Waves

Chapter 1 – The Ripple

Eiah stood at the edge of the cliff, her hands gripping the rail, her body leaning into the wind. The waves crashed against the rocks below with a violent force, each one pulling back just to rise again, relentless, unforgiving. She closed her eyes and let the ocean air rush over her face. It was the only thing that made her feel anything, anything at all.

The sea was a place of contradiction for her. It was both the calm she sought and the storm she feared. There was a beauty in its constant motion, but also a pain. A truth about the world — that nothing stays still. That nothing lasts.

"Eiah."

Her name, spoken softly, broke the stillness. She didn’t need to turn around. She knew who it was.

Dion.

She hadn’t seen him in years. Not since the day he left without a word, a day that felt like a lifetime ago. His absence had left a hole inside her, one she could never fill. She’d tried to move on, tried to find peace in the chaos of her own life. But now, standing here, she couldn’t escape the pull of that familiar ache.

She finally turned to face him, the weight of their history pressing down on her chest. He stood there, tall and unchanged, as if time had paused for him. His eyes were darker now, the spark in them dulled by years of whatever he’d been through. His once effortless smile was nowhere to be found. Instead, he looked at her like she was a ghost, like he wasn’t sure if he was seeing her or just imagining her.

“Dion,” she whispered, her voice a mixture of disbelief and quiet anger.

His gaze dropped to the ground, as if he couldn’t bear to meet her eyes. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

Eiah swallowed the lump in her throat. “You didn’t want to see me again.”

He flinched, as if her words had hit him harder than any punch could. His jaw clenched, but he didn’t respond.

“I’m not the same person I was when you left,” he finally said, his voice rough, unsure. “I’m different now.”

She laughed, but it was hollow, without humor. “You think you can just come back and everything will be different? You think that just because you’ve changed, everything between us is going to magically disappear?”

Dion took a step toward her, his hand reaching out, but he stopped himself before he could touch her. He looked at her with something like pain in his eyes, but also something else. Something darker. “I never meant to hurt you, Eiah.”

“I know,” she said quietly, her heart pounding in her chest. “But you did. You hurt me more than you’ll ever know.”

The silence between them grew thick, heavy, as if the weight of their unspoken words was too much to bear.

Eiah turned back toward the ocean, watching the waves crash relentlessly against the rocks. She wondered if the sea ever grew tired of fighting. She wondered if it, too, longed for peace.

“I don’t know why I came back,” Dion said after a long pause. “Maybe it’s because... I never stopped thinking about you.”

Her heart skipped a beat at the words, but she didn’t let herself react. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said, her voice steady despite the storm inside her. “We’ve both changed, Dion. We can’t go back.”

“I don’t want to go back,” he said quickly. “I just want to move forward. I want to make things right between us.”

Eiah shook her head, the motion as sharp as the ache in her chest. “You can’t fix what’s broken. You can’t fix me.”

His gaze softened, and for the first time, Eiah saw the boy she had once loved in the depths of his eyes. The boy who had held her hand and promised her forever, the boy who had kissed her under the moonlight, telling her that nothing could tear them apart.

But that was before.

Now, there was nothing left between them but the ruins of what had been. And the waves, forever crashing, never asking for forgiveness, never stopping to give a second chance.

“I’m sorry,” Dion whispered, his voice breaking.

Eiah closed her eyes, feeling the tears she had held back for so long threaten to spill over. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to let him see her vulnerable again. But the truth was, she had never stopped hurting. And now that he was here, all the pain came rushing back, like the tide pulling her under.

She turned away from him, her back to the ocean, her heart torn between anger and longing. “You should leave, Dion.”

For a moment, he didn’t move. And then, slowly, he nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, as if saying it one more time could erase everything they had been through. He turned and walked away, his footsteps fading into the distance, leaving her standing alone.

Eiah stood there for a long time, watching the waves, her heart heavy in her chest.

The next few days passed in a blur.

Eiah went through the motions of her life — her work at the hospital, the endless hours spent running tests, the patients who never stopped needing her. But nothing felt real. Nothing felt important. Every conversation she had seemed like a faint echo of something she no longer cared about.

Dion had left town again, just as suddenly as he had arrived. She hadn’t heard from him since that day at the cliff, and part of her was relieved. She didn’t need him in her life anymore. She had learned to survive without him. She had moved on.

But the truth was, she hadn’t.

Not really.

She spent her nights lying awake, the darkness pressing in on her, her mind filled with the ghosts of everything she had lost. The love that had once burned bright, now reduced to nothing more than a flicker in the past. The pieces of herself she had given away, now scattered, never to be whole again.

And yet, she couldn’t let go of him.

She didn’t want to.

___________________

This is Waves—

where love drowns,

and regret floats.