The wind tasted like salt and memory.

After the injury, he'd sworn he’d never set foot on this beach again. But here he was—ankle still aching from the metal pin screwed into bone, ego still bruised deeper than flesh—watching kids wobble on soft-tops while gulls screamed above.

She was out there. Of course she was. Balanced like the ocean was made for her and her alone. Time had turned her sharper, sun-kissed, tanned in the exact way he remembered hating because it meant she’d beaten him to the water again.

Laughter echoed across the sand, kids chasing foam and dreams she must’ve taught them to chase. He stayed by the dunes, boards clutched under his arm, heart clutched somewhere lower.

He’d surfed waves taller than houses. He’d faced cameras, crowds, silence after defeat. But nothing twisted like watching her high-five a child who’d just stood on water for the first time. Like she did it every day. Like this town hadn’t once been their battlefield.

He remembered the last time they raced—how she sliced through the water beside him, how her smirk pulled ahead just before the break. How he’d looked for that smirk on magazine covers for years and never found it.

Maybe she never needed the world like he did. Maybe the world had always been this stretch of sand, the scent of coconut wax, the cries of seabirds overhead.

He didn't think she'd seen him yet. He wasn't ready for her to.

His fingers curled around the waxy grip of the board.

"Still chasing waves I can't catch."