WITH EVERY BREATH I TAKE

WHERE GHOSTS WAIT

The sky was beautiful, calm, vast, and untouched, but Celeste couldn’t imagine her life ever feeling that way again. She was a lone wolf now.

“Oh, my dear dad,” she whimpered.

The ache in her chest tightened, her thoughts were loud and restless, but the soft hum of the plane offered the only comfort.

At the airport, Julie was waiting for her with open arms, eyes glossy with emotion, but still warm.

“I still can’t believe it,” she whispered.

Celeste couldn’t respond; she couldn’t believe it either.

The drive back home was quite the same home she had grown up in, once filled with laughter and comfort, but now felt like a hollow shell.

Jullie planned everything. The funeral was modest and respectful. Celeste simply nodded through it all, her mind miles away.

She felt detached from everything, watching it unfold like a scene she didn’t belong in.

Were these people heartbroken⁉

Did they really know him, the kind words, the solemn faces? She had seen it before; people always speak well of the dead, but she knew exactly what they thought of her. They still see the version of her that never existed, the one that had driven her away from France in the first place. Now she is back, and it feels like walking in the same fire that she had once escaped.

The stares, the whispered sympathy, the too polite small talk behind her back, it all stung more than she admitted.

All she wanted now was for this final tribute to her father to pass. Quite gracefully and with dignity, he had always carried. He deserved that much, at the very least.

Then she saw Marianne, her high school nemesis, and Celeste never imagined she would lay eyes on that spiteful face again. But there she was strutting towards her like she was ready to ruin her life all over again.

“Hi Celeste, my condolences. I can’t believe he is gone. He was such a good father.” Marianne said, voice dripping with fake sympathy.

Celeste almost laughed at the hypocrisy of Marianne of all people. She had played a big part in driving a wedge between Celeste and everybody else. She had never apologized, and now she is acting as if she cares. Bullshit!!

“Ahh, thank you,” Celeste said flatly. That was all she could manage to say. Whatever Marianne said after that was ringing in her ears.

Jullie noticed and immediately stepped in, wrapping her arms around Celeste and leading her away

“She is such a b***h” Julie muttered

“Yeah,” Celeste replied quietly, “I know.”

Back in her room, Celeste shut the door on the world. She didn’t want to hear other insincere condolences or see another pitiful smile.

The next morning, she woke up to find a note from Julie beside her bed and an urn holding her father’s ashes.

Celeste sat up, slowly staring at it for a long moment. She already knew where exactly he needed to go. That evening, under fading light, she slipped away riding her father’s old motorbike down the familiar winding coastal road toward the beach, their beach, the place where he taught her to ride, to fight, to be brave. The place where her childhood still echoed in the sound of waves.

Celeste stepped barefoot onto the moonlit shore, the cool sand grounding her spiraling thoughts. The rhythmic hush of the waves felt like her father’s breath, steady, comforting, and gone. With trembling hands, she opened the urn.

‘I hope this is where you want to be, rest now, Dad.”

“That’s a beautiful way to say goodbye,” a voice said behind her

She spun around, heart thudding, half expecting a ghost. Instead, a man stood a few feet away, tall and lean. Shadows from the moonlight kissed his cheekbones, and the breeze tousled his dark hair. He smelled of cedarwood and something clean, like rain.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, raising his hands gently.

“I come here sometimes to breath”

There was something about his presence still, yet electric. Calming yet undeniably magnetic,

“I don’t mean to intrude,” he continued

His voice is lower now, “but you look like you could use someone to talk to.”

Celeste narrowed her eyes, “Are you some kind of a shrink or something?”

He chuckled, “I can be if you need me to be.”

There was something dangerously sweet about this stranger and strangely safe. For reasons she couldn’t explain, it was easy, too easy to start talking about grief, about silence, about the weight of being left behind; her words spilled into the dark like secrets only meant for the sea and this beautiful stranger who felt like a dream.

Then, under the moonlight and the hush of waves, their lips brushed briefly, unsure and magnetic. For a fleeting moment, she felt like she could surrender to any danger this handsome stranger might lead her into, as if hypnotized. The kiss was soft, hesitant, and just as quickly she pulled away. “I’m sorry’ she whispered breathlessly.

“Until we meet again,” he said, smiling.

She grabbed her boots and ran, her heart pounding as she jumped onto her bike and disappeared into the night.

She never told Julie what happened because at that moment, nothing else mattered. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she was in a powerful magnetic pull, with him being the opposite pole; it terrified her.

How easily the weight of the funeral, the ache of loss, the ashes still clinging to her palms had vanished, all for a stranger. But what truly haunted her was not the kiss; it was the way he looked at her just before she fled, when she was hoping he could run after her, but he didn’t. It was as if he already knew they’d meet again, and the next time it wouldn’t be an accident.