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I am Eleonora, and this kitchen, this house, this place is part of me too.

I'm not the same eleven-year-old girl who left it crying, but it's still here. It still belongs to me, and I still belong to it.

I stand there for another moment, looking out at the water, before I make myself move.

There is one place I need to go.

I walk through the kitchen and open the glass door, letting the warm air brush over my skin.

The terrace stretches across the beach side of the house, big enough for the long table we've eaten around more times than I could ever count. The chairs are stacked against the wall and everything needs a good clean after sitting unused, but I barely notice any of it as I walk past the table and the pots along the wall toward the edge.

The red flowers have grown wild again, spilling over the railing and framing pieces of blue between them.

And there it is.

My sea.

The sound reaches me first. Waves rolling over the stones below, pulling back and returning again. Gulls somewhere farther down the beach. Voices drifting up from people near the water.

The air touches my face, warm and salty.

I put my hands on the railing, close my eyes and tip my head back.

And breathe.

Jude

I follow her outside but stop before I reach the railing.

Nora doesn't notice me.

Her hands are resting against the edge of the terrace, her head tipped up toward the sky. Her dark hair flies around her face in the wind coming off the water, carrying the smell of sea salt with it, and her eyes are closed as she lets the sun caress her skin like she's welcoming an old friend home.

Or maybe it's welcoming her.

Fuck.

There's something almost incandescent about her like this.

I've thought Nora was beautiful since the first day I met her. Would've had to be blind not to. Even angry and broken, wearing grief like armor and looking at me like she wanted me to fuck right off, she was beautiful.

But this is different. I've never seen her like this.

Since the second that plane started descending, something in her has been slowly coming alive. I saw it when she looked out the window. Outside the airport when she stopped just to breathe. In the car when she sang with her sister, laughing and moving to music I didn't understand. With her grandmother when she held that ridiculous mug against her chest and cried over a breakfast that sounds fucking terrible.

And now this.

Barefoot in her childhood home with the Mediterranean in front of her and the sun on her face, she looks like she belongs to every fucking piece of it.

I need to look away. Say something. Leave. Anything other than stand here staring at a woman who trusts me enough to call me her best friend while my thoughts have become anything but fucking friendly.

I don't move.

Like an idiot, I take out my phone and take a picture of her like this, then lower it and just watch her.

She takes one more deep breath before opening her eyes, and when she turns and sees me, her whole face lights up.

“Do you like it?”