She was warm.
Salt on her mouth. Damp hair against my cheek. Her skin tasted like the ocean and summer and everything I’d ever wanted to hold onto too tightly.
Her nails traced my ribs, my stomach, my chest—slow, claiming, burning.
Our kiss was frantic, desperate, like we were making love against the end of the world.
Like if we stopped, everything would fall apart.
“Ethan,” she whispered.
And then?—
The boat was gone.
The moon was gone.
The air turned black.
Not night-black.
Heavyblack.
Smoke so thick it pressed against my face, filled my mouth, my lungs, burned with every breath I dragged in. Sirens screamed somewhere close and nowhere at all. Shadows ran past me, faceless, screaming names I couldn’t answer.
I pushed forward, choking, reaching, trying to pull someone free?—
And woke up gasping.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Sheets twisted around my legs. Sweat slicked my chest and back, cold already in the night air. For a second I didn’t know where I was.
Then I saw them.
The bags.
The boots.
The guitar.
Reality rushed back in.
I sat up slowly, breathing through the pounding in my ears.
The city glowed faintly through the window—streetlights, traffic, life still moving whether I was ready or not.
I reached for the guitar without thinking.
My hands remembered it before my mind did.
I sat on the edge of the bed, shirtless, barefoot, the wood cool against my skin, the weight of it grounding in a way nothing else had been in weeks.
I found the pick.
Let my fingers settle on the strings.
The first chord came out rough. Uncertain.
