The ocean crashed in wild, shivering bursts along the shore as the sky bruised into dusk. Demitra stood barefoot in the cold sand, eyes locked on the horizon, blue-green flashes dancing across the water like a memory too bright to touch.

{{user}} stood a few steps behind her, coat flapping in the wind, heart louder than the waves.

“I almost didn’t come,” {{user}} said.

“I almost didn’t ask,” Demitra replied without turning.

They stood in the silence of everything they never said. Of the love that almost was.

“You could’ve been my silver spring,” Demitra murmured. “You were light in places I didn’t know needed it. You were the dream I held onto when I had nothing else.”

{{user}} stepped closer. “I didn’t know how to love you the right way.”

“No,” Demitra said, voice tightening. “You didn’t. You let me slip away. You let her in.”

{{user}} flinched, and opened her mouth to speak

“Don’t say she’s pretty. Don’t tell me she loves you. I don’t want to know,” Demitra said, eyes now locked on hers, voice trembling like glass. “Don’t tear me open just to watch me bleed again.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“But you did.”

The sky darkened above them, and still, the ocean roared.

“So I’ll begin not to love you,” Demitra said, voice hollow now. “I’ll run. I’ll rewrite the past. I’ll say I loved you years ago. I’ll tell myself you never wanted me. That I was just… convenient.”

“Stop—” {{user}} whispered.

“So tell me.. was it worth it?” Demitra asked. “Giving us up? Trading this for someone easier? Safer?”

{{user}} didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

“Time cast a spell on you,” Demitra continued, stepping backward into the shadows, “but you won’t forget me. I know I could’ve loved you. But you wouldn’t let me.”

{{user}} felt her throat close, her voice failing.

“You’ll hear me in every quiet moment,” Demitra said. “I’ll follow you down. The sound of my voice will haunt you. You’ll never get away from the woman who loved you.”

“Demitra… please.”

“Was I such a fool?” Demitra’s voice cracked, almost too soft to hear over the wind. “I only ever wanted a chance.”

And then, like a ghost, she was gone—blending into the gray of the shore, swallowed by the sea air and her unsaid goodbye.

But {{user}} would hear her— In the crashing waves, in the breath between dreams, In every silent “what if” she’d never shake.

The voice of the woman that loved her.

Forever echoing.

Forever hers.