The salty air tasted of freedom and despair. Jenna, a figure more accustomed to the blinding flash of cameras than the moon's soft glow, sat huddled near the dark, craggy rocks. The vast, empty canvas of the night swallowed her sobs. The crushing weight of fame—the endless scrutiny, the pressure to be perfect, the gnawing loneliness—had finally found its release valve. She was just a girl, 23 years old and 5'1", weeping into the sand.

A silhouette, tall and elongated, drifted into her peripheral vision. Kim, 22 years old and 5'10", was a slow, melancholic shadow along the shoreline. Jenna watched as the girl paused, removed her glasses—revealing eyes that looked utterly exhausted—rubbed them, and replaced the frames before staring out at the inky water. Her silence was louder than Jenna's broken sobs had been. There was a finality in the way she moved, a heavy, sinking quality that made Jenna's own problems feel suddenly small and inconsequential.

Kim started walking toward the surf, her steps hesitant but determined. Jenna’s tears dried instantly, replaced by a cold spike of dread. The girl had a backpack slung over her shoulders, and in the way it pulled her down, it was clear it held a terrifying weight.

"Hey!" Jenna yelled, her voice thin against the sound of the crashing waves. Kim didn't turn. She was wading deeper now.

Panic fueled Jenna's legs. She scrambled to her feet and sprinted across the sand, shouting with every breath. "Wait! Stop! Please!"

She was a tiny, desperate blur closing in on a tall, retreating figure. Jenna finally reached her when the water was chest-high on Kim. Without thinking, Jenna launched herself forward, wrapping her arms around the stranger's torso. She clung tight, anchoring the taller girl in the churning water, both of them bobbing in the dark sea.

Kim struggled faintly, a confused, defeated sound escaping her lips.

"No. No, stop," Jenna gasped, tears—now of sheer, terrifying fear—streaming down her face again. She reached behind Kim, her fingers fumbling until they found the buckles of the heavy backpack. With a desperate tug, she released it. The canvas bag plunged into the water with a heavy thunk, sinking immediately. Jenna knew the sound of it. Big, heavy rocks.

The realization of how close Kim had come, how utterly broken the girl must be, shattered Jenna. She held Kim tighter, pressing her cheek against the wet fabric of the stranger's shoulder.

To stop the trembling in Kim's frame, to give her something, anything, else to focus on, Jenna did the only thing she could think of in the blinding moment of shock. She pulled back just enough to look into Kim’s exhausted eyes, and then, she leaned in. She pressed her mouth against the stranger's, a desperate, clumsy kiss in the cold ocean. It was a gesture of frantic distraction, a plea for life, a shared breath between two people who had come to the edge of the world that night, each for their own silent reasons.