When The Tide Comes Back

we were saltwater kids once - a six-week story of surf, silence, and second chances

Tui Marlow was raised on waves, pressure, and the echo of her mother's broken dreams. Once the golden girl of Shorehaven's surf scene, she walked away from it all - the competitions, the expectations, the ocean - and swore she'd never go back.

A year later, she returns home for one summer. Just six weeks. That's all it's supposed to be.

But Shorehaven still hums with memories she can't shake, and the boy she never stopped missing is suddenly standing barefoot on the beach again - surfboard under one arm, regret in his eyes, and the same crooked grin that used to undo her without a word.

Baxter didn't mean to disappear. But when everything got too loud, he vanished - from the waves, from their friends, from her. Now he's back, quieter, rougher around the edges, and trying to figure out if you can rebuild a heart in the place it first broke.

What starts as cautious reconnection becomes something deeper as old wounds resurface, new feelings tangle with the past, and the two of them find themselves pulled together by the very ocean they tried to leave behind.

Surfboards. Slow kisses. Bad cover songs. Unspoken promises.
Some tides come back stronger.
And maybe, just maybe - so do we.