The Day The Tide Said Your Name And Took It Back

Your hand slipped from mine at the shoreline just as the tide turned and the cold rushed in where your warmth had been and I knew then that you were already choosing a place I could not follow. The wind carried salt and kelp and the sky hung low and gray as if watching. You did not look back. The water reached our ankles and then your knees and my fingers closed on nothing but moving air. Grief arrived before fear and settled with a weight that felt ancient.

I stood there longer than the moment deserved listening to the surf breathe in and out. The beach was empty except for gulls crying farther down and the distant thud of waves against rock. My shoes filled with water and my feet went numb and still I did not move. When I finally turned away the ocean kept its rhythm indifferent and complete as if it had never borrowed you at all.

That night the cottage smelled of damp wood and old smoke. The windows rattled softly and the lamp cast a small yellow circle that did not reach the corners. I sat at the table and waited for the feeling to pass and it did not. The tide chart lay open beside my hand marked with notes in your careful writing. I traced the ink and felt a hollow open beneath my ribs. Sleep came in shallow waves and each dream ended with water closing over sound.

I saw you again at dawn standing at the edge of the dunes where the grass bent under the wind. The light was thin and pale and your coat moved as if stirred by a different current than the one touching me. When I called your name it reached you late as if traveling through water. You turned slowly and smiled with restraint and relief and something else I could not place. Your feet left no prints in the sand.

We walked parallel to the shore not touching. The air smelled sharp and clean and the ocean muttered constantly to itself. You spoke about the weather and the coming storm and I answered because ordinary words felt safer than the truth pressing at the edges. When a wave surged higher than the rest it passed through you without breaking and left me soaked. You watched the water with a thoughtful expression and I understood without explanation that the sea was no longer just a place for you.

Over the following days we learned the limits. You could walk where the land still remembered water river mouths tidal flats the slick stones near the pier. Inland you grew thinner and quieter as if stretched too far from a source. At night you stood on the porch listening to the surf and I sat beside you wrapped in a blanket feeling the cold that followed you like a second skin. We spoke softly as if loud voices might alert something patient and waiting.

You told me pieces of it one evening when the fog rolled in thick and close. How the storm last winter had pulled at you when you went out to check the boats. How you had slipped and been held under longer than made sense. How something in the tide had recognized you and kept a part of you when the rest was returned. You said it without drama with the calm of someone describing weather patterns. I listened and felt the truth settle heavy and undeniable.

The sea responded to you. Waves rose and fell in subtle answer to your presence. Once a school of fish broke the surface near the pier when you leaned over the railing and then vanished. The locals muttered about strange tides and I kept my eyes down. At night I dreamed of currents threading through my chest pulling gently and insistently.

The longing sharpened because it had shape and sound. I wanted to take your hand and feel skin and heat and reassurance. Instead when I reached out my fingers passed through a chill that numbed them to the bone. You apologized every time and I told you it was fine and learned how to lie with care. Our restraint became a ritual. We sat close enough to share breath but not touch. Silence grew dense and meaningful between us.

The cost appeared first in small forgettings. You stopped remembering the names of streets inland. Your voice softened near open water and grew faint away from it. One afternoon you did not return from the tide pools until nightfall and when you did your outline shimmered like heat over sand. You said the pull had been stronger and you had nearly followed it out. Fear moved through me cold and steady.

We argued once on the beach at low tide. The flats stretched wide and shining and the sky pressed down. I told you I was afraid of losing you piece by piece. You told me staying on land felt like drowning slowly. The words fell between us and the wind carried them away. Neither of us won. The sea continued its patient work.

As the storm season approached the nights grew louder. Waves struck the rocks with increasing force and the cottage shook. You spent more time near the water and less time speaking. When you did your sentences trailed off as if pulled elsewhere. I watched you and felt the truth gather like clouds on the horizon. Loving you was becoming a tide that dragged you farther from yourself.

The decision did not come suddenly. It arrived in the way you lingered knee deep in water after sunset. In the way your eyes followed the moon path on the waves. In the way my chest tightened with each incoming tide. I understood that keeping you tethered to me was costing you your cohesion and costing me my future. Love had turned into resistance against something vast and inevitable.

The final scene unfolded over a long night when the storm finally broke. Rain slashed sideways and the wind roared and the sea rose high and wild. We stood together at the shoreline soaked and shivering. Lightning split the sky and for a moment I saw you clearly more solid than you had been in weeks as if the ocean were lending you strength for what came next.

You told me that the tide was calling in earnest now. That if you answered fully you would become part of its movement and the pull would stop hurting. You would not be trapped between states anymore. You did not ask me to come. You did not ask me to stay. You waited with a patience that hurt.

I felt realization move through me slowly and completely. I thought about the first day when the tide took your hand and I did not follow. I thought about all the moments we had balanced on edges. I understood that love could mean stepping back and letting what you love become what it needed to be. My throat burned and my hands shook and still I held myself still.

I told you that loving you had taught me the sound of patience. That I would carry you in every wave I heard. My voice was nearly lost to the wind but you heard me. You smiled and for the first time since the beginning it reached your eyes fully. You stepped forward and the water closed around your legs and then your waist. I did not reach for you. I stood firm on wet sand and let the distance open.

The sea took you gently. Your form blurred and stretched and then dissolved into motion and light. The storm eased as if satisfied. Rain softened. The waves settled into a steady breathing. I stood there long after the last trace of you vanished feeling empty and strangely whole at the same time.

Morning came pale and calm. The beach looked ordinary. The tide chart lay open on the table where I had left it pages fluttering. I closed it and set it aside. When I walked along the shore later the water brushed my ankles and receded. For a moment I thought I heard my name carried on the retreating foam and then it was gone.

Now I live inland where the nights are quiet. Sometimes when I am near water my chest tightens and then releases. I listen and let it pass. Love did not stay in my hands. It moved into the tide and learned how to keep going without me. I learned how to stand and let it.