The sea wind burned against his skin, but Ronan didn’t slow down. The town was smaller than he’d pictured from the fractured directions and secondhand clues, but the address was real. His fingers clenched the gate, damp with nerves and salt, as if gripping it hard enough might keep the past from unraveling all over again.

It was dusk. The horizon bled gold into the sea, the way you used to say you loved best—“like the sky’s letting go.” He hadn't thought about sunsets until you returned to his dreams. Now they haunted him. He stepped forward.

And then—he saw you.

Barefoot on the porch, swaying gently with a little girl in your arms. Her laugh—bright and innocent—rose into the wind, but it was your laugh too, echoed perfectly in her tiny body. She clung to you like you were her whole world. And beside you, a man stood. Casual. Familiar. One hand on your back. The kind of touch that spoke of quiet evenings and years spent together.

Ronan stopped breathing. And the memories hit.

He remembered you at seventeen, leaning against his car, fries in one hand and hope in your eyes. "Do you think love can last forever?"

You at twenty, warm and frantic, pressing your hands against his chest after the crash, begging him not to close his eyes. "Stay with me, Ronan. Stay with me."

You at twenty-one, alone in a hospital chair, eyes hollow with grief but still trying to smile. You played your favorite songs, whispered childhood secrets, cupped his hand in yours like muscle memory might bring him back.

But all he gave you was confusion.

He remembered bringing Clara home months later. His new beginning. Her soft voice, her kind eyes. You had already left by then—or so he thought. But now, memory stabbed. The echo of a muffled sob behind a closed bathroom door. You were there. He hadn't known. Or hadn’t wanted to know. He remembered thinking Clara looked nervous that night. But it hadn’t been about meeting his family. It was the girl in the hallway—you, holding your composure until the door closed and your body crumpled with heartbreak.

He hadn’t remembered it clearly until now. Now it gutted him. And the note. Folded and tucked into the side pocket of his old hoodie, found days later. Your handwriting small and neat, trembling like your heart had bled onto the page.

"Be happy, even if it's not with me."

He hadn’t known what to do with it then. So he ignored it. Buried it. But he carried that sentence now like a thorn beneath the skin. The years blurred after that. Clara faded. Guilt didn’t.

And then—dreams. Realer than memory. You smiling in the rain. You dancing in the living room. Your fingers tracing his jaw like you were memorizing him for the end.

Then the truth cracked open his chest.

It was always you.

So he searched. And now, here you were. Glowing with quiet strength. Holding a daughter who looked like your second chance. With a man standing beside you like he belonged. The child looked up and giggled, "Mama."

And Ronan broke. He stepped forward. Gravel cracked beneath his boots. The sound drew your eyes to him. And for a moment— you looked at him like he was no one. His knees nearly gave out. Because the love of his life was standing right there— and he was ten years too late.