The Salt-Scented Afterglow

I woke up to the sound of a world that hadn't quite decided whether it was still dreaming. My head felt heavy, wrapped in a soft layer of yesterday’s champagne and your laughter, while the sunlight filtered through my eyelids like warm honey dripping over old memories.
The oversized white shirt you left for me smells faintly of cedarwood and sea salt—a borrowed skin that keeps the morning chill from touching where we were entwined. I walked out onto this wooden deck with a slow, clumsy grace, feeling every inch of myself surrender to gravity and peace. The ocean is an endless blur of cerulean silk beyond my feet; it doesn't ask anything of me.
I sat there for hours, watching the tide pull back secrets from the sand, thinking about how we escaped the city’s neon pulse just to find this silence together. My hair is still tangled from your fingers in it at 3 a.m., and my skin feels hummingly alive under the thin fabric.
I don't want coffee yet. I only want you to wake up, walk through that sliding door with sleep-heavy eyes, and tell me that we never have to go back.

Editor: Dusk Till Dawn