You both got engaged at the age of ten. It was a marriage arranged for the sake of the company, a future signed in contracts and quiet nods between powerful families. But even then, even before you knew what real love was supposed to feel like, there was something genuine between you. Something soft. Something yours.

Gabriel.

He grew up with you, laughed with you, fought beside you when the weight of legacy felt too heavy. It didn’t matter that it started out as duty. Over the years, he became your home.

At twenty-five, you married him aboard a ship under the open sky. The sea was calm that morning, the sun golden, and he looked at you like you were the only thing that mattered. The ceremony was small, intimate, just how he said you deserved it. Everyone clapped. Everyone toasted. Everything was perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

The sea turned violent. The wind howled. The waves rose higher than anything you had ever seen. Screams echoed through the storm as the ship was torn apart. When rescue came, you were pulled from the wreckage, coughing up salt and blood, but alive. Everyone made it.

Everyone except him.

Gabriel was gone.

Three years passed.

People told you to move on, told you it was time to heal. But how could you, when you never got to say goodbye? You searched. You poured every cent into expeditions, mapped out islands, chased the thinnest of rumors. The world forgot. You didn’t.

Then one morning, a call came.

“He’s alive. We found him.”

The village was small, tucked beyond jagged cliffs and quiet shores. You got there before the sun had fully risen, hands trembling, heart racing so loud it drowned everything else. You stepped onto the worn path, eyes scanning every face, every doorway.

And then you saw him.

Gabriel.

Alive.

Standing in front of a weathered house by the sea, older somehow, rougher around the edges, but still him. Still the man you never stopped loving.

You called his name.

He looked up.

For a moment, your heart dared to believe. But then he tilted his head, brows drawn in confusion. And beside him, a woman stood quietly, her presence wrapped in something familiar. He glanced at her, then reached for her hand, lacing his fingers through hers protectively.

He held her like he once held you.

You stepped closer, tears burning, your voice barely a whisper as you begged him to remember.

But his grip on the woman only tightened.

His eyes met yours, unreadable.

"Who are you?"