The path winds upward, narrow and slick from the day’s rain. Wind tugs at my hood, carries the salt sting of the sea. My breath clouds in front of me. I don’t mind the cold. It matches the hollow place inside my ribs.
When I reach the lighthouse, the door is unlocked. According to the locals, it always is, for anyone who needs to remember. I step inside, close the door against the wind, and climb the spiral stairs. The iron railing is cold under my palm. Each step echoes softly. At the top, the lantern room is quiet except for the low hum of the mechanism turning the lens. The light sweeps out over the black water, bright and indifferent.
I sit on the narrow bench that circles the room, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. The view is endless: a dark sea, a darker sky, the occasional flash of white from a wave breaking far below. I close my eyes and let the memories come.
Declan laughing in the kitchen when we were kids, flour on his nose from trying to make pancakes. Declan hugging me goodbye before his last deployment, smelling like aftershave and promise. Declan’s voice on the phone, crackling over a bad connection: “I’m okay, Isla. Just another day.” The last time I heard from him.
A sob catches in my throat. I press my forehead to my knees and let it out quietly and shaking, the crying that’s been waiting a long time. No one’s here to see. No one’s here to tell me to stop. It’s just me and the light and the sea.
I don’t hear the door below open. Don’t hear the footsteps on the stairs. But I feel the shift in the air, the way the cold changes when another body enters the space.
I lift my head.
Ronan stands at the top of the stairs, jacket zipped to his chin, hair damp from the fog. He doesn’t speak right away. Just looks at me with those steady eyes that see too much.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” he says finally, voice low.
“I needed to be.”
He nods once, like he understands. Maybe he does.
He crosses the small room, sits on the bench beside me, not too close, but close enough that I feel the warmth of him cutting through the chill. His shoulder brushes mine for a second before he shifts away. We sit in silence, the beam sweeping past every few seconds, painting us in brief gold.
After a while, he speaks. “I didn’t know it was today.”
“I didn’t tell anyone.” I wipe my cheeks with the sleeve of my coat. “Didn’t want the pity looks.”
“No pity here.”
I glance at him. His jaw is tight, eyes fixed on the window. “You come here often?”
“Sometimes.” He exhales slowly. “When the quiet gets too loud.”
I know exactly what he means.
We don’t talk for long. The light keeps turning. The wind moans around the tower.
“I keep thinking about the last thing he said to me,” I whisper. “On the phone. He told me to take care of Mom. I promised I would. But I couldn’t even do that right. She’s still grieving, still angry at the world. I ran away instead of staying to help her through it.”
Ronan turns his head slowly. “You didn’t run from her. You ran from him.”
The words land gently but sure. My throat closes.
“I ran from both,” I admit. “I was drowning back there. Travis… he made everything feel small. Like I didn’t deserve to breathe without his permission. After Declan died, I just… shut down. Let Travis fill the space because it was easier than feeling the hole. But it wasn’t easier. It was worse.”
He’s quiet for so long, I think he won’t answer. Then, softly, “Declan would’ve hated that for you.”
“I know.” Fresh tears burn my eyes. “He’d have dragged me out of there himself if he’d known.”
Ronan’s hand moves—slow, careful—until it rests on the bench between us, palm up—an invitation, not a demand.
I stare at it for a moment, then I slide my hand into his.
His fingers close around mine. Warm. Steady. Calloused in all the right places. We sit like that, hands clasped, watching the light sweep across the water.
“I tried to save him,” he says after a while, voice rough. “In the helo. It went down fast. I got to him, but the fire… I couldn’t get him out. He told me to go. I didn’t listen until it was too late.”
My heart twists. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to die, too.”
