Days turned into weeks, and Seabrook slowly began to feel like another world.
Every morning, Ariana woke to the sound of waves and Ethan's soft knock on the door. He'd bring her tea, his voice gentle, his eyes bright with that quiet warmth that made her chest ache.
"Feeling stronger today?" he'd ask, and she'd always smile.
Sometimes she helped him mend fishing nets by the shore. Other days, she walked through the market, learning the names of fruits and faces that still felt new. People called her Mira, a name she'd chosen for herself because it felt light and free like she was starting over.
But at night, she dreamed.
Flashes of glass chandeliers, her reflection in diamond mirrors, a man shouting her name over the sound of breaking waves.
Every time she woke, her heart pounded, and Ethan was there steady, grounding her back to the present.
One evening, as the sky turned gold and violet, she found him repairing a boat by the dock. His hands were rough, his arms tanned, his shirt clinging to his skin with the faint sheen of sweat. She couldn't look away.
"You work too hard," she teased, sitting beside him.
He smirked. "And you don't?"
"I'm trying," she said softly. "Trying to remember who I was… but maybe I don't need to."
He looked at her then really looked. "Maybe who you're becoming is better."
Their eyes met, and the world seemed to slow. The sound of waves faded; the air thickened with something electric.
A seagull's cry broke the moment, and they both laughed, embarrassed but smiling.
Later that night, as she sat by the window, she touched the locket around her neck the only piece of her old life she still had.
Inside was a faded photo she couldn't fully make out. A man's shadow, a flash of light, and a feeling she couldn't name.
Outside, Ethan's light was still on.
She watched him from her window and whispered, almost to herself, "Who are you really, Ethan Rivers?"
She didn't know that he was asking himself the same question.