Somewhere Only We Know - Prologue. Prologue

Kitt Wellington moved into Lakehurst on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of seventh grade—the kind of gray, cool day when the lake smelled like rain and earth, and the neighborhood kids were stuck inside finishing leftover winter homework. Most people didn’t notice the new moving truck on Willow Creek Drive.

Matt Everest did.

He had just finished tossing a football into the air in his front yard, practicing spirals out of pure muscle memory, when a small blue sedan pulled up to the house across the street. A boy stepped out first—his age, maybe a bit younger, athletic but compact, with strong shoulders and a straight posture that made him look like he’d been raised to be careful with everything he did. Blonde hair, neatly trimmed, skin still soft with childhood. He stood on the curb holding a cardboard box labeled “BOOKS” as if he didn’t know where to go next.

Matt paused.

He didn’t know why—maybe instinct, maybe curiosity, maybe fate—but he crossed the street without thinking, football tucked under his arm.

“Hey,” Matt said, stopping a few feet away. “You moving in?”

The new boy startled a little, blinked up at him. His eyes were a deep, clear blue—careful eyes, like they thought before they looked at anything.

“Um… yeah,” he answered softly. “We just got here.”

“I’m Matt,” he said. “I live there.” He pointed with the football. “What’s your name?”

“Kitt,” the boy said, adjusting his grip on the box. “Kitt Wellington.”

The name fit him somehow—clean, quiet, a little formal.

“You need help?” Matt asked.

Kitt shook his head fast. “It’s okay. I can carry it. I don’t want to bother—”

“You’re not bothering,” Matt said simply.

Kitt hesitated. The wind picked up just slightly, brushing his hair across his forehead. He looked like someone who wasn’t used to being approached first… or at all.

Then Kitt nodded once, and Matt lifted the box from his hands.

Inside the house, Kitt’s mother thanked him with a tired smile. His father barely glanced up, too busy directing where furniture went. The air felt tense, but Matt didn’t know why.

Kitt led him upstairs to what would be his room—small, square, with a single window facing the backyard and the stretch of forest behind it.

“You swim?” Matt asked, placing the box on the floor after noticing a ribbon from a swim meet taped to another box nearby.

“Yeah,” Kitt said. “Since I was little.”

“That’s cool. I play football.”

“I noticed,” Kitt replied, letting the hint of a smile break through. “I saw you throwing it earlier.”

“You should’ve come over,” Matt said easily.

“I didn’t know if… if I could.”

“You can. Anytime.”

Kitt looked down at his sneakers, then up again, surprised by how easily this stranger—this bright, confident boy—was giving him space to belong.

Matt didn’t know him yet, but he already knew one thing: Kitt wasn’t just quiet. He was careful with himself, like he’d been taught not to take up too much room.

And Matt—sunny, outspoken, impossible-not-to-notice Matt—felt something twist inside him at the idea of making Lakehurst feel less lonely for him.

“We have a lake down the trail behind these houses,” Matt said. “Pretty cool spot. I can show you sometime.”

“Okay,” Kitt murmured. “I’d like that.”

A car horn honked outside. One of Matt’s friends calling him for after-school practice.

Matt lingered a second longer.

“You gonna be at school tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yeah. My parents enrolled me this morning, seventh grade.”

“Good. I’ll save you a seat at lunch.” He grinned, confident and warm. “You look like you’d be good company.”

Kitt’s cheeks flushed faintly, surprised by the kindness.

“See you tomorrow,” Matt said, backing toward the stairs.

“See you,” Kitt whispered.

Matt jogged out of the house and across the street just as the sky brightened for the first time all day. He didn’t know why he felt lighter, why the world felt different in a way he couldn’t name.

He only knew this:

The boy with the careful eyes and swimmer’s shoulders had just changed something in his chest.

And Kitt, standing alone in his new room, watching Matt disappear back home, didn’t know yet that the boy across the street—the one who walked like sunlight and talked like it was easy to breathe—would become the safest part of his entire world.