The villa clung to the cliff like it, too, was trying not to look down.
Lina had walked the winding path from the inn alone, her coat buttoned tight against the wind, the manuscript clutched under one arm. Milo hadn't asked where she was going. Maybe he didn't need to.
She hadn't been back to the beach house since that night. A year was a long time. Long enough for dust to thicken, for locks to rust, for ghosts to find their rhythm in the walls.quiet
and
She paused at the front steps, hand hovering above the key. The sea moaned behind her, restless. A gull shrieked, and it sounded too much like someone casounding.
Inside, the air smelled like time. Salt. Rot. Paper.
She moved through the rooms slowly, like memory was a scent she could follow. Her shoes echoed on the tile. Every corner held a flicker—a laugh, a shout, a slammed door. The kitchen still had the chipped espresso cup he'd always used. She touched it, then drew her hand back like it had bitten her.
The bedroom was the last place she looked.
The bed was made.
She stood at the foot of it, the manuscript heavy in her arms. "This is where I left you," she whispered. "This is where I left myself."
There was a bloodstain on the floor beneath the rug.
She stared. Knees bent. Fingers traced the edge of it. Dull now. Brown. Almost forgotten.
Then the door creaked.
She turned sharply.
Milo stood in the doorway, windblown and pale. "I shouldn't have let you come alone."
"I needed to." Her voice was small.
He stepped inside, eyes scanning the room. "It's worse than I imagined."
"I remember something." She sat on the edge of the bed. "He hit me first. Not hard. Just enough to make a point."
Milo didn't move.
"I didn't mean to push him. I just wanted him away from me. But he slipped. There was blood. I ran to the boat." Her fingers curled into her palms. "I didn't kill him. But I didn't try to save him, either."
Milo crossed the room slowly, knelt in front of her. "That's not the same thing."
"I still let him drown."
"You were scared. That's not murder, Lina."
She looked down at him. "Then what is it?"
"Survival."
She let out a breath that trembled. "I keep asking myself if I deserved to live more than he did."
"You did."
"How do you know?"
He reached for her hands. "Because I've seen what kind of person you are when no one's looking. And because he hurt you. He tried to make you small."
The silence between them stretched until it throbbed.
Finally, Lina said, "The police were wrong. It wasn't just an accident. But it wasn't murder either. It was something in between. Something uglier."
"And now?" he asked.
"I write." She pulled the manuscript into her lap. "Not to forget. Not this time."
Milo nodded. "Good."
They sat there as the wind battered the windows, as the house shifted around them as if adjusting to the truth finally spoken aloud.
Outside, the sea kept crashing. But inside, there was a quiet.
One that might last long enough to build something from.