The ocean was restless that evening. Waves rolled in sharp and silver under a fading sky, wind tugging at your hair, at the thin fabric of your shirt. You stood at the edge of the water barefoot, letting the tide curl around your ankles like it was trying to claim you.

Camp had changed. You had changed. You weren’t soft anymore. Not in the way people remembered. You didn’t laugh as easily. Didn’t kneel beside crying campers. Your kindness had hardened into something sharper—controlled, precise. You were colder now. Quieter. Beautiful in a way that felt untouchable.

People noticed. They whispered about it. They didn’t whisper about Percy. They didn’t talk about how he’d grown distant. How he stopped looking at you first in a crowd. How his smiles didn’t quite reach his eyes anymore. How walls had risen brick by brick behind his gaze. They only noticed you.

Footsteps pressed into the sand behind you. You didn’t turn. You knew who it was. Percy stopped a few feet away, close enough that you could feel the heat of him even over the wind.

Silence stretched. Then, rough and quieter than you expected, he said— “I miss the girl you were.”