Chapter 44

• The old lighthouse stood sentinel against the churning grey sea, a solitary beacon against the bruised twilight sky. It was a place Cleo had visited often as a child, a place of quiet solitude where the relentless rhythm of the waves had soothed her troubled spirit. Ironically, it was also a place that held a painful memory, a memory of a broken promise, a lost innocence. Now, standing here with Rowan beside her, the salty wind whipping through her hair, the echoes of the past felt less like ghosts and more like fading whispers.
• Rowan's hand brushed lightly against hers, a silent gesture of comfort and understanding. He hadn’t spoken much since they'd arrived, a stark contrast to his usual impassioned declarations. This silence, however, wasn't heavy with unspoken resentments; it was a quiet acknowledgement of the shared weight of their pasts, a tacit understanding that words, at this moment, were inadequate. The wind carried their words away, lost in the immensity of the ocean, just as their past hurts were slowly being carried away by the tide of their newfound understanding.
• They walked along the cliff's edge, the wind whipping their clothes around them, the spray of the crashing waves misting their faces. The rhythmic roar of the ocean was a counterpoint to the quiet turmoil within them, a reminder of the relentless power of nature, a force that mirrored the powerful emotions that had shaped their lives. Cleo looked out at the endless expanse of the ocean, her gaze lost in the swirling grey of the water, a reflection of the turbulent emotions within her heart.