Chapter One – Before the Rain
The world felt softer that evening as if it, too, was in love.
The air was cool, heavy with the scent of autumn rain, and the last light of day lingered across the highway like a fading promise. Elena Ward leaned her head against the window, watching the blur of trees give way to the pale stretch of sky. Beside her, Daniel Hale hummed to the music, tapping the steering wheel in rhythm to a song they'd both heard a hundred times before.
He had that kind of voice that made ordinary words sound like something worth remembering.
"You're quiet," he said after a while, glancing at her. "That's usually my job."
She smiled faintly. "Just tired. It's been a long week."
"It's been a long year," he said, and reached over to lace his fingers through hers. His hand was warm, solid a small reminder that some things in life could still be counted on.
They'd spent the evening at his parents' house, celebrating his father's birthday, laughing over old stories that always ended the same way Daniel pretending not to blush while his mother winked at Elena. It had been one of those nights that made the future feel simple, like a straight road leading toward something good.
She could still hear his mother's voice when they left: Take care of each other, you two. Always.
Always.
The rain began softly, tapping against the windshield like fingertips.
Daniel reached forward and turned up the defroster, squinting through the haze. "Looks like we're driving into the storm."
"Should we pull over?"
He shook his head. "Nah, we're almost home."
Elena turned her gaze to him the way his hair fell across his forehead, the way his eyes stayed focused even as the road blurred. There was something steady about him, something that made her believe she could weather anything as long as he was there.
"Danny?" she whispered.
"Yeah?"
"I'm really glad I said yes."
He smiled that soft, crooked smile she loved. "Me too."
She reached over to brush her thumb along the edge of his jaw, memorizing the warmth of his skin, the small dimple that appeared when he grinned.
Then, in an instant, everything changed.
Headlights burst through the curtain of rain a truck swerving, tires screaming. Daniel's reflexes kicked in a curse, a jerk of the wheel and the world spun. The sound was unbearable: glass shattering, metal folding, her scream tearing through the dark.
Then silence.
When Elena opened her eyes, the world was upside down. The car had rolled into a ditch, the roof crushed. The rain was louder now, drumming against twisted steel. Her head throbbed, her arm burned, and for a moment she couldn't remember how to breathe.
"Daniel…"
Her voice came out as a whisper, swallowed by the storm. She turned her head he was there, still buckled in, motionless. Blood ran down his temple, bright against his pale skin.
"Danny," she said again, panic cracking her voice. "Hey, wake up."
No response.
Her fingers shook as she unlatched her seatbelt, pain flaring through her chest as she reached for him. "Please," she whispered, pressing trembling hands to his face. "Please, open your eyes."
Nothing.
The sound of rain filled the space where his heartbeat should have been.
She pressed her fingers to his neck searching, begging but the world had already taken him.
A broken sob tore from her throat, raw and desperate. She pressed her forehead to his, her tears mixing with the rain that slipped through the shattered window.
"You can't leave me," she whispered. "Not you. Not now."
Her words trembled in the air, unheard.
By the time the red and blue lights flashed across the highway, she couldn't tell where her tears ended and the rain began.
---
The days that followed didn't feel real. Hospitals. Paperwork. Condolences that all sounded the same. Everyone spoke to her as if she were made of glass fragile, breakable, something that might shatter under the weight of a single wrong word.
At the funeral, she stood beside his mother, clutching a folded note she'd never get to give him. The autumn wind caught her hair, carrying the scent of rain again. Someone was reading a verse something about peace, about letting go but the words blurred.
All she could see was Daniel's face the moment before everything went dark that soft smile, the promise in his eyes.
After the service, she stayed long after everyone left. The cemetery was quiet except for the whisper of wind through the trees. She traced her fingers over his name carved in stone, unable to believe that the letters were all that was left of him.
"Do you know what the worst part is?" she whispered, her voice breaking. "It's not that you're gone. It's that you took us with you."
Her knees gave out, and she sank to the cold ground, tears slipping silently down her cheeks.
A bird cried somewhere in the distance a sharp, lonely sound and the clouds began to gather again.
---
Weeks passed in fragments.
She stopped answering calls. The walls of their apartment felt haunted every photograph, every shirt he left on a chair, every note on the fridge. She found his toothbrush still by the sink and couldn't throw it away.
Sometimes she sat on the kitchen floor with his jacket wrapped around her, breathing in the faint scent of cedar and soap. She painted, then tore the canvases apart. She tried sleeping, but dreams were cruel always starting with laughter and ending in the rain.
Her mother came once, urging her to stay somewhere new, to "find peace." But there was no peace to find.
Until one morning, standing at the window, she watched the city rain fall against the glass endless, gray, unrelenting and thought: Maybe the only way to survive is to leave everything behind.
---
She packed slowly. Just her clothes, her paints, and one framed photo of Daniel the one from the summer before, his arms around her, sunlight in his eyes. She couldn't bear to look at it, but she couldn't leave it behind either.
When she closed the door to their apartment for the last time, her hands shook. The hallway smelled of floor polish and dust, and for a brief second she imagined him waiting at the elevator, grinning, car keys in hand.
But there was only silence.
Down on the street, the city was waking horns, footsteps, snippets of conversation. It all sounded distant, like the world had moved on without her.
She turned the key in the ignition, and the old car came alive with a cough.
She didn't have a destination, just a direction north, toward the kind of quiet that didn't ask questions.
The miles slipped away beneath her tires. The radio stayed off.
As the city faded into trees and open fields, the sky began to clear. It was November now the air sharper, the light thinner. She rolled the window down, letting the wind tangle her hair.
For the first time since that night, she whispered his name without breaking.
"Daniel."
It came out like a prayer, or maybe a goodbye.
---
By dusk, the sun had dipped low, painting the clouds in muted gold. She drove until the highway narrowed into smaller roads, until the scent of saltwater reached through the open window.
When she finally saw the weathered sign Welcome to Harbor's Edge, Population 2,341 she felt something shift inside her. Not peace, not yet, but the faintest pull of something she didn't recognize.
Hope, maybe.
She slowed, watching the town appear below: rooftops glinting with the last light, the sea beyond them stretching endlessly into gray.
And for the first time since the rain, she thought that maybe — just maybe — she could learn to breathe again.