Chapter 33 Between The Sea And The Silence

• Rachel POV
• The night breeze blew gently, carrying the salt of the sea and teasing the loose strands of my hair into a dance against my face. The sound of waves crashing on the sand was a steady, almost hypnotic melody, but inside me, everything was chaos—a whirlwind of emotions I could no longer contain. The moon hung high, silvering the beach with a cold light, and the weight of that night pressed down on me like it might swallow me whole.
• Jeremy sat beside me in the sand, elbows propped on his knees, his gaze lost in the dark horizon where the ocean bled into the night. I watched him in silence, tracing the tense lines of his face with my eyes, trying to unravel what churned in that mind he kept so locked away. He’d always been like this—guarded, carrying secrets that seemed to bow his shoulders like an unseen burden.