loss of heart.

a/n: this did not turn out how I intended. I wrote it in a day, and it's also unedited. I do not care.

I miss you, she thought, as she walked down the creaky wooden boardwalk for the first time in three years.

The smell of the sea was so familiar after all that time, the sky still painted that vintage blue.

But the shops were closed. The town had become deserted, soon after the incident. It was a bittersweet feeling.

She unlocked the cottage door. The key in her blue shorts, it was chipped and no longer had that silvery shine from way back when, he was still here.

Immediately a cloud of dust surrounded her face, and she covered her eyes and spit, waving it away. The cottage looked small, but she knew that's how it always was.

Lucy knew what she was looking for, but she went to the kitchen, first. She remembered the breakfasts. Sunshine streaming through the windows painted white, laughter and aprons and the smell of burning toast, and perfectly made scrambled eggs. The clearest image in her mind is the amount of pepper he'd always top them with.

Since that day, she's avoided pepper like the plague.

She turned on the sink, and heard the creak of pipes not been used, and the steady rush of water pouring out. It's 80 degrees Fahrenheit today, the weather said, on the radio, on her way here. She runs her fingers through the cold water, and shivers.

The fridge was never cleaned out, and Lucy was in no way excited to see the remnants of the food. It was never a lot. Their budget was never that much, but it was enough. Bread, butter, milk. Eggs. Pepper.

The basics.

She put her hand on the refrigerator handle, but turned away.

The hallway was narrow. It only led to three rooms.

One. The first bedroom, where she slept and worked on her novel during the late hours of the summer nights. Also the place she tore it apart.

Two. The bathroom, where she screamed until her throat was raw, and saw red when she stared into the mirror, until she was dragged out forcibly.

Three. The second bedroom. There's nothing special about this room at all, anymore, and that's why she doesn't dare open the door.

The day is an image destined to burn forever in her mind. August. Two weeks left until they go back to Magnolia.

I'll see you in an hour or two, she tells him with a smile. Let me work on my novel.

And he returns it, he walks out the door and she sighs, sighs because she's in love.

She opens the notebooks where she's meticulously copying down every expense, and is pleased because they've passed on enough ice creams and sour lemonades that month to be able to buy a new key.

He makes sacrifices for her, and she doesn't know how to repay him. Setting her pen down, she jumps up and runs to the door, opens it because she hears a strange clacking noise, and wind and rain blow into her face.

Take an umbrella, he warns her when he leaves the house. I won't be long, it's not safe. She doesn't hear.

He's training. He's out in the water.

And it's storming.

She runs. She runs and runs and runs, and she's begging and begging for him to be okay.

People rush by her, they're running and running up the soaked sand,

And she's pushing through in a hoodie and shorts and bare feet and running down,

down,

down.

The sky is gray and water streams down her face and only part of it is the rain.

There's the coast guard, she says. Her feet are numb. It's okay, she says. It's okay is all she wants to know.

There it is. She reaches the shore, and she sees a dark figure in the water. And she screams.

Instinctually she wades into the waves and no one sees until she's in too deep. And amidst shouts and yells she's too dazed to be able to hear, it's all far away, the only thing she can listen to is the rush of water entering her ears and mouth and lungs.

Later, she found out.

It was never Gray that she was trying to reach. There was another person, and they couldn't swim, they never knew how, and the tide pulled them out and they drowned.

But, she was in the hospital. And someone saved her. And that person was no longer alive.

And maybe just maybe- that person loved her.

Her relief turned to fear turned to shock turned to horror turned to insanity.

It was her fault and another sacrifice he made for her

but the only thing she could think of was i'll see you,

I'll never see him again, she whispered to herself. And she ran out of the hospital before anyone could stop her.

She headed to the cottage.

After that, the story has already been told.

Cana came to pick her up when she heard the news. August 14. It'd already been 5 days. It wasn't from Lucy.

She spared the honey, are you alright?

because she already knew the answer.

Cana walked into the cottage with apprehension, well deserved, she decided, after seeing the state it was in. She found the shreds of Lucy's notebooks lying on the carpet, ripped and tear stained. She collected what she could, but she had no hope at all.

Lucy didn't speak the entire ride home. She stared into space, unaware of her entire surroundings.

