A Year of Silence
The days moved slowly, painfully, after Oriana's resolve to stand without Tavian. But the heart does not heal in straight lines. Every morning she woke up hoping not to think of him. Every night she fell asleep hoping not to dream of him. Yet somehow he lived in every breath between. But fate's cruelest blows are often the ones we never see coming.
Far from San Martín, Tavian paced his room in the Lockridge mansion, restless and suffocated by guilt. Every day since he'd left her on the pier, her voice haunted him.
"Tavian, please don't go."
He lasted five days before he broke.
"I need to see her," he muttered, grabbing his keys.
Vionna stepped into the doorway like a shadow.
"There is nothing left for you in that village," she said coolly.
"You don't get to decide that," he snapped.
But his father's voice echoed down the hall:
"Tavian! Come here. We have matters to discuss—urgent matters."
Tavian froze.
Vionna smirked.
And that was the beginning.
His father's plans swallowed him. Meetings. Contracts. Proposals. Travel arrangements he hadn't agreed to. Every time he tried to slip away, another obligation slammed in his path.
Still, he tried.
One night, he managed to escape the estate and ride toward the beach. The moon guided him, the wind urging him forward. But when he reached the village, Oriana was not there. She wasn't by the rocks. Not on the shore. Not near her hut. Her home was dark, the door shut, no light, no laughter, no sign of her presence.
"Oriana?" he whispered into the night.
"Oriana, please."
Only silence answered.
He asked around in the village, but the fishermen shook their heads with sympathy.
"She hasn't come out today."
"She's not well."
"Leave her alone, boy. Haven't you done enough?"
He tried again the next day. But each time, the villagers turned their backs. Tavian stood on the beach where they had once laughed together, feeling like the sea itself rejected him.
That night, he made a decision: he would return, he would find her, he would fix everything.
But fate had a different plan.
Two mornings later, Tavian's bags were already in the car.
"Why am I being sent away?" he demanded.
His father didn't blink. "Because you need discipline. You need focus. And you need distance from that girl."
Something snapped inside Tavian.
"That girl has a name," he growled.
But his father shut the car door before he could argue more.
The Lockridge empire had begun its chains. Tavian was shipped out of the city papers signed, contracts sealed for a one-year business expansion across the islands.
He left with a broken heart, vowing,
"As soon as I return, I'll go back for her."
But promises, like waves, are easy to drown.
While Tavian was being dragged into a world he didn't want, Oriana knelt by the small basin in her hut, trembling. She had been sick for days. Dizzy. Weak. Unable to keep down even water.
Grandma Gina placed a hand on her forehead.
"You're not sick, dear you're late."
Oriana froze. Her heart stopped. Her breath vanished.
"No" she whispered. "No, no, no."
She grabbed her skirt, trembling.
"I can't… I can't be."
But she was.
Grandma Gina's voice was soft, sorrowful.
"You are with child, Oriana."
The world tilted. Her knees buckled.
"I… I don't know how to be a mother," she whispered, tears spilling. "I don't know how to raise a child alone. He left. He left me."
Grandma Gina held her tightly.
"You are stronger than you think. But you must tell him."
Oriana wiped her tears with trembling hands.
"Yes," she whispered. "I must tell him."
With courage she didn't know she had, Oriana walked miles toward the Lockridge mansion. Her heart pounded with every step. She prayed he would be there. She prayed he hadn't chosen to forget her.
But when she reached the iron gates, the guards blocked her instantly.
"I need to see Tavian," she pleaded. "It's important. Please. I just need a moment."
One guard exchanged a pitying look with the other.
"Sir Tavian left the city this morning," he said. "He won't return for one year."
Oriana's heart shattered.
"One year?" she whispered, gripping the bars until her knuckles turned white.
"I need to speak to him," she begged. "Please I need him to know."
The gates didn't move.
"And he won't be receiving calls," the guard added gently. "His father made that clear."
Oriana's breath hitched as if someone had punched her. She turned slowly, numb, each step heavier than the last. Her child's father was gone. Her love was gone. Her hope was slipping through her fingers.
When she reached the bottom of the road, something inside her broke completely. She grabbed her stomach, sobbing.
"Why, Tavian?"
"Why did you leave me when I needed you the most?"
Her tears fell onto the dusty road. But no one answered. The wind carried her cries away like a secret whispered into the world's indifferent ear.
As Oriana trudged home through the fading sunlight, she placed a trembling hand over her belly. Her tears slowed then stopped.
"I will protect you," she whispered.
"I will raise you. Even if I have to do it alone."
She looked out toward the sea, her eyes darkening with the faintest spark of future strength.
"And when Tavian returns he will learn what it means to leave."
The waves crashed behind her, as if sealing a promise.
Oriana's transformation had begun not out of ambition, but out of heartbreak and survival. For the girl left behind was no longer just a girl.
She was becoming a woman shaped by love, pain, and destiny.