The storm had been building all afternoon. By dusk, the sky above the cliffs was streaked with bruised purples and grays, thunder rolling far out at sea. The lighthouse loomed in silhouette, its tower cutting sharp against the restless sky.
Cassie stood in the doorway, staring at the horizon, feeling that the storm outside mirrored the storm she'd carried inside since her conversation with Benita Pastor.
JM had to know more. He always knew more. And she was tired of waiting for him to hand her scraps of half-truths while the letters gnawed at her heart.
She didn't notice the crunch of footsteps on gravel until a shadow fell across her.
"Cassie."
His voice was low, cautious. She turned, and there he was — JM Pastor, raincoat slung over one arm, the same calm mask on his face that made her feel like she was knocking against a door he refused to open.
"You came," she said flatly.
"You asked."
Her fingers curled against the doorframe. "I've been asking for weeks, JM. You just don't answer."
He exhaled, looking past her to the lighthouse behind her. "Because some questions aren't meant to be answered."
"No." Her voice was sharper than she intended. "What you mean is: you won't answer them. Not because you can't — but because you're afraid of what I'll find."
His eyes flicked back to her then, sharp, almost wounded. "You don't know what you're saying."
"I know exactly what I'm saying." She stepped forward, close enough to see the tension in his jaw. "I've spoken to Antonio Pizarras. To your mother. They both say the same thing — that the truth is heavy, that it destroys. But they don't deny it exists. And you... you keep standing in my way."
"I'm not standing in your way."
"Then why does it feel like you are?"
The wind whipped around them, rattling the old glass of the lighthouse windows. JM ran a hand through his hair, as though fighting himself.
Finally, he muttered, "Because if you dig too deep, you'll find pieces of yourself in it. And once you do... you won't be able to let it go."
Cassie froze. "Pieces of myself?"
His eyes met hers — and this time, he didn't look away. "The letters weren't meant for you. But they were meant for a Cassie. And that Cassie... she was tied to both our families."
Her breath caught. "What are you saying?"
"That lighthouse keeper..." His voice dropped to almost a whisper. "He wasn't writing into the void. He wasn't writing some anonymous devotion. He was writing to a woman. And she bore your name because she was your blood."
Cassie staggered back a step, the weight of it sinking like stone into her chest. "My family—?"
"Yes." JM's tone was rough, but not unkind. "That's why Antonio wouldn't tell you. That's why my mother kept circling around it. Because the story isn't just theirs. It's yours too."
The storm broke then, lightning cracking across the horizon, thunder shaking the cliffs. But Cassie barely heard it.
"My family..." she whispered, her hands trembling. "All this time, I thought I was just an outsider here. That the letters were fate's accident, some strange coincidence. But you knew. You've known."
His silence confirmed it.
Anger flared, sharp and raw. "And you didn't tell me? You let me stumble around, piecing scraps together while you—what? Watched me twist in the dark?"
JM's face tightened. "I was protecting you."
"Protecting me?" Her laugh was hollow. "From what? From the truth? From history? Or from your own guilt?"
He flinched. She hadn't meant to cut so deep, but the words had clawed their way out.
"I didn't tell you because the truth ruins people, Cassie." His voice broke then, the calm mask finally cracking. "I watched it ruin my father. I watched it poison my mother. I watched the Pizarrases carry bitterness like it was blood in their veins. And I couldn't—" He stopped, dragging in a ragged breath. "I couldn't watch it do the same to you."
Her throat ached. For a moment, she saw not just the guarded historian, but a man caught between love and fear, between the urge to protect and the inevitability of loss.
"JM..." Her voice softened despite herself. "You can't keep me safe from my own history. I have to face it. Don't you see? These letters — they're not just ink on paper. They're... alive. They're demanding to be heard. To be finished."
His jaw worked, torn. "And if finishing them means losing yourself?"
"Then that's a risk I have to take."
The storm pounded around them, rain starting to spit against the stones. For a long moment, neither spoke. The silence stretched, taut and fragile.
Finally, JM said, almost brokenly, "I didn't want to fall into this with you."
Her breath hitched. "Into what?"
His eyes searched hers, dark and storm-lit. "Into caring."
Something in her chest cracked open then — longing and fear colliding. She wanted to reach for him, to bridge the distance. But the truth still stood between them like a wall of stone.
"You're pushing me away," she whispered.
"I'm trying to save you."
"Maybe you're just trying to save yourself."
The words hung between them, heavy as thunder.
JM looked at her for a long, aching moment, then turned toward the sea. His voice, when it came, was low. "The keeper's name was Elias Pizarras. He loved a woman named Cassandra Policarpio. She never came back for him. Or maybe she couldn't. He wrote those letters to her, every night, until the sea took him."
Cassie's heart pounded. Cassandra Policarpio. Her name echoed like a ghost.
"My ancestor..." she breathed.
"Yes." JM's shoulders were rigid. "And mine was Elias. Which means the lighthouse wasn't just inheritance. It was a grave. A wound. And now it's yours to carry."
The wind howled through the cliffs, tearing at them both. Cassie felt dizzy, like the ground itself had shifted.
Her family. His family. Bound by a love that had burned across time and ended in loss.
And now here they stood, heirs to a story unfinished.
The storm swallowed their silence, rain beginning to pour in earnest. Cassie stepped back into the lighthouse doorway, shivering. JM remained outside, head bowed against the downpour, as if he couldn't bear to follow her in.
"Go home, JM," she whispered, though her heart screamed otherwise.
He didn't move for a long time. Then, slowly, he turned away, vanishing into the storm.
Cassie stood alone in the lighthouse, clutching the satchel of letters to her chest.
The breaking point had come. And nothing would ever be the same.
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