The waves crash outside again. Closer now. As if the ocean is reminding me that time keeps moving, even in paradise. I lookout the window and see her curled in the library, reading aloud to Omen, who pretends not to care.
I think, this is it.
It’s love.
It’s life.
It’s the echo of every impossible thing I dared to imagine when I was bleeding in the dark and whispering her name like a prayer no god ever answered.
It’s her.
And somewhere inside her, maybe now, a heartbeat I haven’t heard yet, but already recognize.
This—this is not the end.
It’s not even the beginning.
It’s the stillness after the storm.
The light after the breaking.
The kind of forever that doesn’t arrive with thunder, but with the sound of her laughter in the kitchen, the smell of coffee she forgets to drink, the feel of her breath against my chest as she falls asleep mid-sentence.
It’s peace.
And it’s mine.
It’s ours.
And I will never stop marveling that I lived long enough to see it.
