Between the Stars and the Sea

Chapter One: Saltwater Silence

The sea doesn’t whisper. It roars.

People always romanticize it in poems and songs, as if the ocean gently sings you to sleep. But when I stepped out of my car and stood in front of the cottage I’d rented—my new hiding place—it wasn’t a lullaby that reached me. It was a growl. A low, unrelenting reminder that the world is bigger, louder, and crueler than I’ll ever be.

And I guess that’s why I came here. To disappear into something bigger than my heartbreak. To let the sea devour me before grief does.

I tightened my grip on the box of paints in my hand. The wood of the cottage door was salt-worn, its blue paint peeling like skin after a burn. That was fitting. I felt peeled raw, too.

Inside, it smelled like lemon cleaner and something faintly oceanic, like the walls themselves breathed salt. I dropped my bag on the couch, exhaled, and pressed my palm over my chest like I could physically hold myself together.

“Fresh start,” I whispered. But the words scraped against the inside of my throat. Fresh starts are supposed to feel hopeful. This one just felt… necessary.

I wasn’t here to fall in love. I wasn’t here to even be seen. I was here to paint until my fingers ached and maybe, just maybe, remember who the hell I was before Daniel—my ex—had convinced me I was only valuable in the way I loved him.

I unpacked slowly, placing brushes in a chipped jar, canvases stacked by the window where the light pooled. My gaze drifted outside—to the stretch of beach where waves collided with the shore in angry bursts. The sea and I had that in common. We both knew how to crash.

I thought I was alone until I heard a voice.

“Careful out there. Tide’s stronger than it looks.”

I turned too fast, nearly knocking over my easel. A man stood by the fence separating my tiny porch from the one next door. He had the kind of presence that didn’t shout for attention—it hummed with it, low and steady. Sun-bleached hair, a soft stubble, eyes the muted green of sea glass. His smile wasn’t flirtatious. It was warm.

“Sorry,” he said, lifting a hand like he hadn’t meant to startle me. “Didn’t mean to intrude. I’m Adrian. I live next door.”

I hesitated, hugging my arms around myself. “Elena,” I said finally. My voice cracked from disuse, like it had forgotten how to make introductions.

He nodded toward the waves. “Most people come here thinking the ocean’s gentle. It isn’t. It takes a while to learn her moods.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You talk about the sea like she’s a woman.”

“She is,” he said simply. “Unpredictable. Demanding. Worth respecting.”

I didn’t smile, but my chest shifted in a way that felt dangerously close.

We talked only a minute longer—about weather, about the cottages—but when he left, silence didn’t feel quite so heavy anymore.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The waves were too loud, my thoughts louder. Daniel’s ghost lingered in the sheets, in the walls, in my ribs. I rolled out of bed at 2 a.m., padded barefoot to the porch, and lit a cigarette I’d promised myself I’d quit.

The flame illuminated another figure down by the beach. He was leaning against a piece of driftwood, shirtless, with the kind of posture that said he wasn’t afraid of anything—maybe not even death.

He looked up at me.

Even from a distance, I felt it. The stare that wasn’t an invitation but a dare. His hair was dark, his jaw sharp, his presence the opposite of Adrian’s steady hum. This was thunder.

I should’ve gone back inside. Instead, I lifted my cigarette to my lips, and in the glow of fire, I swore I saw his mouth twitch into something like a smirk.

The ocean roared between us, wild and violent, and I thought—

This place isn’t just going to break me. It’s going to set me on fire.