The thought landed too hard, my breath caught.
Mom was dead.
Dad was gone.
And the one thing that still felt solid had already started to fracture.
Anthony.
The only warmth left that felt real. The only thing that still felt like home. And even that had slipped out of reach with one word—one look—one impossibly heavynot like that.
I stumbled back out of the water, laughing too loudly at nothing, heart beating wrong in my chest. Mia was on the sand now, wrapped in a blanket, passing a bottle back and forth with Drax.
“Elliot!” Jet called. “You’re gonna freeze your ass off.”
“Already numb,” I shouted back. “It’sss fine.”
That was a lie. It wasn’t fine. Nothing was fine. I dropped onto the sand hard enough to knock the air out of me. Someone handed me the bottle, and I took it without a second thought. I drank too much, and I choked. The burn was savage, but I welcomed it.
Drax squinted past me, frowning. “Hey,” he said. “Your phone’s been lighting up like crazy.”
My eyes snapped in his direction but there were two of him. “W-what?”
He held it up. “This guy. Anthony. He keeps calling.”
The name cracked something open in my chest. “I—” My voice broke before I even finished the word.
It all rushed out at once.
The world tilted. My lungs felt too small. My throat closed. The waves, the fire, the music—all of it faded into a white-hot panic, a weight pressing me into the sand. I could feel my own pulse in my temples. Everything I had been running from—the hospital, Dad’s absence, the way Anthony’s soulful brown eyes had looked, the way “not like that” kept echoing in my head like a verdict—collapsed into that one name.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until Mia was suddenly in front of me.
“Oh. Oh, hey, hey,” she murmured, dropping the bottle and crawling closer. “Hey, sweetheart.”
Her arms went around me before I could protest. Warm. Firm. Steady. I collapsed into them like they were a safe harbor.
She shushed me softly. Her hands sank into my scalp, fingers threading through my hair with a patience I didn’t know existed. Each press against my temples, each gentle tug, felt like it could hold back the tide of chaos in my head. I let myself float in it for a moment, even as the sobs ripped through me.
Her warmth was a tether to a world that hadn’t completely abandoned me. I let the tears fall freely, hot and unrelenting, and for one fractured moment I almost believed someone could care without demanding anything in return.
She pressed my forehead into her shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
Salt flooded my mouth as I shook my head. I wasn’t okay. But her hands made it feel like maybe I could be for one second.
My name was carried in the wind. “Elliot!” It sounded far away.
I tried to turn my head toward it, but Mia shifted with me. Her face was suddenly too close. Her breath warm. Her eyes searching. Then her lips brushed mine. The world stalled. It didn’t feel wrong in my body—it felt distant, like watching someone else through glass. I didn’t move. Didn’t kiss her back. But I didn’t pull away either.
The kiss burned into me, not like desire but like a warning flare. My mind screamed, but my body, dulled by alcohol and grief, couldn’t respond. Then I saw him—Anthony, moving like a storm across the sand—and everything froze, every nerve in my body screaming his name.
Time stretched and expanded before snapping back to the here and now.
Mia pulled back, licking her lips, brow furrowed. “Oh,” she said quietly. “I guess I misread that.”
Before I could answer, everyone's head jerked in one direction. Someone was moving fast down the beach.
“Elliot!” He snarled in desperation.
