Chapter Text
The tide rolled in lazy and rhythmic, like the ocean was breathing. From the shore, the waves seemed harmless; just endless curls of blue brushing the sand. But farther out, where the Pogues were carving through the morning swell, the water had teeth.
Sarah sat on her board, drifting. The salt stung in her hairline and on her lips, but it didn’t bother her. The sun was just starting to climb higher, casting the water in gold and silver light. Everything was glowing.
She closed her eyes, floating.
And without warning, she was somewhere else, lost in a memory that made her tummy flutter.
The beach had felt endless back then.
Sarah was six, John B seven — both sun-kissed and barefoot, sticky with melted popsicles and covered in salt. Their fingers were shriveled from digging moats and packing wet sand, their knees scraped and gritty.
Their castle stood lopsided near the tide line, complete with seaweed banners, a plastic cup turret, and a moat that was already filling with water.
“Dragon’s coming!” Sarah shrieked, twirling a broken palm frond like a sword.
John B leapt onto a low driftwood log they’d declared the battlement. “I’ll defend the wall! Save the Princess!”
“I am the Princess!” she shouted, giggling.
She tried to run to the other side of the sand fort, but her foot caught on a buried shell. She tumbled to her knees hard, the laughter stopping short. “Ow…”
John B jumped down instantly. “Sarah?”
She sat back, holding her scraped knee with both hands. “It’s fine,” she muttered. But her lip was trembling.
John B knelt beside her in the sand. He didn’t panic — just picked up a corner of his own damp shirt and gently wiped the dirt from her skin. “You're okay,” he said, quiet but certain, like he already knew how to take care of her.
She sniffled.
He leaned closer. “Don’t worry. I’ll rebuild the wall while you rest. Princesses don’t dig.”
“You just said I was a Princess so I wouldn’t cry,” she accused.
“Still counts.”
She smiled through the sting. “Okay. But I want extra shells in my tower. Shiny ones.”
“Deal.”
From a distance, Lizzie watched, hand resting on her hip, sandals dangling, smiling like she already knew that moment — where her daughter and the boy she trusted — would live in the corners of memory long after the castle washed away.
“Time for a break, you two!” she called, walking toward them.
“But the kingdom’s under siege!” John B shouted dramatically.
Sarah grabbed a seashell and held it to her ear. “I hear the mermaids surrendering!”
Lizzie crouched beside them, laughing softly, brushing wet hair out of Sarah’s eyes. “You two are sandy disasters.”
“We’re warriors,” Sarah said proudly.
Lizzie kissed the top of her head and offered a juice box. “Even warriors need hydration, little princess.”
John B took his and sat down cross-legged next to Sarah, their knees bumping. He looked out at the ocean, serious all of a sudden. “Can we come back tomorrow?”
“If you’re lucky,” Lizzie smiled. “And if you let me take one decent photo of you today.”
Sarah groaned. “Mamma—”
“No photos,” John B added quickly, scrunching his nose.
Lizzie rolled her eyes. “Artists. The pair of you.”
Sarah blinked back to the present as JJ shouted from the beach, applauding her.
“Nice ride, Sarah Cameron!” he called, throwing up a fist as she came gliding in on the last wave.
She coasted smoothly to shore, stepping off her board into ankle-deep water. Pope was already sitting on the sand, toweling off. John B came in behind her, pulling his board beside hers.
They both stood there a moment, saltwater running down their legs, boards under one arm, wind tugging gently at their shirts.
John B looked over at her. “You’ve got that far-off look again.”
She blinked, then smiled faintly, tilting her head to look at him.
“Sand forts,” she said. “We used to be incredibly good at building those with my mom when we were kids.”
He watched her, quietly. “I remember.”
“We had this whole system,” she went on, eyes unfocused. “Digging moats, finding seaweed for flags. She’d sit with us all afternoon, like she had nothing else in the world to do. Just... us, the ocean, and whatever kingdom we built that day.”
The wind shifted. A gull cried out in the distance.
John B’s voice was low. “She was good at making things feel real.”
Sarah nodded, throat tightening. “Yeah. She really was.”
As they walked back up the beach, Sarah paused, eyes drawn to a cluster of little kids near the dunes, barefoot and tangled-haired, squealing with joy. Two were dragging a piece of driftwood, the third trying to stack shells in a pile too small to survive the next wave.
One blonde girl turned and shouted something about dragons.
Sarah stopped, heart tugging. She bent down without thinking and picked up a shell near her feet, rubbing the ridges with her thumb.
John B looked back. “What is it?”
She smiled softly. “Just... déjà vu.”
“You always did have a thing for shiny things”
JJ had already dropped onto a towel, sun-soaked and half-asleep. Pope tossed Sarah a bottle of water without looking. Kiara arrived a few minutes later, throwing a shirt over her bikini.
None of them questioned why Sarah wasn’t dressed for the brunch she was supposed to be on her way to. Or why her phone was face-down on her towel next to her bag, still buzzing every few minutes.
Topper had already called four times.
He’d texted more.
Where the hell are you?
Are you ignoring me now?
You’re not even going to show up to brunch? Really?
If you’re with him, just say it.
The phone buzzed again, rattling slightly against the bottle of sunscreen. JJ glanced at it, then at her, raising a brow.
“You gonna answer that?” he asked, more observation than question.
Sarah didn’t move. “Nope.”
John B was watching her now too. His tone was quiet, familiar. “You know you’re gonna get in trouble for ignoring him.”
She exhaled, long and even. Her eyes drifted toward the ocean again.
“I don’t care,” she said finally. “I’m not his property.”
There was no dramatics in it. No fire. Just a calm certainty in her voice that made Pope look up and Kiara pause mid-sip. Her fingers traced the material around her wrist; it almost grounded her.
John B didn’t say anything at first. But he felt it, the shift in her. The part of her that was finally done pretending. Not running. Not yelling. Just done.
He didn’t say it out loud, but watching her sit there; quiet, strong and unbothered stirred something in him. Not pride. Not relief. Something deeper.
Like maybe this version of her, barefoot in the sand, clinking water bottles with JJ — was finally coming back to herself.
And maybe he was part of that.
JJ leaned back on his towel again, lifting the soda can. “To not being owned, then.”
Sarah gave a small, honest smile and clinked her water bottle gently against his.
The kids were still laughing down by the dunes. Their laughter a gentle reminder in the background of something changing.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was still six, sunburned and barefoot, building castles with John B while her mother smiled at them.
And for the first time in a long time, the ghosts in the water didn’t scare her. They just reminded her who she used to be and that maybe she could be that person again.