The sterile white glare of the monitor was a poor substitute for a horizon. It was a blank, unforgiving space where Kai often found himself staring, two years older and a lifetime heavier with the weight of self-awareness. He was perched in his ergonomic chair, a silent sovereign in a glass tower high above the city, the soft protest of the leather the only sound accompanying his breathing.
He was a success by every visible metric: the apartment, minimalist and expensive; the career, a trajectory of ascent; the social life, curated and transient. Yet, the silence here was not peace; it was a profound, aching void. It was the sound of everything he had rejected, distilled into an oppressive, constant hum. Every pulse of the distant city, every tick of his exclusive watch, seemed to mock the emotional bankruptcy he had so meticulously cultivated.
He hadn't been searching. Not consciously. Just aimlessly drifting through the digital graveyard of his past—an old messaging app, an artifact from a time when he still believed life was a video game with infinite restarts. He was about to close the relics, when a profile picture, faint and hazy, snagged his attention. A wisp of dark hair, a quiet dignity in the set of the shoulders.
Maris.
The name, once a casual vowel in his daily vocabulary, now struck him like a single, devastating chord. He clicked, and the world seemed to hold its breath.
The image that loaded was not the shy, quietly vulnerable girl he'd treated with such callous neglect. This was a woman radiating a quiet, settled glow—a luminous, unmistakable aura of peace. Beside her stood a man whose arm was draped across her shoulders, effortlessly possessive. In his eyes, Kai saw something terrifyingly simple: Anchor. There was a small, vibrant child, clutching Maris's hand, a tiny, joyous being that was the irrefutable evidence of a complete, fulfilled life.
The photo didn't scream for vengeance; it merely existed, a perfectly moored ship in a harbor Kai had deemed unworthy.
The truth hit him not as a realization, but as a physical phenomenon: a tide of regret, icy and forceful, that pulled him under. He remembered the boy he had been—Kai the Ocean, vast, self-important, and convinced his own ego was depth. He had seen Maris's genuine affection as a heavy burden, a restrictive shoreline that threatened his boundless "freedom." He'd dismissed her deep feelings, her careful words, like sea foam—beautiful for a moment, but easily wiped away.
He hadn't been an ocean. He had been a muddy puddle, reflecting his own arrogant image, while she had been the pure, running stream he needed. The bitter ache that bloomed in his chest was the pain of a soul recognizing the irreplaceable, too late. He pressed his palms to his eyes, trying to halt the internal reel of memory.
He closed his eyes, and a fragment of an ancient, poetic lament surfaced—the sorrowful meter of a truth he had refused to learn:
The water I refused to drink, was life itself, the only spring.A fool I was, upon the brink, to let such pure devotion swing.
The Anatomy of a Cruelty
The images came faster, fueled by the guilt. He saw his phone screen again, lit late at night. Maris had sent him a long, earnest text—a quiet sharing of a hope or a fear, a genuine attempt at connection. And his finger had hovered, deliberately, before typing the casual, four-letter dismissal: "K. Lol." The deliberate lag, the emotional brevity—it wasn't just rudeness; it was a weapon used to maintain distance, a tool to remind her that her depth was inconvenient to his shallowness.
He remembered a day spent with her in silence, driving to a viewpoint overlooking the real ocean. The song on the radio was a low acoustic ballad—a sad, minor key he always demanded to skip. Maris had softly sung a single line, a lyrical whisper he now recognized as an offering: "If you listen close, the silence is a promise of rest."
He'd retorted with a callous joke about her music taste being "too heavy," shattering the moment like cheap glass. He had felt invincible then, convinced that emotional armor was strength. He didn't see the fleeting shadow of pain in her Wave-like eyes; he only saw his victory over sentimentality.
Then came the vivid memory of Safina. Safina the Ship, the only true mariner in his life, who had tried to chart a course for him. She had loved him, too—a silent, fierce loyalty that transcended the fickle nature of his attention. She had tried to mediate his cruelty toward Maris, tried to explain the cost of his actions.
He saw the flashing neon lights of the bar where they last fought, the chaotic backdrop of his preferred, distracting life.
"You treat people like they're disposable chapters, Kai! Like a book you can throw away when you get bored!" Safina had yelled, her voice raw.
His reply, fueled by cold arrogance, was a viper's strike: "I'm not bound by sentiment, Safina. And you? You're too loyal. You just stand by and judge."
Her composure had broken, her eyes glistening with the tears he had caused both in her and in Maris. She didn't scream; she whispered the verdict that was now his constant companion: "You watch, Kai. You watch because the only thing you truly love is the reflection of yourself in someone else's broken mirror."
She hadn't slammed the door; she had simply stepped across the threshold, calmly sailing out of his life. Safina had done what Maris would eventually do: she had cut the mooring lines to the ship of his selfishness and steered toward her own, safer horizon.
The Final Reckoning
The images receded, leaving Kai gasping in the chilled, pressurized air of his apartment. His high-rise sanctuary felt less like a palace and more like a mausoleum. He was drowning in the vast, echoing space of his own failed life.
He hadn't just lost two women; he had lost the chance to be a better man. He had lost the opportunity to anchor himself to the kind of love that lasts—the quiet devotion of Maris and the unwavering, navigational loyalty of Safina. The picture on the monitor, with its tranquil family scene, was the final, devastating receipt for his youthful debt.
The faint buzz of his phone on the desk was a physical intrusion. Safina's text. The timing was surgical; she knew he had found the truth.
"I heard you were looking for closure, Kai. You found it. It looks quiet, doesn't it? The kind of quiet that follows a storm you walked away from."
Her words were the final, painful line of the poem of his life—a stark, unwavering condemnation. He stared at the glowing screen, the words searing themselves onto his retinas. There was no defense left, no arrogance to deploy, no escape to scroll to.
He reached for the phone, his hand steadying only because the terror of the past was now greater than the terror of the present. He needed to hear the rest of the song, the rest of the truth. He needed the finality that only the Ship that had witnessed his folly could deliver.
With an effort that felt like hauling an anchor from the deep ocean floor, he typed two words, his first genuine communication in years. His voice, finally finding its true sound, was one of profound, unchangeable sorrow.
"Tell me."
The Ocean had stopped running. It was time to face the tide.