The sea was wild that night—churning like it had something to confess. The wind howled through the crevices of La Sirena, rattling shutters and whispering through the stone walls. Lina lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling as shadows flickered from the candle she'd forgotten to blow out.
She'd dreamt again—no, remembered. A fragment. Fingers wrapped around her wrist. His voice, acidic and low: "You don't get to leave until I say so." Then the flash of water. A scream. Her own, maybe.
The scream was still ringing when she found herself outside Milo's door.
She didn't knock. He opened it before she could. His eyes were already tired.
"You too?" he asked.
"What?"
"I heard something. I thought it was the wind. But you look like you've seen a ghost."
"I think I have."
He stepped aside. She walked in.
The room smelled like woodsmoke and soap. Books stacked in uneven piles, a single framed photo on the dresser—its subject turned away from the camera.
"I remembered something," she said, sitting on the edge of his unmade bed. "He didn't fall. He pulled me. We were fighting, and I pushed back. Then the boat tipped. Then..."
"Then nothing," Milo finished.
She nodded. "Until I woke up with salt in my mouth and blood under my nails."
Milo handed her a glass of water and then sat beside her. Not touching, just close. "You think you killed him?"
"I don't know."
"Do you want to know?"
She looked at him, eyes glassy. "Don't you?"
"I'm not afraid of the answer," he said. "But I'm not the one who has to live with it."
They sat in silence, except for the pounding sea outside.
"I used to think if I just remembered everything, it would bring peace," Lina said. "But it's not clarity I'm afraid of. It's a certainty."
Milo leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Memory isn't truth, Lina. It's just the story we've rehearsed the longest."
"And what about love? Is that a memory too?"
He glanced at her. "Sometimes. Other times, it's what's left when everything else is stripped away."
Their eyes locked.
"I'm tired," she whispered.
"Then sleep," he said.
"Here?"
He nodded.
She lay back on his bed, curling her knees to her chest. Milo didn't move. He just sat beside her, the way a sentry might guard a battlefield long after the war had ended.
As she drifted toward sleep, her voice broke the quiet one last time.
"If I did kill him," she said, "would you stay?"
He didn't answer.
But he didn't leave, either.