The message made no sense.
Clara Wanjiku read it once, then again, then a third time slower, as though the meaning might rearrange itself into something rational.
I'm back in Nerua.
Coming to find you today.
Her phone lowered gradually from her hand.
Back.
The word sat wrong in her mind — too large, too permanent, too casually delivered for what it implied.
Because Hailey did not do "back" without telling her.
They told each other everything.
Everything.
Even across continents, time zones, new jobs, new friends, new versions of themselves — nothing essential ever bypassed the other. They had grown up more like sisters than cousins: shared rooms during school holidays, shared secrets before language could properly hold them, shared departures and returns measured against each other's lives.
When Hailey left for London, Clara had known every application, every doubt, every fear.
When Clara nearly closed the boutique in its second year, Hailey had known before her own parents did.
Distance had never diluted disclosure.
So this —
This silent return to the same city without warning —
It was impossible.
"She didn't," Clara whispered.
The boutique hummed around her — soft fabric rustles, muted music, afternoon light sliding across mirrors — but the world had narrowed to the rectangle of her phone screen and the cousin who had apparently materialised back into existence without permission.
Back.
Not visiting.
Not planning.
Back.
The door chime sounded.
Clara looked up automatically, a reflex built from years of retail politeness.
And the universe stopped.
Hailey Njeri stood just inside the doorway.
For one suspended second Clara's mind rejected the image outright — memory projected onto reality, hallucination shaped by longing. Because this was how Hailey lived now: on screens, in airports, in voice notes sent at strange hours.
Not here.
Not framed by her boutique door with Nerua light on her shoulders.
Hailey's mouth curved faintly. "Hello, cousin."
Clara's lungs forgot their function.
"Hailey?"
The name came out thin, disbelieving — a sound pulled from somewhere deep and unsteady.
Hailey took one small step forward.
That broke it.
Clara crossed the space in a collision of limbs and breath and years, arms locking hard around her — gripping shoulders she knew by childhood muscle memory, pressing her face into hair and neck and the undeniable physical truth of her.
"You lied," Clara choked into her. "You lied to me."
Hailey held her just as fiercely. "I know."
"You came back without telling me."
"I did."
"You tell me everything."
"I do."
Clara pulled back abruptly, hands flying to Hailey's face, scanning features with frantic verification — eyes, cheeks, the exact Hailey-ness of her, alive and solid and here.
"You came back," she said again, voice cracking under the weight of it. "You came back to the same city and you didn't tell me."
"I wanted to see your face when you realised," Hailey said quietly.
Clara stared at her — outrage, relief, disbelief, love colliding too fast to separate. "You nearly killed me."
"Dramatic."
"Accurate," Clara said, tears spilling anyway. "Do you know how many years I have tracked your flights like a surveillance system? And you just—" She gestured helplessly at Hailey's entire existence. "—arrived."
Hailey's expression softened — that private warmth Clara had always claimed first. "I'm here now."
Clara made a broken sound and dragged her back into another crushing embrace, laughter and sobs tangled together.
"My person came back," she murmured into Hailey's shoulder. "You were supposed to tell me. We tell each other everything."
Hailey's arms tightened. "I know."
"Everything."
"Yes."
Clara leaned back again, still gripping her arms as though anchoring her to the floor. "For how long?"
"For good."
The answer landed heavy and absolute.
Clara froze.
"For good," she repeated.
"Yes."
No hesitation. No qualification. No future departure hidden behind the words.
Clara's composure collapsed completely. She hauled Hailey into her again — harder, deeper, the embrace of someone reclaiming a lost limb.
"You came home," she whispered.
Hailey closed her eyes briefly against her. "Yes."
"You're really staying."
"Yes."
Clara shook her head against her shoulder, overwhelmed joy flooding through disbelief. "You idiot," she said thickly. "You wonderful, terrible idiot."
Hailey laughed softly into her hair — the sound Clara had missed with a physical ache for years.
They stayed like that in the centre of the boutique — cousins, best friends, halves of a lifelong pairing finally restored to the same geography — holding on as though distance might still try to take one of them away.
But it wouldn't.
Not this time.
Because Hailey Njeri had done the one impossible thing.
She had come back.
And this time —
She had stayed.