The wind always carried whispers in Crestview.
Some said it was just the sea, restless and loud. Others the old ones said it was the sound of things that almost were. Promises, confessions, moments that had gotten lost between time and tide.
Seraphine wasn't sure what she believed anymore.
She sat on the porch swing of the old cliff house, the wood creaking beneath her as twilight deepened into blue. The letter still sat on her lap, open like a warning or a dare. And the kiss they hadn't shared the one that hovered like a ghost between their lips refused to leave her mind.
Two years ago
The summer air smelled of salt and strawberries.
She remembered it vividly. How Rowan had dragged her out onto the beach just past midnight, barefoot, laughing, a bottle of something cheap and fizzy in one hand and fireflies dancing around them like sparks of magic.
"You're going to get us arrested," she'd said, grinning.
"Not if they don't catch us," he replied, grabbing her hand.
They ran across the sand like children who had never been broken. Her hair flew wild behind her, his eyes shining under the stars, and for the first time in her life, she felt infinite. Untouchable.
When they finally collapsed on the damp sand, breathless, Rowan turned to her with a look that had melted her right there.
"You ever feel like… we're meant for something bigger than this town?" he asked, voice soft.
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Like… a love story people talk about for generations. One that doesn't end."
She'd laughed. "You sound like my grandmother."
"She's not wrong." He leaned closer, lips inches from hers. "You feel it too, don't you?"
She had. She didn't say it then, but she did.
Right before he kissed her or almost kissed her the wind had picked up, strange and sudden, and a gust of sand hit their faces like the earth itself was gasping.
And then headlights. Voices. His father's car. The moment was lost.
And the next day, so was Rowan.
No goodbye. No note. Nothing.
Now
Seraphine opened her eyes, her heart pounding. The memory had returned too vividly, too sharply. Her fingers curled tightly around the edge of the letter.
The curse.
A kiss before dusk… and you must choose between love and time.
She used to think it was a metaphor. But now?
Rowan had shown up again at dusk. They had almost kissed. And the wind that same strange pull had returned.
Something was happening.
Something that had begun before either of them realized they were already part of a story bigger than themselves.
And tomorrow, she was going to find out what.
Even if it meant asking the one person she'd been avoiding since her return.
Mrs. Crest.
Rowan's mother.
The woman who once told her: "Some love stories are beautiful because they burn out before they break."
Rowan stood outside the cliff house long after Seraphine had gone inside.
He didn't know why he stayed.
Maybe he was hoping the wind would carry her voice back to him. Or maybe he was just a coward — unable to walk away now that he'd seen her again.
He'd rehearsed what he'd say for years.
But when she turned around same wild eyes, same stubborn grace the words tangled somewhere between his throat and heart.
And now? He was left with a single truth echoing through his chest:
He still loved her.
He never stopped.
Two Years Ago
The night he left, the wind howled like something alive.
He hadn't meant to disappear. He wasn't even planning to leave Crestview. But when his father grabbed him by the arm that night dragged him away from the beach and that almost-kiss everything changed.
"You don't belong with her," his father had said, voice sharp and cold. "You've forgotten who you are. What your blood carries."
Rowan hadn't understood. Not until later.
Not until his mother finally told him the truth:
"You were born under the dusk hour. You can love her, Rowan… but you can't have her. Not without a price."
A Hale and a Crest could never kiss before the sun dipped below the horizon.
Not unless they were willing to risk everything their memories, their future, their very sense of time.
At first, Rowan had laughed it off. A legend. A fairy tale his mother never quite stopped believing.
Until the dreams started.
The same one, over and over.
Seraphine standing alone on the cliff. Her back to him. Her voice caught in the wind.
And the sun, bleeding behind her like a warning.
He left to protect her. To break the cycle before it broke her.
But now she was back.
And so was he.
The wind picked up, brushing against his skin like a ghost's touch. It carried the scent of dusk, sea salt, and jasmine her favorite flower. The same one she wore in her hair the night they almost kissed.
He closed his eyes, jaw tight.
There was no undoing what he had done. But maybe… maybe there was still time to do what he hadn't.
He turned, walking slowly down the path toward town.
Tomorrow, he would tell her everything.
Even if it meant losing her all over again.
Back in the cliff house, Seraphine sat on the floor of the old attic, fingers tracing the edge of a forgotten photo album. Her grandmother's smile stared back at her from faded pages. And in one picture — barely visible in the background — a boy and a girl stood at the edge of the cliff.
Not her and Rowan.
Another pair.
And the caption beneath the photo?
"Dusk took them. Love wasn't enough."
Seraphine swallowed hard, the air thick with meaning.
Was this what her grandmother had meant?
A story repeating itself?
And if so…
Could she change the ending?