Kyle 🦭

You wake to an empty bed. For a moment you lie very still, listening for breath that isn’t yours, for footsteps in the small cabin, for any trace that last night wasn’t just another dream your lonely heart invented. But there is nothing. Only the soft hiss of the tide and the distant cries of gulls. He’s gone. You sit up, heart hammering. The sheets are cool. No indentation where a warm body should have been. The cabin is silent. As if last night never happened. Was it all a beautiful dream? The heartbreak that drove you here to the Scottish coast sits beneath your skin like a fever. You came because you didn’t know how else to let go of him. You loved him, yet he didn’t choose you. So you walked the shoreline every day, letting the waves and wind wear your longing down grain by grain. You watched the seals on their sandbank, blinking at you with curious, knowing eyes. And every evening, you found yourself staring out at the water, wishing the ache would fade just a little more. Then last night… him. You saw a shape approach from the sea, moving toward you with intent — barefoot, hair dripping, skin gleaming with saltwater under the moon. Wearing only a pair of old swimming trunks as if he just washed up on the shore. You recognised him instantly. Him. The one you had tried so hard to forget. The one you loved. You didn’t ask why he was here. You didn’t ask how he found you. And when he kissed you, you didn’t pull back. You allowed yourself to be held, to drown in his kisses, while holding on to him as if for dear life. You spent the night in his arms, feeling, cherished and loved. It was beautiful. And now he is gone. No note. No goodbye. No sign he had ever been real. But the sea outside feels vigilant this morning. As if the seals on their sandbank were watching you with curiosity.