Dive <3
After her fiancé, Anthony Collins, disappears at sea during a violent storm, airline captain Serene Celeste Clarke is left suspended between survival and surrender. The ocean that took him becomes the only place where she still feels close to him. When the search is called off and Anthony is presumed dead, Serene’s grief quietly consumes her. She returns to flying, moves through life with precision and discipline, and learns how to function without truly living. At night, she rents a yacht and drifts to the exact coordinates where Anthony vanished, letting the sea hold the weight of everything she refuses to release.
Kai Angelo Parker, a marine biologist, diver, and former Olympic swimmer, notices Serene long before she notices him. He recognizes the danger in her rituals and the resignation in her eyes. When Serene finally gives in to the pull of the ocean, believing Anthony is still somewhere beneath the waves, Kai pulls her back from drowning. He saves her life without knowing her story, and she leaves without gratitude, shaken, exposed, and furious at being seen. Yet their paths continue to cross, and slowly, without pressure or expectation, Kai becomes a steady presence in her life. He doesn’t try to replace Anthony. He waits. Over time, Serene begins to heal, learning to dive instead of sink, to breathe instead of disappear. What grows between them is quiet, unforced, and rooted in patience.
Just as Serene is finally ready to name what they have and choose a future, the impossible happens. Anthony comes back. He survived the storm, drifting to a remote island where he lived for years with no memory of who he was. When his identity is finally restored, he returns to San Diego, and Serene chooses him out of loyalty, history, and unresolved grief. Kai steps aside without argument, preparing himself to let her go. As wedding plans resume, Serene realizes she is no longer happy. Her heart belongs to Kai, but she cannot bring herself to shatter Anthony after everything he has endured.
When the truth finally surfaces through an honest conversation between Anthony and Kai, Anthony understands that while he survived the ocean, Serene survived losing him. Their chapter has ended. In an act of quiet love, Anthony releases Serene and sends her toward the man who taught her how to live again. Serene runs, still in her pilot uniform, to Kai’s door, believing she may already be too late. What follows is a confession spoken through tears, courage, and choice.
Five years later, Serene and Kai are married, living in a beach house surrounded by coconut trees, raising their daughter Isla Kailani, whose name carries the meaning of island, ocean, and sky. The ocean that once called Serene to disappear now reminds her of where she learned how to stay. Dive is a story about grief and survival, about love that waits, love that lets go, and love that chooses life, not because it is easy, but because it is honest.
