(Prologue & Chapter 1)

Prologue****

****

It all started as a normal summer. But of course, that’s how everything starts—normal and boring.

I probably shouldn’t have opened my story with that line. It’s clichéd, overused. But sometimes the truth wears a familiar face.

This is usually the part where the narrator launches into a long monologue about their life and all the tragic and brilliant things that shaped them. Let’s not do that. I’ll keep it quick. I’m Theo. I write romance novels. And for once, this story isn’t about a fictional couple dancing toward a happy ending. It’s about me. And something that happened—something real.

This isn’t a best-selling love story. It’s the kind of story that whispers instead of shouts. The kind that changes you quietly.

So grab a drink, a blanket, maybe something sweet to eat. Settle in. You’ll be here a while.

I hope you’re ready to fall in love.

Chapter 1****

****

Wave Hollow****

****

The first thing I noticed about Wave Hollow was the air. It didn’t just smell like salt—it smelled like memory. Like wildflowers crushed beneath bare feet, ocean spray drying on sun-warmed skin, and something older still, lingering beneath the wind.

There’s something uncanny about small towns. People recognize a stranger instantly. I’d barely stepped off the bus with my duffel bag when a woman in a floppy straw hat gave me a smile so polite it was almost pitying. Like she could smell the city on me.

And she wasn’t wrong. I was lost—and I was very much a city boy.

The cottage I rented was about a ten-minute walk from the coast. Online, the listing called it “cozy with character.” That was generous. Nothing matched. The furniture creaked. The windows stuck. The shower only worked if you whispered sweet nothings to the water heater. But I didn’t come here for luxury. I came to fall apart quietly—and maybe remember how to write again.

Three years. Four novels. Burnout came like a wave I didn’t see coming. I stared at blank pages and blinking cursors for months until the words became strangers. So I left. Packed a suitcase, told my editor I’d be “on retreat” (which sounded better than “having an artistic identity crisis”), and booked a cottage in a town I’d only read about once in a travel blog titled The 15 Most Peaceful Places You’ve Never Heard Of.

Wave Hollow. Population: I swear I saw the same golden retriever three times. I think he might actually be the mayor.

I spent my first few hours just walking. No phone. No goal. Just letting my body move until my brain stopped buzzing. There was something about the rhythm of my footsteps and the way the town hugged the coast like a secret it didn’t want to share—it made me breathe differently.

Eventually, I found the cliffs. They were jagged and wild and stunning, the Pacific stretching out in every direction like a living canvas. And there it stood—the lighthouse. Tall and white, stoic against the sea, like something carved from time itself.

It looked abandoned from a distance, but up close, I noticed fresh paint. A wooden sign swayed gently in the breeze:

Wave Hollow Light Station – Volunteers Welcome

I laughed under my breath. “Yeah, no thanks.”

But then I looked out at the horizon again. The waves moved like breath, curling and exhaling against the rocks. The lighthouse seemed to be watching, waiting.

And something in me stirred. Not some spiritual awakening—I’m not that poetic outside of books—but a quiet nudge. A feeling I couldn’t explain.

Lighthouses are built to guide people home. And even though I wasn’t sure where home was anymore, I figured maybe—just maybe—I could stand in the light for a little while.

That night, after walking back to the cottage with sand in my shoes and something softer in my chest, I made dinner. Pasta. Basic but comforting. Then I pulled out my old college journal, the leather-bound one I hadn’t touched in years. It felt strange, holding a pen again instead of typing.

I wrote:

Day One.

Small town. Big ocean.

The lighthouse might be haunted. Or maybe it just haunts me.

Either way, I’m going back.

And I did.

The next morning, I woke up with a nervous energy I hadn’t felt in months. Not dread. Not even excitement. Just… possibility. The kind of electricity that buzzes before a first date or the morning of a book release.

I brushed my teeth, pulled on the least-wrinkled shirt I had, and headed back to the lighthouse.

What I didn’t expect—what no one warned me about—was him.

Rowan.

The first person I met inside.

And, spoiler alert: he did not smile when I walked in.

In fact, he looked at me like I was either a tourist or a ghost. And I still don’t know which would’ve been worse.

But more on him later.

Because if this story has a real beginning—not just a page, but a pulse—it’s the moment I stepped inside that lighthouse. The air smelled like dust and ocean and old stories. And standing in the center of it all was the boy with the storm in his eyes.

I just didn’t know then how much of my story he was about to become.