6
868 Words
Chapter 6
The Place Between Us
A month.
That was how long Leah had been in Seabrook.
Long enough to know which café baked the best cinnamon rolls.
Long enough to wave at shop owners who now greeted her by name.
Long enough for Mrs. Dawson to stop calling her "dear" and start calling her "sunshine."
For the first time in years...
Life felt wonderfully ordinary.
---
"You're late."
Marco looked up from the bench outside the surf shack.
He checked his watch dramatically.
"I've been waiting exactly four minutes."
Leah raised an eyebrow.
"You timed me?"
"I time everything."
"I stopped to help Mrs. Dawson carry groceries."
"Acceptable."
"And?"
"And I'll forgive you."
"How generous."
"I know."
She laughed, shaking her head.
"I don't know how you have friends."
"Oh, I don't."
"You teach half the children in town."
"They're trapped."
She burst into laughter.
"You are impossible."
"So you keep saying."
"And somehow you prove me right every single day."
---
That afternoon, Marco was teaching a beginner's surfing class.
Leah sat beneath a beach umbrella, reading a novel while secretly watching him.
He wasn't the loudest instructor.
Or the funniest.
But he never lost his patience.
Every child received the same encouragement.
Every mistake was met with another smile.
When one little boy fell into the water and started crying, Marco knelt beside him.
"Do you know how many times I fell when I started?"
The boy sniffled.
"How many?"
Marco pretended to think.
"About... a million."
The boy giggled.
"A million?"
"Maybe a million and three."
"Really?"
"I was terrible."
The boy smiled through his tears.
"So I can get better?"
Marco held out his hand.
"You definitely will."
Leah closed her book.
She wasn't watching a surf instructor anymore.
She was watching the kind of man who made people believe in themselves.
---
Later, they wandered through the weekend farmers' market.
An old woman selling handmade bracelets smiled as they approached.
"For your sweetheart?"
She held up a delicate bracelet woven from sea-blue thread with a tiny silver shell hanging from the center.
Leah quickly shook her head.
"We're not—"
Marco picked it up.
"It's beautiful."
The woman smiled knowingly.
"It'll suit her."
Marco looked at the bracelet.
Then at Leah.
Without saying a word, he bought it.
Leah stared.
"You didn't have to."
"I wanted to."
He gently tied it around her wrist.
"There."
She looked down.
The tiny shell shimmered in the sunlight.
"It's... beautiful."
"It reminded me of you."
She looked up.
"Why?"
"You came here because you were running."
He smiled softly.
"But every day, you look a little more like someone who's finally arrived."
For a second...
Neither of them spoke.
Then Leah whispered,
"Thank you."
“It's nothing really”
She gave him a smile
---
That evening, they climbed the lighthouse hill overlooking the sea.
The wind tugged gently at Leah's hair.
Marco sat on the grass beside her.
"You know..."
She looked over.
"I never asked."
"Asked what?"
"Why surfing?"
He smiled faintly.
"I didn't choose it."
"No?"
"It chose me."
She frowned.
"How?"
"When I first came here..."
His eyes remained on the waves.
"...I couldn't sleep."
"Nightmares?"
He nodded once.
"The ocean was the only place where everything became quiet."
Leah didn't interrupt.
"I figured..."
He laughed softly.
"...if it helped me, maybe it could help someone else too."
She looked at him differently after that.
There was pain in him.
Old pain.
The kind that never completely disappeared.
Yet somehow...
He still chose kindness.
---
As the sun dipped below the horizon, Leah spoke quietly.
"I haven't told you the truth."
Marco turned to her.
"My real life..."
She looked down at her hands.
"...it's complicated."
"I know."
She blinked.
"You do?"
"I don't know the details."
He smiled gently.
"But I know people don't run away from happy lives."
Tears stung her eyes unexpectedly.
"You never ask questions."
"I will."
He looked at her.
"When you're ready to answer them."
Her chest tightened.
No pressure.
No demands.
Just patience.
She had never known love could begin with something so simple.
---
Across town, inside a luxury hotel suite, Richard Bennett studied a thick folder.
His investigator entered.
"We've learned something."
Richard didn't look up.
"The surfer?"
"Yes, sir."
"What?"
The investigator slid a photograph across the desk.
It showed Marco entering the small cemetery on the outskirts of Seabrook.
"He goes there every Sunday."
Richard picked up the photograph.
"Whose grave?"
"We don't know."
Richard stared at Marco's face in the picture.
For the first time...
The young man wasn't smiling.
His expression was hollow.
Haunted.
Richard slowly placed the photograph back on the desk.
"Find out."
"Immediately, sir."
After the investigator left, Richard remained alone in the silence.
He looked once more at the file labeled **Marco**.
Six years of missing history.
No family.
No records.
No past.
He closed the folder.
"Who are you?"
Miles away, completely unaware he was being investigated...
Marco stood beside Leah beneath a sky full of stars.
Neither of them noticed how close they had drifted to each other.
Or how naturally Leah's hand had found his.
Neither of them pulled away.
- Writer
