The lighthouse stood like a sentinel at the edge of Evermare—weathered, abandoned, and wrapped in legends that few cared to revisit.
Locals called it The Widow's Eye.
Elena had only seen it from a distance, a crumbling silhouette against the sky, but Rowan knew it well. His father had once been its keeper, before grief broke him and alcohol finished the job.
Now, it stood empty. Quiet. Watching.
"Why here?" Rowan asked, his breath visible in the cool morning air.
Elena held up the sketch she'd made from the painting's hidden writing. "I looked through my grandmother's old letters. She mentioned 'locking the light' in a note from the year Matthew died. It was sent from here."
Rowan frowned. "My mother used to take us here as kids. When the world felt too heavy."
"Maybe Matthew came back. Maybe something's still here."
The heavy iron door groaned open with a protest.
Dust drifted in lazy spirals as they stepped inside. The spiral staircase wound upward like a spine, light filtering through broken panes above.
Their footsteps echoed.
At the top, the old lamp room was filled with shards of memory: rusted tools, an overturned chair, and a sea chest tucked beneath the circular glass.
Elena's fingers brushed the latch.
Inside:
A sketchbook tied with fraying twine.
A silver chain with a lighthouse pendant.
And a small, sealed envelope addressed in careful ink:
"To Rowan. If I never come home."
He stared at it like it had teeth.
Elena handed it to him slowly.
He didn't open it right away. He stood at the broken glass, staring out at the ocean below—his shoulders stiff, breath shallow.
"I didn't know this existed," he said.
"You were never meant to," Elena replied gently. "Not until now."
After a long silence, he opened it.
> "Rowan,
If you're reading this, I'm sorry. I left you too much pain and not enough light. I knew you'd try to carry everything. That was always your way.
But Matthew was trying to protect something. Someone. He found love in a place no one would understand—and when he tried to hold it, the sea took everything.
Don't let it take you too.
Love can save you, if you let it.
Lock the light.
– Mom"
Rowan's hand shook as he folded the letter.
His voice was quiet, almost broken. "She knew. About Matthew and… someone. Maybe your grandmother. Or…"
"Or someone else," Elena whispered. "But either way, she wanted you to be free."
He turned to her slowly. His eyes weren't sky blue now—they were storm-filled, glassy.
"Elena, I don't know what I'm doing. With you. With any of this. It's like every part of my past is rising from the deep and I can't tell if I'm breathing or drowning."
"You're not drowning," she said, stepping close. "You're resurfacing."
And then, without another word, she kissed him.
It wasn't soft.
It wasn't polite.
It was desperate and steady and slow, like two people holding on to the one thing that made sense in a world full of grief and ghosts.
When they pulled apart, he rested his forehead against hers.
"You scare the hell out of me," he said.
"Good," she whispered. "That means it's real."
---
Below them, the waves crashed like a heartbeat.
Above them, the lighthouse held its breath.
And in that fragile space between pain and healing, two broken souls finally began to fit.
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