The lifeguard tower groans with every gust of wind.
I sit cross-legged on the weather-worn floor, my notebook balanced on one knee, pen scratching furiously across the page. The light is shit—storm clouds swallowing the moon—but I write anyway. My words spill like the tide rising beneath me.
“The artist stands back, watching. Always watching.
The muse runs wild into the sea. The writer follows.
This is how it’s always been. Calum doesn’t know her the way I do. Not the way that matters.”
The Nor’easter is already here, even if the forecast says morning. The sea is a churning, snarling thing, foaming at the edges like it’s rabid. The wind hisses through the slats of the tower and whips through the dunes, shrieking low like the ghosts that haunt this stretch of coast.
I glance up from the page. The horizon has vanished into gray. Waves hurl themselves at the shore with growing violence. But I don’t move. I’ve written in worse.
I scribble more, the lines growing messier:
“Last night she stripped bare without hesitation. Ran into the sea like she belonged to it.
We’ve done that a hundred times. Since we were kids.
I could draw a map of her—every curve, every angle—blindfolded.
Calum stood on the shore like he didn’t know whether to run or disappear.
What does he see when he looks at her?
What do I see?”
My jaw clenches. I drop the pen and press my hands to my face, trying to squeeze the hunger out of me. It doesn’t work.
Annabel lives in the margins of my thoughts. In the space between breath and madness. I can’t write a story without her in it. I don’t want to.
A sudden flicker of motion down the beach catches my eye.
At first, I think it’s the wind playing tricks. A silhouette blurred by mist and memory. But the shape grows sharper. Closer.
Annabel.
She walks like a ghost from the surf, her white sundress clinging to her thighs, long hair whipping around her face like dark seaweed. For a second, I’m convinced I dreamed her up—dragged her from a half-formed scene in my notebook and gave her flesh.
But she keeps walking. Barefoot. Real.
The first drops of rain strike like warning shots. Then the sky opens up, and within seconds, she’s drenched. The wind shoves against her, hard. She stumbles slightly, shielding her face with one arm.
I shoot to my feet. “Shit.”
I jump down from the tower, boots slapping against the wet wood of the stairs. The rain is freezing, needling throughmy clothes. I run toward her, my breath ragged, heart hammering like I’m chasing down a part of myself.
“Annabel!” I shout, but the wind devours her name.
She turns anyway, smiling—god, that smile—and laughs as I reach her.
“Jonathan!” she calls, half breathless. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
“You’re soaked,” I snap, grabbing her by the shoulders. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
She shrugs, rain streaming down her cheeks like tears. “Just having a little fun. You’re always so serious.”
“And you’re always trying to get struck by lightning,” I mutter, tugging her toward the tower. “Come on.”
