To The Ones Still Here

The tide rolled in with a steady, rhythmic hush, the salt air thick and heavy in the early evening light. Darryl stood at the edge of the surf, her feet sinking into the damp sand with each passing wave. The cold bit at her toes, but she didn’t move. Not yet.

Behind her, the coastal town of Haven’s Reach was winding down for the night. The lights from the harbor twinkled faintly, and the scent of frying fish from the pier clung to the breeze. It was the kind of place people came to escape things — jobs, responsibilities, memories.

Darryl had come here to forget.

But the ocean, relentless in its motion, refused to let her.

She clenched the letter in her hand, its edges softened by the humidity. The words blurred under her gaze, but she didn’t need to read them again. She had memorized them the first time.

"I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to leave things this way. But some things can’t be undone, Darryl. Some ghosts never stop haunting.”

Barbara's handwriting was neat, even underlined in places where she had been emphatic. But what had struck Darryl most was the ink smudging at the end, as though her sister’s hand had shaken, or she had hesitated.

The letter had arrived three days ago. A year too late.

Darryl inhaled sharply and crumpled it in her fist. She wasn’t here for Barbara's ghosts. She wasn’t here to grieve someone who had already been lost to her long before the police had found her sister’s car abandoned on the cliffs.

She had come to put it all behind her.

And yet.

A sudden gust of wind tore the paper from her fingers, sending it fluttering toward the water. Darryl gasped and reached for it, but the tide claimed it first, dragging it into the depths. She stared as the ink bled out, the words disappearing into the endless blue.

Something about it made her stomach twist.

She turned away, walking briskly up the beach, past the weathered wooden steps that led back to town. She wasn’t ready to go back to her rented room yet, wasn’t ready for the emptiness of it.

Instead, she wandered toward the docks.

It was quieter now, most of the fishing boats moored for the night. The only movement came from the Lucky Fin, a small boat bobbing gently at the edge of the pier.

And him.

Randy.

He was tying down the last of the rigging, his hands moving deftly in the dimming light. He looked up as she approached, his gaze settling on her with something close to recognition.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” he said, his voice low but not unkind. “The tide’s stronger than it looks.”

Darryl huffed out a short breath. “Is that a warning or an invitation?”

A flicker of a smile crossed his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Depends. You looking to be saved or lost?”

Darryl hesitated. She didn’t know.

Randy studied her for a moment before nodding toward the boat. “Come on. I’ll take you out for a bit.”

She blinked at him. “I don’t—”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he interrupted. “Just sit. Breathe.”

Something about the offer — simple, wordless — felt like relief.

She climbed aboard.

The boat rocked beneath her, the water lapping against the hull in soothing, hypnotic waves. Randy untied the ropes and started the engine, guiding them out past the docks, past the last reach of the town’s lights, until there was nothing but water and sky and the soft hum of the motor beneath them.

Darryl closed her eyes. The cool air brushed against her skin, the scent of salt and wood and something faintly like Randy's aftershave lingering.

Neither of them spoke for a long time.

It was Randy who finally broke the silence.

“You know, I lost someone too.”

Darryl turned her head slightly, looking at him in the dim moonlight. His hands were steady on the wheel, his expression unreadable.

“Not the same way,” he continued. “But… still gone.”

Darryl swallowed hard. “It’s different when they leave before they’re gone, isn’t it?”

Randy's grip tightened on the wheel. “Yeah.”

She exhaled slowly. “Barbara — my sister — she was… struggling. For a long time. And I knew. But I thought if I just… waited, or loved her enough, or did something right for once, she’d come back.”

Randy was quiet, letting her words settle between them.

“I don’t know what’s worse,” she admitted, “losing her that night, or knowing I lost her long before that.”

The boat rocked gently with the tide, the night stretching wide and endless around them.

Then Randy did something she didn’t expect.

He reached over, hesitated for only a moment, and then wrapped his arms around her. It wasn’t tentative or unsure. It was steady. Solid. Warm.

Darryl stiffened at first. Then, slowly, she leaned into him.

He didn’t say it was going to be okay. He didn’t tell her it wasn’t her fault, or that time would heal, or any of the things she had heard a hundred times before.

He just held her.

And for the first time in a long time, Darryl let herself be held.

The waves rocked the boat beneath them, the tide carrying them forward into the unknown.

The night stretched around them, vast and open, the dark sea mirroring the sky. Randy didn’t let go, not until Darryl took a slow breath and eased back on her own. When she did, she didn’t retreat completely. Instead, she stayed close, resting against the side of the boat, her arms wrapped around herself as if still holding onto the warmth of his embrace.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice barely audible over the lapping waves.

Randy exhaled through his nose, a sound more acknowledgment than response. He turned his gaze back toward the horizon, where the moon cast a silvery trail across the water.

Darryl looked down at her hands. They felt empty without the letter, but lighter too. Maybe it was time to let go.

“What was their name?” she asked.

Randy's jaw tensed, but he didn’t look away from the horizon. For a long moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer.

“Ken,” he finally said.

A single word, heavy with things left unsaid.

Darryl didn’t press him. She knew that weight too well.

They sat in silence, the kind that didn’t demand anything. Just the boat, the water, the hush of the tide pulling them forward.

After a while, Randy shifted, glancing at her. “You want to go back?”

Darryl hesitated, then shook her head. “Not yet.”

Something flickered in his expression. Understanding.

Randy cut the engine, letting them drift. He reached into a small cooler tucked near the stern, pulled out two beers, and handed one to her. She took it, the glass damp and cool against her fingers.

“Not much of a toast,” he said, raising his bottle slightly. “But — to the ones we lost.”

Darryl swallowed against the lump in her throat. She lifted her bottle. “And to the ones still here.”

Their bottles clinked softly in the darkness.

She took a sip, the bitterness grounding her, the taste somehow more real out here than it ever was in crowded bars or empty rooms.

For the first time in a long time, she felt like she wasn’t just floating through her own life.

Darryl turned her face to the wind, breathing in the salt, the night, the quiet presence beside her.

Maybe she would always carry Barbara's ghost. Maybe some wounds never fully closed.

But for tonight, she wasn’t alone.

And for now, that was enough.