Waves Break Harder

It started as a trade.
She'd teach me how to surf, and I'd let her tag along to my practices, to my games, to the places I usually kept closed off. Just friends, just two people swapping pieces of their lives.

But somewhere between her laughter when I fell off the board, and the way she cheered the loudest from the sidelines, something shifted. My love for Soraya didn't arrive with fireworks, it crept in quietly, disguised as friendship, until one day I couldn't tell where her world ended and mine began.

And now she's gone.

I never told her what she was to me. That she wasn't just a friend. That she was the best part of my story.

"Till the day I die, I'll remember you, Soraya. My love."Ian