---- JAMES ANDREW GRAY----
The ocean....
Strange...
It didn't feel cold...
It should have.
The early morning wind bit at his skin, but James didn't flinch. He stood there, toes curled in the sand, waves pulling at the cuffs of his jeans like a child tugging a mother's hand; needing, begging, desperate for attention. But he had no more to give. Not to the ocean. Not to the sky. Not even to himself.
He stared at the horizon, where the world blurred.
Water.
Sky.
Memory.
There was no clear beginning, no end. Just an endless loop that folded in and out of itself, like the dream he couldn't wake from. He breathed. In. Out. And with every inhale, he felt further from his own body, like he was living inside a story someone else had written. A life someone else had ruined.
His lips parted, and the words tumbled out, raw and half-broken:
"Have you ever felt like you lived through a lifetime but can't figure out what or how you lived it? Almost like a memory. Almost like déjà vu."
No one answered.
Only the waves replied, crashing over and over like the heartbeat of a ghost. He glanced down at his palms. They were shaking again. Not from cold.
From knowing. Knowing something was missing. Something important. Something unbearable.
When I wake up, everything is just a fading thought. A dried tear on my cheek. A feeling... that I must make it right this time.
But what? What did he have to fix?
He pressed his knuckles into his eyes and tried to summon her face. He didn't know her name. Not really. But the image was there, hovering just beyond reach. A girl with a sunbeam laugh and pain behind her eyes. A girl who had once looked at him like he was worth something.
Betty.
The name crashed into his chest like a wave crashing loud into the shore, almost like a whisper, almost a scream. Was that her? Was that real? Or just another trick of a half-dreamt life? He saw fragments. Hazy memories painted in bruised pastels, surging like currents, flashing, and flickering like a bad movie montage of a nightmare. A hand reaching for his. A shared coat in the rain. A scream. A slammed door. A kiss. A broken silverware. A sound of a golden ring aginst the marble floor. The beep of a hospital machine. Chaos. Silence.
And then, always, the ending.
Her walking away. Or dying. Or disappearing.
Each version different.
Each one his fault.
Sometimes, I wonder if this is my punishment, remembering a story only I seem to know. A story where I was the villain and the boy in love. The friend. The liar. The dreamer. The destroyer.
He swallowed hard.
It was cruel. This half-memory. This life lived out of sequence. There were days he woke up in a panic, sure he'd lost something. Someone. But the details evaporated like mist. Everytime he wakes up, he is chasing a memory, a dream, a distant life he can't quite figure out, close but always out of reach. There were other days, more often now, when he didn't feel human at all. Just a shell. A vessel for regret.
He couldn't tell what was dream and what was memory. If he had actually lived these moments or just imagined them into existence out of longing.
There was one dream that came more than the rest. A girl, dancing barefoot on a basketball court. Sparks Fly. Music playing faintly in the background. His heart pounding in his chest. She twirled and laughed, and he said something he could never quite remember when he woke up. Something that made her smile.
And then he blinked, and she was gone.
Every time.
He could never hold onto her.
That was the most agonizing part.
I think I lost her. I think I lost all of them.
The memories weren't just of that girl. There were others. Names whispered like prayers in his dreams: Matt. Drake. Inez. Olive. He knows these people, they are his friends, acquaintances from school. Each carrying a different kind of pain. Each a mirror reflecting some part of himself he didn't want to see.
He had loved them.
He had hurt them.
He had failed them.
Again and again and again.
But this time, something felt different. There was a pressure building in his chest. A pull.
Like a string.
Tugging at him from somewhere deep inside the universe.
He didn't understand it, but it felt real. Tangible. Like if he just followed it long enough, it would lead him back to her.
Back to all of them.
But maybe this time... maybe this time it will be different.
The wind picked up, carrying with it the faintest whisper. He turned, scanning the shoreline, but there was no one there.
Still, he felt watched.
Not in a threatening way.
In a way that said: You're not alone. Not yet.
He dropped to his knees in the sand, staring at the water as it pulled back, then surged forward. Again. Again. Predictable. Endless.
How many times had he stood here like this? A thousand? A hundred thousand?
Each loop felt new, but the ache was familiar.
He picked up a smooth stone and turned it over in his hand. There was a name etched into it. Faint. Nearly worn away.
James.
His.
He dropped it.
And suddenly, he remembered something. Not a full memory, but a feeling.
A hallway. A letter in his hand. Someone yelling his name. A choice he didn't make in time.
And the consequences that followed.
A hallway filled with silence.
A girl with eyes full of betrayal.
A second chance, wasted.
He stood up, breath catching in his throat.
There was more. It was coming back to him. Slowly. Painfully.
A car. A fight. Rain.
Blood.
A hospital room with too much white and not enough life.
And her.
Always her.
Looking at him with both love and devastation in her gaze.
And then nothing.
He sucked in a breath, nearly doubling over with the weight of it.
He didn't just lose her.
He destroyed her.
And the universe kept making him remember. Over and over. A punishment, maybe. A warning.
Or a test.
This time... he whispered to himself. This time I won't mess it up.
But could he really change anything?
Could he be someone different?
The wind shifted again. This time carrying a melody. Soft. Faint. Familiar.
A song he once sang with someone.
A song that meant home.
"Drop everything now, meet me in the pouring rain... kiss me on the sidewalk, take away the pain..."
And just like that, the ocean began to recede. Not literally. Emotionally. The fog in his mind began to thin.
He turned away from the sea, looking back at the shoreline.
There were footprints in the sand now. Not his.
Someone had been here.
Or would be.
He followed them, heart pounding.
And in the distance, past the dunes, he saw something flicker. A green ribbon. A flash of eyes. A silhouette.
She was waiting.
He knows her name.
He knows her soul.
He would always know her soul.
This was the beginning.
Or maybe the end.
Or maybe, just maybe, the place where fate paused long enough to let him try again.
"James, are you ready?"
She beamed a smile but, she is not Her.