Where the Tide Remembers

Mara had come to the little cove to forget the city, not to meet anyone, but on her third evening the tide carried her lost sandal straight to the feet of a stranger who was sketching the sunset in a salt-curled notebook. His name was Theo, and he returned it with a grin and a drawing of her chasing the waves, laughing, a moment she hadn't known anyone had seen. They began walking the shoreline together each dusk, trading stories as the sky melted from gold to rose, leaving two sets of footprints the sea patiently erased every night. On her last evening, she found the final page of his notebook tucked into her sandal: the two of them, hand in hand at the water's edge, and beneath it, in careful pencil, the words same time next summer? She folded it into her pocket, turned back toward the glowing horizon where he stood waiting, and for the first time in years, she didn't want to forget a single thing.