A D R I A N
Her office is empty, not just empty, but vacant in a way that punches straight through my ribs. The clinic still hums with that low generator buzz, the kind that makes everything feel underwater. Rain’s stopped, but the place smells like metal and salt, like a storm that hasn’t decided if it’s finished with us.

I called her name once, and it falls flat against the walls. I don’t know why I check the hallway next, maybe because I need movement, hers, anyone’s. But it’s just that stupid emergency lantern glowing at the far end, throwing smudges of gold across the floor like a heartbeat that’s barely holding on.

And then I see it, another lantern, outside, swaying on the path, thin flame, stubborn as hell. One gust could end it, but it doesn’t.

My stomach drops, that’s the lantern staff use during late-night evacuations, or when someone leaves in the middle of the night because they can’t stay anymore. For one awful second I swear I missed her, that she packed up, walked out into the rain, left the island the way I’ve pushed everyone else away. I step outside, I don’t breathe, I follow the lanternlight.

I’m halfway down the path before I even realize I didn’t grab a jacket. The wind cuts straight through my shirt, cold enough to sting, but I don’t care. The ground is still wet from the storm, mud tugging at my shoes, the air thick with that post-rain quiet that feels almost holy.

Her footprints are in the sand, bare ones, small, and quick. Like she walked fast enough to outrun a thought she didn’t want to keep.  Something clamps hard in my chest, uncomfortable and messy. Panic isn’t my thing, not with shareholders, not with hurricanes, but this isn’t panic. It’s worse. It’s a cold, crawling heaviness wedging itself beneath my ribs and refusing to move.

She almost left, I can feel it in the way her trail hesitates, doubles back, then continues again like she couldn’t decide if she belonged here, if she belonged with me. God! Did she write it out? A resignation email? A message? Did she delete it? Did she think about me at all or was she just, tired, done, ready to leave this whole damn island behind?

The lantern flickers in the distance, guiding the path up the hill.  Lovers’ Stair. Yeah, that makes sense, that’s exactly where she’d go.

I spot her halfway up the stairs, sitting on the third landing, knees pulled up, hair pulled loose from the storm. Her shoulders are slumped in a way that makes something inside me twist too tight, like a rope pulled wrong. She looks so small against the dark cliff, like the whole island pressed down on her tonight and she didn’t have anywhere else to go. For a second I don’t move, I just watch her breathe, slow and heavy, like she’s trying to convince her own lungs to keep going.

“Elara,” I say, and my voice cracks on the last syllable like I swallowed seawater. She looks up so fast my chest hurts. Her eyes are tired, but when they land on me, something in them flickers, like that lantern outside.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she mutters, rough around the edges. “You’ve got the board to deal with. And everything else.”

“I don’t care about any of that if you’re gone.”

She doesn’t jerk or gasp, just this tiny stiffening, like the words grazed something unprotected.

“I wasn’t actually leaving,” she says quietly. “I almost… but I stopped.”

I exhale, long and raw. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

I step up onto the first stair, slowly, like approaching a wild thing I’m afraid to spook. The wind slips between us, cool and damp, carrying the leftover breath of the storm. She wipes her cheek with the back of her hand, quick, like she doesn’t want me to see it, like she’s already handling too much alone.

“Elara,” I say again, quieter this time, the word settling somewhere between apology and confession. She pushes a strand of wet hair behind her ear. “I didn’t come here to be found.”

“Good thing I’m terrible at listening.” She huffs a laugh, tiny but real, it clicks something open in my chest. I reach out a hand, not touching her yet, just offering it. “Walk with me.”

She looks at my hand like it’s dangerous, and maybe it is, but then she exhales, shaky, and places her fingers in mine. Her skin is colder than it should be, I fold my hand around hers without thinking. We take the first step together and the mythology hits me: two people climb Lovers’ Stair hand-in-hand or fate pulls them apart. I’ve never believed in legends, but the second she laces her fingers tighter, I pray for the island’s listening.

The higher we climb, the quieter the world gets, below us, the path disappears into a smear of wet sand and palm shadows. Above us, the sky is that bruised purple that only happens right before dawn, and between all of it, her hand in mine, warm now, or maybe I’m imagining it because I need it too much. I don’t plan the words, they just rip themselves out.

“When I went to the clinic and you weren’t there… I thought you were gone.” My voice comes out rough, uneven. “I’ve handled storms, lawsuits, reporters, sabotage, hell, I’ve handled shareholders with knives for teeth. But the thought of you walking away? That’s the only thing I couldn’t control. The only thing that—” I break off, jaw locking. “It felt like something tearing.”

