Mia let her eyes wander around the cottage—its white-washed walls, the little flowerpots on the windowsill, the old wooden table by the window where she and Ethan had shared countless breakfasts. The place was simple, but it held a kind of magic. It had seen them through both laughter and silence, through tentative beginnings and painful pauses.
"I thought I needed answers," she said, more to herself than to him, "but what I really needed was closure. I spent so much time haunted by what I'd lost—by who I used to be—that I couldn't see what I had right in front of me."
Ethan nodded, squeezing her hand. "We all do that, sometimes. But you found your way back."
"I did," she said. "And not just back here—to you. I found my way back to who I really am. Not the person I thought I had to be, or the version of me I held onto out of guilt or nostalgia. Just… me."
They moved to the sofa by the window, sinking into the cushions as the light outside began to shift into the golden hues of early evening. The sea called softly in the distance, its rhythm constant and calming.
"I visited my old apartment," Mia said, her head resting lightly on Ethan's shoulder. "It felt so small. Not just the space, but the memories. I remembered the pain, the uncertainty, the nights I spent wondering what I was doing with my life. But I also remembered the strength it took to leave."
"That strength is still in you," Ethan said. "Stronger than ever."
She tilted her head to look up at him. "I was scared that you wouldn't be here when I got back."
"I never left," he said simply.
They sat in silence for a long while after that, watching the sky shift into shades of pink and orange. There was no need to fill the space with words. Everything that mattered had already been said—or perhaps had been understood all along, even before the words found their way into the open.
Later, they walked down to the shore, hand in hand, their footsteps soft on the sand. The tide was low, revealing smooth stones and tiny shells that glistened in the fading light. Mia looked out at the horizon, where the sky met the water in a seamless line, and felt a calm she hadn't known in years.
"I used to think healing would come in some grand epiphany," she said. "But I think it's more like this—slow, quiet. A series of moments that build on each other."
"Like waves," Ethan said. "Always moving. Sometimes crashing. But always coming back."
She smiled at that, leaning into him. "You always know what to say."
He shrugged with a playful grin. "I've had time to practice."
As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in brilliant hues, Mia knew the real journey was only just beginning. But this time, she wasn't walking it alone. This time, she wasn't running from anything.
She was walking toward something—toward a life she was finally ready to live, fully and without fear.
And as Ethan wrapped his arm around her and they watched the first stars appear in the night sky, she whispered the words she hadn't been able to say before.
"I'm home."