Cana was drinking when she got the call, but her driving was flawless.

In Magnolia, no one was sure who to feel most sorry for.

Cana came with her, this time, too. She waited patiently in the car, parked with a view of the ocean. There was no one on the beach. Cana was not surprised, but couldn't help but whisper what a shame.

She watched the waves, the water, and wondered how something so beautiful could be so destructive.

Lucy was still in the cottage. Cana opened the car door and walked down the beach, feeling the sand brush over her sandals and the hot sun burning her skin.

It burned.

The saltwater splashed on her legs and in her mind she said, I'd stay here forever.

In her eyes, the ocean was too valuable to abandon after a single accident.

In Lucy's eyes, that ocean was the cause of her greatest trauma and regret.

Over the past three years, Lucy has healed. There's life, after all. Gray did not save her life just so she could throw it away.

It's what she told herself at the beginning, to convince herself not to follow him.

She's tried again. And that's why she came back.

Lucy's novel was being rewritten, and it was almost like a sign of her progress. When she wrote a lot, she was happy, and when her notebook was shut, she was thinking of him.

Everyone was surprised when she decided to visit the beach town again.

Too many people told her it was a bad idea. It was not a question for her, though.

I can't finish this without him.

They agreed to let her stay in the town for a couple of months, with Cana. And she was positive. Lucy's energy was persuasive, and they finally let her go.

In the car, she was quiet again. And Cana understood.

She sat down at her old desk, a scratched up, dusty dark brown. It was never really hers- a rental house, after all- but after that no one wanted to touch the place. She traced her fingers along the grooves, the marks she made, and took out her notebook.

Recently she'd been typing her story, but, as she told her friends, a typewriter was too bulky to bring.

The typewriter was a gift that Cana called to herself a consolation. And aside from that, it was the same type of notebook Lucy brought three years ago that she was writing in on the way to the town.

Lucy thought for a while, watched the still walls and potted plants and decorations untouched for years. She wrote, and she wrote, and she wrote. And it was good.

Cana walked to the cottage. She wasn't sure if Lucy was done- she wanted to give her time alone first- so, she decided it would be interesting to look around the outside. The cottage's exterior was white faded to gray panels and grainy gray rooftop shingles and nothing special.

Under the right window though was a patch of shrubs and grasses and weeds, but also- flowers. Perennials, enduring plants. Cana smiled. They're beautiful.

And she remembered something.

She ran to the general store, a shop that was miraculously still open, if not for long. It was empty and cold and the owner was too old for his years but she bought anything she could, and he smiled.

She walked to the park.

She felt rotten doing this, but seeds take time to grow. She snipped the prettiest flowers she could find and placed them in the dull glass vase. It's clouded and cracked at the top, but it'd do, she thought.

She walked back to the cottage and put the vase on the outer sill of the right window. It was Lucy's bedroom window, and the blinds weren't closed. She was sleeping, Cana saw, on the desk, on her documents covered in scribbles. She deserves the sunshine, Cana said, moving the yellowest flower in Lucy's direction.

Hours later there were pots filled with soil and seeds and water and Cana knew nothing about gardening but she tried, and she had hope.

The weeks pass by. And suddenly, it's August again.

It's two weeks before they're scheduled to leave.

There is a storm.

Cana runs through the rain and slams the front door shut. Her hair is soaking wet, no wonder, the wind came out of nowhere, and the bag of fruit she carries drops suddenly to the ground.

Lucy's staring out the window, it repeats, repeats, repeats, like an endless video playing in her head.

The sky is gray again. And Cana can see Lucy's pen on the floor, and her unmoving hands, and the open window.

She's thinking of him.

i miss you,,,

There are many things she wishes to say to him. How are you doing? Am I doing the right thing? Do you forgive me?

She wonders if he's there to listen. She hopes, hopes, hopes, because she's going to tell him anyway.

The window is open, Cana realizes finally. The window is open.

"Lucy, Lucy, shut the window!"

"I can't, Cana, I can't, I need to talk to him."

The vase that Cana had been keeping on the window sill falls onto the desk and shatters. Water soaks Lucy's papers, and Cana is scrambling to save them, but Lucy is staring at the sky.

It's time to move on, Lucy says.

Thank you.