The storm had broken in the night.
By morning, the air was salt-clean and heavy with the scent of wet earth, gulls wheeling overhead as if nothing had happened. But inside the lighthouse, the world still felt unsettled, like the sea itself had carried its grief into her bones.
Cassie sat at the small wooden table in the keeper's quarters, the bundle of letters spread before her. Some pages had softened with age, ink faded, corners curled, but they pulsed with life — with yearning. She had read them all, one by one, each more intimate than the last. Until she found the final envelope, tucked between two floorboards she had pried open in the gray hours of dawn.
Her hands trembled as she unfolded it. The handwriting was shakier, the ink blotched, as if the writer's hand had fought the sea breeze and the weight of his own sorrow.
She read aloud, the empty lighthouse swallowing her voice.
My dearest Cassandra,9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaHgykzO0ng
I do not know if these words will ever reach you. The sea has a way of swallowing letters, swallowing men, swallowing promises. But I write them still, for I vowed I would keep watch until you returned. And though my body wearies, though my eyes burn from the salt, I keep my promise. I keep it because love does not bend to time, nor distance, nor silence. I will keep the light burning, for you, until it burns me away. If you never return, then let this tower stand as the last of me — my promise, my devotion, my love.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlHVLtl19hJ
Yours, always,9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQmMsp5N3mP
Elias
Cassie's throat constricted. She set the page down slowly, afraid her shaking hands might tear it.
The words rang like a bell inside her, too raw, too close. A vow to wait. A vow to love, even without return. She pressed her palms against her face, breath trembling.
"You found it."
Her head jerked up. JM stood in the doorway, raincoat gone, his shirt clinging damp against his frame as if he'd been walking the cliffs. His eyes were darker than the storm had been, but softer too.
Cassie's pulse raced. "How did you—"
"I knew there was one more. The last." He stepped inside, his gaze falling to the letter on the table. "I wasn't sure you'd find it."
Her voice wavered. "You knew, and you didn't tell me?"
"I couldn't," JM said simply. "That one... that one was his ending. And it was her ending, too."
Cassie swallowed hard. "Cassandra Policarpio."
He nodded. "Your blood. My family's ghost."
She looked at him, really looked — and realized he was carrying it just as heavily as she was. The weight of history. The ache of inheritance.
She whispered, "He kept the promise. He wrote until the end."
"Yes." JM's voice cracked, just a little. "But she never came back."
Silence pressed in, broken only by the distant crash of waves. Cassie traced the letter with her fingertip.
"She might not have had a choice," she said softly. "Maybe she wanted to. Maybe life... or family, or fear... maybe something stopped her."
JM leaned against the table, his hand brushing dangerously close to hers. "Maybe. But he died believing she would come back. That was his devotion — foolish or not. He built his life, his hope, around a woman who was never his to keep."
Her chest tightened. "And now here we are. Two people carrying their unfinished story."
He looked at her then, and his expression made her ache. "That's what I was afraid of."
Cassie's voice dropped. "Afraid of what?"
"That history would repeat itself." His jaw clenched, then loosened. "That I would find myself... caring. And that you'd leave. Like she did."
The air thickened between them. She could hear her own heartbeat, feel the magnetic pull of him — of the truth in his words.
"JM..." She drew in a shaky breath. "I'm not her."
He let out a bitter laugh, quiet but sharp. "You even share her name."
"I didn't choose that," she whispered. "But I can choose what I do now. And I choose not to run."
For the first time, his mask slipped completely. He looked at her as if he were drowning, as if she were the only thing keeping him tethered.
"Cassie..." His voice was almost a plea.
She reached for the letter, holding it between them. "This—" her hand trembled, "—this is not just tragedy. It's love. Fierce, flawed, desperate love. We can't let it trap us. We can't let it be a curse."
"And if it already is?" he asked, his breath brushing her cheek.
"Then we rewrite it." Her words came out steady, though her whole body shook. "We give it a new ending."
The silence that followed was thick, charged. His eyes searched hers, as if looking for escape, or salvation, or both.
Then, slowly, his hand covered hers on the letter. His skin was warm, grounding.
"You really think we can?" he murmured.
"Yes," she whispered. "Because I want to try. With you."
The sea roared outside, gulls crying overhead, the lighthouse groaning in its bones. But in that moment, the world shrank to the space between them — the trembling promise of something fragile and fierce.
He exhaled, as if releasing years of grief. Then, softly, he said, "Then maybe... maybe it's time we stop being the keepers of their ghosts. And start being the keepers of our own promise."
Her heart thudded. "And what promise would that be?"
He leaned closer, his forehead brushing hers. "That we won't let fear write our story. That we won't let history steal it."
Cassie closed her eyes, a tear slipping free. "Then that's the promise I'll keep."
Their lips met then — not the desperate kiss of storm and fury, but something gentler, aching, like a vow sealed in the salt air. A beginning, carved out of endings.
When they pulled apart, the letter still lay between them, fragile and worn. Cassie looked at it, then at JM.
"Maybe we bury it here," she whispered. "Let it rest. Let them rest."
He nodded, a quiet weight lifting in his gaze. "And then we live."
Cassie held his hand tighter. For the first time since stepping foot in this lighthouse, she didn't feel like she was trespassing in someone else's story.
She felt like she was beginning her own.
9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMLH5e7mI4K
and then Add to home screen.