She slows, turning her face toward me, the wind lifts her hair, strands sticking to her cheek. I want to brush them away, but I keep talking before I lose my nerve.

“I know I’ve made it hard, I know I’m the reason you even needed a resignation draft.” The admission burns, but I force it out. “But I can’t..” My breath shakes. “I can’t lose you. Not now. Not ever.”

For a second she doesn’t say anything, she just looks at me with those gray-green eyes that always see more than I want them to. She squeezes my hand once, then slowly sits on the next step, pulling me down beside her.

Her voice is soft, but it hits like an impact. “I didn’t stay because of duty, or guilt, or patients. I stayed because leaving felt wrong in a way I couldn’t explain.” She swallows, eyes shining in the half-light. “And I was scared of that, well terrified, actually, because the last time I trusted someone with my heart, it nearly destroyed me.”

I feel her breath shake as she continues.

“And then you,” she whispers. “You walk into my life like a storm with shoulders and stubbornness, and you make everything harder and better at the same time. I hate it, I hate how much I…” She stops, wiping her cheek again. “I hate how much I feel.”

My throat tightens, stupid and helpless, she turns fully toward me now, knees brushing mine, fingers sliding between my fingers with a certainty she didn’t have earlier.

“I didn’t leave, Adrian, I couldn’t, and that scares me more than anything.”

We keep climbing because stopping feels like losing nerve, the wind pushes at our backs, almost herding us upward, and the sky has started its slow bloom from violet to this washed-out blue that makes everything look softer, except what I feel.

“Elara,” I say, breath unsteady, “I need you to hear this, really hear it.”

She looks over, and God, she’s brave, she’s exhausted and overwhelmed and still meeting me head-on.

“I’m not good at… this,” I gesture between us, stupidly. “Feelings, promises or anything that isn’t strategy or damage control.” I drag in a breath. “But I’m trying, and if you give me the chance, I’ll keep trying.”

Her lips part, a barely-there tremble.

“I vow..” The word catches in my throat, surprising me. “I vow to stop pushing you away when things get hard, to listen when you speak, even when it scares the hell out of me, I vow to choose you, not the board. not optics. You.”

Her grip tightens around my hand, almost painful.

“And if you ever forget any of that,” I add, voice low, “I’ll climb this stair every damn night until you believe me again.”

Her breath shudders. “Adrian…”

The final steps curve upward, narrow and uneven, carved into the cliff decades before either of us were born. Her fingers catch mine, steadying herself, and with each step something settles between us, not calm exactly, but a kind of recognition. Like we’ve been walking toward this moment long before we knew it existed.

When we reach the top, the world opens, the cliff is wide and flat, the ocean stretching out like a breath held too long. The storm haze is still lifting off the water, steam rising in soft ribbons. The air is warmer here, touched by something almost holy.

Elara stops a few feet ahead of me, eyes wide, chest rising and falling fast. The wind tugs at her clothes, her hair, but she stands still, like she’s anchoring herself, or maybe anchoring me.

“This is where people make promises,” she whispers, not looking at me. “Real ones.”

“Then look at me,” I say.

She does, slowly, and when our eyes meet, the island myth hits me full force. If two people reach the top hand-in-hand, the ocean binds them. If they let go before the last step… She moves first, curling our hands together again.

“I’m not letting go,” she says.

The horizon shifts, it’s subtle at first, a thin seam of gold cutting through the dark like someone opening the world with a blade. Then the light spreads, slow and unstoppable, washing the cliff, the rocks, the ocean, and finally her.

Elara turns toward it, toward the dawn breaking wide open, and the light hits her face in this unreal way, softening everything, her exhaustion, her fear, the night she almost walked away. She looks like something I don’t have a word for, something the storm couldn’t touch.

I step behind her, close enough that her shoulder brushes my chest when she breathes. She doesn’t move away. She leans back just enough that I feel it, her choosing me, without words, without permission, just instinct.

The wind dies, the ocean hushes, the first lanterns from the fishing boats drift into view below, tiny sparks carried toward shore with the rising tide.

“Elara,” I murmur, my mouth close enough to her ear that she shivers.

She turns her head slightly, lips a breath from mine, not a kiss, but the promise of one, and that’s when the sun finally breaks, flooding us in gold, a beginning disguised as a cliff.