She didn’t bother to unpack. Instead, she slipped on a worn sweatshirt, followed a narrow sandy path behind the cottage, and crossed a line of dunes topped with wispy grass. The moment she saw the open shoreline, tension lifted from her shoulders.
Noemi sat alone on the deserted beach, her back pressed to a cold granite rock sticking out. The tide breathed steadily, washing foamy fingers over the sand in endless repetition, echoing the churn of her thoughts. A relationship had imploded, a job had vanished, and silence had swallowed everything familiar.