chapter 5

** Ghosts of Yesterday**

The silence in the room was thick, the air heavy with unspoken words. Claire could feel her pulse quicken, her anxiety mounting as she waited for Ethan to continue. The look on his face was a mix of anguish and determination, as if he were finally ready to confront something he had been avoiding for a long time.

“I never wanted to tell you this,” Ethan began, his voice strained, “because I didn’t want to hurt you more than I already had. But maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s the only way we can move on—from the past, and from what happened between us.”

Claire held her breath, her heart pounding in her chest. She wasn’t sure she was ready to hear whatever it was that Ethan was about to reveal, but she knew she had no choice. If they were going to have any chance at a future, they needed to face the truth—no matter how painful it might be.

“I didn’t come after you, Claire,” Ethan said slowly, each word weighted with regret, “because I thought it was what you wanted. I thought I was doing the right thing by letting you go.”

Claire blinked, taken aback by his words. “But… I never wanted you to let me go,” she whispered, confusion lacing her voice. “I left because I was scared, because I didn’t know how to handle what I was feeling. But I never wanted to lose you.”

Ethan let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “I didn’t know that, Claire. All I knew was that you were leaving, and you didn’t want me to come with you. You didn’t even say goodbye.”

The raw pain in his voice made Claire’s heart ache. She had been so focused on her own hurt, on the heartbreak of leaving him behind, that she had never stopped to consider what her sudden departure had done to him. How much it had hurt him to be left without an explanation, without closure.

“I thought I was protecting you,” Ethan continued, his gaze distant, as if he were reliving the memories in his mind. “I thought that if I didn’t follow you, if I didn’t try to change your mind, you’d be free to live the life you wanted. I didn’t want to hold you back.”

Claire’s eyes welled with tears. “You were never holding me back,” she said, her voice trembling. “I was running from my own fears, not from you. I thought… I thought if I could leave Seabreeze, leave everything behind, I’d be able to start over. But all I did was hurt both of us.”

Ethan finally looked at her, his eyes full of sorrow. “I was hurting too, Claire. More than you could ever know. But I thought it was what you needed. So I let you go. And when I heard that you had moved on, that you were engaged to someone else… I told myself that it had been the right decision.”

The mention of her engagement to Jason felt like a punch to the gut. Claire hadn’t thought about Jason much since she had returned to Seabreeze, but now, the reality of her situation came crashing down on her. She was engaged to be married, to a man who was kind and steady and everything she should want—but who wasn’t Ethan.

“I didn’t move on,” Claire said quietly, her voice thick with emotion. “Not really. I tried, but no matter how hard I tried, I could never forget you.”

Ethan’s expression softened, a flicker of hope in his eyes. “I couldn’t forget you either,” he admitted, his voice low. “I tried to, but every time I saw your face in my mind, every time I thought about you… it was like a piece of me was missing.”

They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of their shared pain hanging between them like a heavy fog. Claire could feel the tears slipping down her cheeks, but she made no move to wipe them away. She was too tired, too emotionally drained to fight them anymore.

“Ethan,” she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper, “there’s something else, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling me.”

He hesitated, his gaze dropping to the floor as if he couldn’t bear to meet her eyes. “There is,” he admitted after a long pause. “And it’s something I should have told you a long time ago.”

Claire’s heart began to race again, a sense of dread settling in her stomach. “What is it?” she asked, her voice trembling.

Ethan took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for what he was about to say. “The night you left,” he began, his voice tight with emotion, “something happened. Something I’ve never told anyone about.”

Claire’s breath caught in her throat, her mind racing with possibilities. She could see the pain in Ethan’s eyes, the way his hands clenched into fists as if he were trying to hold himself together.

“What happened?” she whispered, barely able to get the words out.

Ethan closed his eyes, his jaw clenched as he fought to keep his composure. “After you left,” he said slowly, “I went to the beach. I didn’t know what else to do—I was just… lost. I stayed there for hours, just staring out at the ocean, trying to make sense of what had happened. And then, just as I was about to leave… I saw someone.”

Claire’s heart skipped a beat, her anxiety spiking as she waited for him to continue. “Who did you see?” she asked, her voice trembling.

Ethan opened his eyes, and the look in them sent a shiver down her spine. “I saw your grandmother,” he said quietly. “She was standing on the beach, just like I was. She looked so lost, so heartbroken… I didn’t know what to do.”

Claire’s breath caught in her throat. “My grandmother?” she echoed, her mind struggling to process what he was saying. “What was she doing there?”

Ethan shook his head, his expression pained. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “She didn’t say much—just that she was looking for someone, someone she had lost. At first, I didn’t understand what she meant, but then… she mentioned Henry.”

Claire’s heart ached at the mention of the name. Henry—the man her grandmother had loved, the man she had lost. The man whose letters had been hidden away for so long.

“What did she say about Henry?” Claire asked, her voice trembling.

Ethan hesitated, his gaze dropping to the floor again. “She said she was waiting for him,” he said finally. “That she had been waiting for him for a long time, but that he had never come back. She looked so sad, Claire. I didn’t know what to do—I wanted to comfort her, to tell her that everything would be okay, but… I couldn’t. Because I knew, deep down, that she was right. That he wasn’t coming back.”

Claire’s heart broke for her grandmother, for the young woman she had once been, waiting on that same beach for a man who would never return. “And then what happened?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Ethan let out a slow breath, his expression haunted. “She left,” he said quietly.