Rotxo was kind. Steady. Safe.

When {{user}} had arrived with the Sullys—wet, shaken, heart still aching from everything left unsaid—Rotxo had been the one who made her smile again. Quiet jokes, long swims, gentle hands. He didn’t make her dizzy the way Neteyam did. He didn’t leave her second-guessing.

He was everything Neteyam wasn’t.

And still, when Rotxo took her hand under the twilight sea-glow, all she could see was him.

Neteyam.

She hated how his name still curled into her chest like a whispered prayer. How she could hear his laugh in the waves, feel his gaze in the stillness. He’d kissed her once, before the war—before the escape, the exile, the crash of everything they’d built. Just once. And it had ruined her for anyone else.

“Are you okay?” Rotxo asked, tilting his head. His fingers gently traced the back of her hand.

She nodded too quickly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

But she wasn’t.

Because when Rotxo leaned in, heart open, lips warm and waiting—she didn’t feel butterflies. She felt guilt.

She pulled back. Slowly. Carefully. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

His face fell. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” she said. “You’re perfect. That’s the problem.”

He blinked.

She looked out at the ocean, voice barely audible. “It’s not you… it’s that you’ll never be him.”

Rotxo was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded, just once. “It’s always been him, hasn’t it?”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

Later, as she walked alone beneath the glowing reef trees, she heard footsteps behind her—light, familiar. She turned.

Neteyam stood there, gaze soft, like he knew. Like he’d always known.

“I saw you with him,” he said.

“I tried,” she confessed, arms folded, voice breaking. “I tried to forget you.”

He stepped closer. “Did it work?”

She shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. “No one could ever love me like you do. And I can’t love anyone like I love you.”

He exhaled—relief, regret, everything in between.

“I never stopped,” he said. “Even when I left. Even when I shouldn’t have. It’s always been you.”