either. she deseverd a new start even if that means that i was miserable.

we just passed the Outer Banks sigh when i realize that i was feeling strange. it was a new feeling, it wasn't bad or good it was just there. like when we do something outside of our comfort zone.

as we were starting to see houses i noticed how the people in here were simple. some teenagers were running around with big smiles on their faces while the parents looked exausted from working. it looked like every house had a surf board on its front like surfing was a prerequisite to live here. most of the houses were small and worn out.

i was looking at those kids playing with water when i realized the car stopped. in front of us was a small yellow house. the paint was worn and the wooden windows were broken. my mom and I got out of the car and just looked at the house. after what it felt like 5 minutes my mom broke the silence.

"we can make this feel like home, right?" she said with a low voice. i turned to her to see that she was looking at me with sad and a little bit of hope in her eyes, like she needed me to agree with her.

"yeah, we can." i said not really believing at those words.

we took our luggage and put them in their respective places in the house. after that we sat on the stairs to catch a breath.

"why did you move from here?" i ask. she looked distant.

"when you grow up in this part of the island your only thought is leaving. when i made 18 years old i grabbed a few clothes, a bottle of water, 50 dolars from the wallet of my uncle and left." she chuckled. "he knew me enough to know that nothing he could possibly say would make me stay so he just let me go. when i arrived in New York i never felt so lost but at the same time i knew. i knew that i belonged there." she looked at me and gave a sweet smile.

"so you never liked here?" 

"oh no, i did. i had the best time surfing and breaking rules. it's just... complicated. there's some people on a part of this island that are mean. and it doesn't help when you have to have two jobs to pay the bills and put food on the table." she sighed and grabbed my hand. "but in here you will find the right people. good people. friends who doesn't even care if you don't have a phone they will like you for who you are and that's it. they will trust you and make you feel loved if you let them."

i saw her eyes fill with water and i hugged her while she broke down on my arms. i always saw my mom as this independent and strong woman who doens't let anybody raised a finger on her face but seeing her so fragile was new. and it broke my heart.

when she was a little better i told her to go take a nap and rest while i finished unpacking and i went to my room. the room was plain but it was enough. the walls were a light green, there was just a single bed, a closet and a nightstand. i looked at the window where there was a big three in front of it blocking any landscape that could have behind her.

i never really thought that one day i would live near the beach. alice hated the beach, she used to said that sand was evil and once it was on your skin it would never leave. she's probably mad at me right now since i didn't call her as soon as i arrived but i took a mental note to call her later.

i stared unpacking my books, putting them on the floor next to the closet.

and man, i have a lot of books. maybe that's why i only had two friends. i'm a real nerd. 

well, i'm not even sorry about it.

after that i when to the clothes, i open the closed and immediately see the dust in the air. i was checking out the drawers when i saw a black bag on the last one. i grabbed it and sat on the bed. there was a name tag with Charlotte Routledge written on it. i opened it. inside there was a voice recorder, a piece of paper that it looked like a letter, an old picture of a group of friends and a shoe box closed with a lot of tape and a note on it saying

This must be opened only by Jonathan Bailey Routledge.