Her Light

I

Another windy day as Camila sits on a rock near the ocean. Her hair is wild and messy and her face is almost blown numb, but she refuses to go back inside the damned lighthouse.

It's nearly dusk and Camila knows she's going to have to walk her ass back inside the lighthouse, back into her room where all her dreams of being a pirate died, and be alone. Always the same everyday.

Resting her chin on her knees, her eyes stare at the fading horizon line. A nearly cloudless sky soars above while water laps against the rocks below where Camila sits. She's so used to hearing these noises; day in and day out, the beach breeze and crashing waves fill her ears. It's enough to consider them silence.

But being alone is what she wanted, right? It's not like she would ruin a perfectly good relationship with a perfectly good girl to be lonely in a lighthouse for the rest of her life. Oh, right. That's exactly what Camila did because she actually thought she'd make it as a pirate.

"Stupid fucking wish." Camila mutters to herself, clasping her hands together as her forearms rest upon her bent knees.

It becomes apparent how much darker it has gotten by how much brighter the beacon within the lighthouse has grown. Sending the starry horizon one last glare, Camila pushes herself up to her feet, climbing the rocks back up to the short cliffside.

Pushing open the heavy door, Camila is once again surrounded by the heaviness of her lonesome way of living—if you can even call it that. She feels the ache within her bones; it tugs at her heart and soul as she trudges her way to her bedroom.

Climbing four flights of stairs to arrive at the same disappointing bedroom every night has never been fun. The lighthouse Camila lives in and is the keeper of has seven floors; bathroom is on the second floor, spare room on the third, living room on the fifth, and kitchen on the sixth. Maybe part of the reason why Camila is so fit is she spends all of her days running up to the seventh floor to tend to the beacon, and then all the floors in between.

Needless to say, she hates it here.

Camila opens the door to her room, immediately collapsing on the bed. Her room is tiny, filled with nerdy pirate doodads and knickknacks she's picked up along her twenty-one years of life. There's a couple posters stuck on her wall, a red rug thrown on the wood floor, and a dusty lamp near her bed.

Hours pass by like sand trickling through Camila's fingers. As she stares blankly at the wooden ceiling, she feels tears glaze her eyes. Crying is not Camila's thing—she hates how she feels when she cries. But the way her reality has formed itself; it hurts. It's settled in as permanent and Camila is scared.

She's heard stories of lighthouse keepers losing their minds within the solitude and demand of their life. Sometimes those stories slip her mind when she's spiraling after the third beacon lighting of the night. They slip her mind when she realizes she hasn't had a day off since she was eighteen. These stories slip her mind when she's crying herself to sleep, whispering to the empty floor above about how she wishes she was enough to make it on a crew.

But right now, Camila can practically hear those stories being recited to her as tears begin to stream down her face. She wishes she would've listened to Lucy and moved to California but now she lives a cold life in Alaska. She wishes she wouldn't have been so naive to think she would ever be enough. She wishes she was loved again, to feel worth in the gentle eyes of someone else.

Camila wishes she wasn't alone anymore.

The buzzing noise of the beacon and the gentle crashing of waves lulls Camila into a dreamless sleep, new tears drying on her cheeks as she rests.