E L A R A

The clinic is too quiet, the kind of quiet that hurts. The paper beneath me is torn, wrinkled, smeared with salt and sweat and something else I can’t bear to look at. The faint imprint of my own hands stains the edge of the exam table. My palms, my breath and my surrender.

I sit up slow, the ache between my thighs pulsing in time with my heartbeat. There’s a clean sheet waiting on the counter, I grab it, wipe the metal down until the sound of friction drowns the thoughts in my head.

If I scrub hard enough, maybe I can erase what we did, or maybe I just don’t want anyone else to see it. The scent of him still lingers, salt, skin, the faint spice of his cologne. It clings to the air like humidity, like guilt.

He’s gone, I don’t know when he left. The only proof he was ever here is the folded paper sheet on the floor and the ghost of his touch still burning into my ribs. I tell myself to stand, to move and to breathe. I find my shirt on the chair and pull it on, fingers shaking too hard to button it right the first time.

When I finally look up, the fluorescent light hits the steel and glass and I see myself reflected back. Hair tangled, mouth swollen, eyes too raw. I look like someone I don’t recognize. Someone who wanted him and worse, someone who doesn’t regret it.

I strip the rest of the sheets and throw them in the bin, then head for the locker room. The tiles are cold under my bare feet and the air is too bright. There’s a mirror above the sink, cracked in the corner, the kind of imperfection that draws your eye.

When I catch my reflection, I almost flinch. My pupils are wide, cheeks flushed, neck bruised where he kissed me, I look alive. That’s the part that scares me most, because for years, Nathan called that look weakness. He used to tilt his head at me after long shifts, hands still stained with antiseptic, and say, “You care too much, Elara. You let it in. You’ll burn out if you keep bleeding for everyone.”

He said it like a warning, but it was always a judgment, and I believed him. I believed that compassion was a flaw, that softness was something I had to surgically remove to be strong. That love made you stupid, vulnerable and breakable.

Now here I am, raw and shaking, heart half in my throat, and all I can think about is how alive I felt when Adrian said only you. I clutch the sink until my fingers ache, In the mirror, Nathan’s ghost hovers: same sharp smirk, same cold eyes that hate emotion, but this time, I don’t flinch.

“Get out,” I whisper to the reflection, my voice cracks but it’s real. “You don’t get to stay here anymore.” My voice shakes, but the weight lifts anyway. He doesn’t dissolve or fade, he just loses his power. The mirror gives me back myself: flushed, messy, real, and I don’t hate her anymore.

By noon I’ve thrown myself into work, because it’s easier than I thought. Easier than feeling the echo of his body against mine every time I shift my weight. The clinic is a blur of noise and motion, sunburned tourists, a kid with a sprained wrist, a guest with a jellyfish sting. I move through it like a ghost: efficient and detached.

Except I’m not detached, my hands know it, they shake when I wrap gauze and my chest tightens every time I smell the salt off someone’s skin. Asha keeps glancing at me between patients. “You okay, Doc?” she asks once, like she already knows the answer.

“Fine,” I lied,  I sound like a bad recording of myself.

The routine steadies me: pulse, breath, pressure, numbers that bleed. It’s the one language I still trust. When a man thanks me on his way out, his fingers brush mine. Just skin, just contact, but my body jolts like it’s him, Adrian with steady hands, rough mouth, breath hot against my ear. I pull away too fast, the patient doesn’t notice, but Asha does.

I mutter something about needing a chart update and escape into the hallway. The antiseptic smell hits me like clarity: sharp, sterile, safe, but even here, in the place I built to control chaos, I can’t stop feeling it. He’s under my skin. not just the heat, not just the sex. The way he looked at me after, like he finally stopped performing, like maybe I did too.

I lean against the wall, eyes closed, heartbeat pounding. I should hate him for breaking me open again. But God, I don’t, I think I’m terrified because I don’t.

By late afternoon, the clinic slows, Asha hums softly while sorting vials, the kind of aimless tune people use when they’re trying not to ask questions. I’ve already rewritten the supply order twice just to keep my hands busy. The walls feel smaller today, the air too still. My body’s healed enough that the soreness is background noise now, but my chest hasn’t caught up.

“Doc,” Asha says after a while, glancing over the counter. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been, quiet.”

I open my mouth to lie again, but it catches halfway.
“Just tired,” I say instead, but even that sounds brittle.

She nods, still watching me. “You look… lighter, Not in a bad way. Just..different.”

Different. I don’t know what to do with that, when she goes back to her charts, I check my phone just to have somewhere to look. There’s a text from Mara—my sister.

Mara: You alive? You ghosted me again.

Mara: Dad says hi. Mom says send her ocean pics before she flies over there herself.

A smile tugs at me, faint but real. I text back,

Still breathing. The ocean’s good. Just… a lot today.

She replies fast.

Mara: “A lot” meaning Adrian or doctor stuff?

My stomach flips. She always nails it.

Both, I type.

Mara: Don’t vanish, okay? You sound more like you lately. Keep that.

I stare at the message until the words blur, more like myself. She doesn’t know how that sentence breaks me open. Because maybe this ache, this heat, this impossible thing inside my ribs is me. Not the running, not the numbness. This. Feeling something again. The phone vibrates once more, just a heart emoji this time, and I laugh, quiet, shaky, real. Maybe I’m not coming undone, maybe I’m finally coming back.

The sky melts from orange to violet. Lantern Tide crews are already out, hanging paper globes along the railings, testing each bulb. One sparks to life, then another, until the whole stretch of boardwalk glows like a single pulse running down the shore.

I pause at the railing, the sea throws the lights back at me, hundreds of tiny suns trembling across the surface. My reflection wavers between them, I look… different. Softer, maybe or just real. My hair’s still damp from the shower, my eyes rimmed red in that way that betrays crying. I rest my arms on the rail, wood warm beneath my skin, and before I can stop myself, I breathe it out.

“I wanted him.” The wind takes the words, but the truth stays. Not because he’s beautiful or  the way his body feels inside mine. I wanted him. The man who kissed the back of my neck after losing control. The one who asked if I was hurt. The one who let me see the fear behind his anger. Wanting him shouldn’t feel like healing, but it does.

Nathan’s voice doesn’t rise to argue this time. There’s only the hush of water, the hum of generators, the faint music drifting from the resort. I think about the way Adrian said Only you make me feel like this. It used to terrify me, to be the reason for someone’s unraveling, but maybe we’re both unraveling into something truer.

A family of guests pass by, their kid holding a half-lit lantern. The little girl grins up at me. “You gonna make a wish?”

I almost laughed. “Maybe.”

She nods like it’s a promise. Her parents pull her along, and I’m left staring at the light in her hands until it disappears into the crowd. My wish isn’t clean or poetic, it’s messy and human. I just want to stop punishing myself for wanting, and I want to stop calling it weakness.

When the final lantern fades, the sky has turned to ink. The moon drags a thin ribbon of silver over the water and I can still smell the clinic on my skin: alcohol, salt, him, but it doesn’t feel tainted anymore, just real. The ocean reflects the last few floating lights, and for a second I catch my own face among them. I look tired, alive, maybe even brave.

“I’m not weak because I feel,” I say to the water. My voice wavers once, then steadies. Louder this time: “I’m not weak.”

Somewhere behind me, laughter bursts from the boardwalk. Music rises, glass clinks. Life keeps going, and for the first time in a long time, I want to keep up with it. Tomorrow will hurt again, iIt always does, but tonight, for one breath, I’m not haunted. The sea glows faintly with plankton light, and I whisper to it like a vow.

“I’m still here.”