Strings of Destiny

3

The wind of Puget Sound carried the salt-kissed bite of winter, sharpening the air until every breath felt like a blade. Alara stood transfixed, her clipboard hanging forgotten at her side as her knuckles went white around the pen. Around them, the world refused to pause. Waves hammered jagged rocks, gulls wheeled in chaotic arcs overhead, and the distant murmur of Seattle's traffic melted into an indistinct buzz. Yet here, along this raw, windswept shoreline, time fractured into fragments. Eddie took a hesitant step forward, his boots sinking into the wet, shifting sand. Thirty years seemed to collapse into a single, electrified moment. He saw her again... really saw her. The girl who had once laughed under neon rain now bore the indelible marks of a life lived fiercely. Her hair, still dark though now interwoven with lighter threads, whipped wildly about her face like ink spilled by an unruly hand. Those storm-green eyes, once alight with unbridled hope, now shone with guarded wisdom, as if fortified by walls whose secret combinations he no longer knew.

"Alara..." he repeated softly, as if uttering her name might cause it to shatter into delicate fragments of memory.

His voice trembled, each syllable weighed with years of absence and unanswered longing. For a long, suspended moment, she didn't move, didn't blink. Then, her throat bobbed a subtle, almost imperceptible swallow that stirred echoes of nights past, when she'd tried desperately to hide the tears. Finally, her voice broke the silence. It came out steadier than he'd expected yet edged with a raw vulnerability that betrayed her carefully maintained composure.

"You found me," she said.

The words, though soft, carried an unspoken charge, a mixture of resignation and quiet accusation. Eddie's hands, which had been clenched at his sides, loosened as he struggled to steady himself.

"I'm sorry to intrude... uh...June told me where you'd be," he managed, his voice catching slightly on the admission.

Each word seemed to reverberate off the crashing surf, as if the ocean itself remembered their past. A flicker of something, irritation, or perhaps a bittersweet amusement, crossed Alara's features.

"Of course she did," she replied, her tone cool yet laced with an undercurrent of old emotions.

For a long moment, the only sound was that of the relentless tide. Then, as if compelled by an internal rhythm, Alara bent to retrieve her clipboard. Her movements were deliberate, each gesture measured as though performing a ritual to anchor herself. She uncapped her pen and scribbled a few hasty notes, the scratching sound merging with the ambient rush of the sea. Eddie recognized that familiar gesture, the same intense focus she'd once devoted to her studies and to explaining the wonders of the natural world to him. Back then, her voice had been a revelation, stirring in him a desire to protect everything she loved.

"You're still... saving things," he said, nodding toward the array of water samples and instruments scattered beside her.

She didn't immediately meet his gaze, her attention fixed on the clipboard. "Someone has to," she murmured, her words clipped and cool yet carrying an undeniable edge.

Eddie shifted his weight, shoving his hands deeper into the pockets of his worn jacket as if to ground himself against the onslaught of memories.

"Alara, I..." he began, but she cut him off with a sudden, brittle command.

"Why are you here, Eddie?"

The question sliced through the air, sharp as shattered glass. In that instant, his heart hammered wildly, each beat echoing the tremor of his own uncertainty. He took another careful step forward, closing the distance until the charged silence between them became almost tangible.