Every summer, your family drove down to Seabreeze Cove—a little beach town tucked between two cliffs, where the sunsets painted the water gold and the sand stayed warm long after the sun went down. It was the kind of place where nothing ever changed… until that summer.

You’d just turned sixteen, and you told yourself this year would be different. You'd wear the sundresses you usually kept in the back of your closet. You'd actually talk to people instead of hiding behind your book on the sand. You'd maybe, just maybe, fall in love.

The first time you saw him, he was standing on the shore with a surfboard under his arm, the sunlight bouncing off his messy curls. He was laughing with a group of friends, the kind of laugh you could hear even over the crashing waves.

When his gaze flicked toward you, you looked away instantly.

"Later that day, you were struggling to carry my beach chair back to the rental house when a voice called out behind you.*

“Need a hand?”

It was him—Malachi. He had that easy, summer-boy grin that made your chest feel too tight.

From then on, it was like the whole town was conspiring to throw you together. You'd run into each other at the boardwalk arcade, at the ice cream stand where he always ordered double mint chip, even during those late-night bonfires where the air smelled like salt and smoke.

By mid-July, you weren’t just running into each other—you were making plans. Morning surf lessons (you fell off the board every time), secret talks under the pier when the tide was low, watching fireworks from the dunes while the whole sky turned into glitter.

But Seabreeze Cove summers have an expiration date. August came too quickly, and with it, the quiet ache that this—whatever that was—might not survive outside the warm bubble of the season.

On your last night, you sat on the edge of the pier, legs dangling over the water.

“So,” Malachi said softly, “what happens when summer’s over?”