Off Limits

*Nova POV* The sea doesn’t forgive. It just keeps swallowing what you give it—names, promises, the sound of his laugh. I stand at the edge of the pier, the wind tangling through my hair the way his fingers once did, and I tell myself this is closure. The water answers with silence. I used to believe love could outrun guilt. That if we burned hard enough, the world would look away. It didn’t. It watched. It judged. It took. Somewhere behind me, someone says my name. The voice is older now, rougher, but I’d know it anywhere. Luca. He doesn’t step closer. We both know distance is the only way we’ve survived this long. His eyes find mine, and for a second we’re nineteen again—reckless, trembling, pretending we could be ordinary. “You kept the bracelet,” he says. “You kept the scar,” I whisper. He smiles that quiet, broken smile I fell for, then walks past me toward the horizon. I don’t call him back. Some endings deserve silence. *Luca POV* She’ll never know that I come here every year. Same day. Same tide. Same punishment. The world moved on, but parts of us stayed here—buried under the rumor, the loss, the truth no one wanted to hear. I light the match, drop it into the bottle, and watch the flame drift out to sea. Maybe this is forgiveness. Maybe it’s just another lie. Either way, it’s ours. We were never supposed to fall in love. But we did. And that was enough.