The room smelled like old paper and sea salt. Lina sat at the desk, the typewriter Milo had found for her days ago now feeling less like a taunt and more like an invitation.
She stared at the blank page, fingers resting on the keys.
And then, she began to type.
Not her old voice. Not the bestselling novelist everyone once expected her to be. This was rawer. Slower. Each sentence is like pulling a thorn from her skin.
"He fell before I could decide what to do with my rage. And when he hit the rocks, the silence was so loud it split me in two."
The keys clicked, a rhythm she hadn't known she'd missed. Her breathing steadied. Her jaw was unclenched.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could still hear Luca's voice, could still see his face, pinched with guilt, distorted by years of curated grief.
He hadn't covered for her. He'd judged her, quietly. He kept her close like a secret he might one day need.
There was a knock at the door.
Lina paused, expecting Milo.
But it wasn't him.
When she opened the door, Giulia stood there, hair wet from rain, cheeks flushed.
"You're writing again," Giulia said, glancing at the typewriter like it was a relic from a war.
"I am," Lina said simply.
"I heard about Luca."
Lina stepped aside to let her in. "Of course you did."
Giulia didn't sit. She paced, her boots wetting the tile.
"I saw something that night," she said. "After the accident."
Lina's pulse quickened. "What do you mean?"
"I was coming up the path from the beach," Giulia said, her voice tight. "Theo was already gone. But you weren't alone."
"What?"
Giulia swallowed hard. "There was another man. I didn't see his face. Just his back. He was dragging you out of the boat. You were unconscious."
Lina's mind reeled. "You never said anything."
"I didn't know what it meant. And I was scared."
Lina gripped the edge of the desk. "That doesn't make sense. If Theo was already in the water... who—?"
Giulia's eyes softened. "I think it was Milo."
Lina felt her throat close.
No. It couldn't be.
But... hadn't she wondered? About how Milo had found her? Why did he know so much without ever asking?
She remembered the bruises on her arms, the salt burns. The way she'd woken in bed, dry and bandaged when she should've been pulled from the wreckage of her guilt.
Giulia took a step closer. "I think he saved you."
Lina said nothing. Her mind was a slow explosion.
After Giulia left, she didn't go looking for Milo.
She sat back down and kept writing.
Because now she wasn't just telling a story.
She was digging through it, searching for the only truth that mattered:
What had happened that night—between the waves, the blood, and the silence?
And who, if anyone, had been trying to protect her all along?