The High Cost of Sun-Kissed Serenity

I’m standing here in a black bikini that costs more than my first apartment's monthly rent, pretending to be one with the ocean. The sand is pink—probably synthetic or some geological fluke designed specifically for Instagram feeds—and I am perfectly curated.
He thinks he’s 'healing' me by bringing me to this coast every summer, as if salt air could bleach out the memory of three failed promotions and a decade of corporate burnout. He calls it romance; I call it an expensive form of maintenance.
I watch him from under my lashes—the way his hand lingers on the small of my back with that desperate hopefulness. It’s adorable, really. The kind of warmth that feels like a heated blanket in winter: comforting, yet slightly suffocating if you stay too long.
But as he whispers something about 'forever' into my ear, I feel it—that sharp, sudden spike of desire not for his words, but for the friction of skin against skin under this oppressive sun. My heart doesn’t flutter; it thumps with a cold precision.
I smile back at him, letting my gaze linger on his lips just long enough to make him believe he has won me over entirely. The truth is more transactional: I love being loved by someone who thinks they are saving me while I am simply enjoying the view from their pedestal.

Editor: Cinderella’s Coach