The Stillness Between Waves
The sun hung low, casting golden threads across the surface of the water, each ripple a whisper of movement, each shimmer a memory half-formed. She stood at the edge of the pool, the world behind her blurred into green and shadow—trees swaying gently, their leaves murmuring secrets to the wind. Her hands, damp and deliberate, pressed together in a quiet rhythm, as if conjuring something unseen. Not applause, not prayer—something older. Something elemental.
Her skin glowed with the warmth of the day, and the checkered fabric clung to her like a second story, black and white like choices made and unmade. The cut-outs revealed more than skin—they hinted at vulnerability, at the spaces we carve out to let the light in. Her hair, long and wet, dripped with the weight of recent immersion, strands clinging to her shoulders like vines reluctant to let go.
She was not smiling. But she was not sad.
There is a kind of peace that comes after the storm—not the dramatic kind, not thunder and lightning—but the quiet unraveling of something once held tightly. She had known betrayal. Not the cinematic kind, but the slow erosion of trust, the kind that wears down the edges of love until it becomes something unrecognizable. And yet, here she was. Whole. Present. Unapologetically herself.
The pool behind her was not just water—it was a mirror, a threshold, a place where the past could dissolve and the future could begin. She had stepped into it earlier, letting it swallow the noise, the names, the expectations. Now, standing in the sun, she was drying—not just her skin, but her spirit. She was becoming.
The trees watched. They had seen her before, in seasons of bloom and decay. They had heard her laughter echo through summer evenings and felt her silence settle like frost. They did not judge. They simply stood, rooted and patient, offering shade and witness.
She wore a green band on her wrist—a splash of color against the monochrome of her suit. It was not decorative. It was a reminder. Of time, perhaps. Or of something she had promised herself. To stay grounded. To stay true. To never again shrink for someone else’s comfort.
The air smelled of chlorine and pine, a strange but comforting blend. Somewhere nearby, a bird called out, sharp and clear, as if to punctuate the moment. She didn’t flinch. She belonged here. In this frame. In this breath.
She was not waiting for anyone.
She had learned that solitude was not a punishment but a sanctuary. That silence could be sacred. That boundaries were not walls but gardens—places where beauty could grow, protected from the trampling feet of those who did not understand its worth.
Her garden was real. Dug by hand. Roses, lavender, clematis—each bloom a testament to her patience, her care, her refusal to rush what needed time. She had buried grief in that soil, watered it with tears, and watched it transform into color. Into scent. Into life.
And now, she stood here, not in defiance, but in quiet triumph.
The sun moved. The shadows shifted. A breeze lifted her hair, and for a moment, she closed her eyes. Not to escape, but to feel more deeply. To let the warmth seep into her bones, to let the world touch her without taking from her.
She was not a spectacle. She was a story.
Not everyone would understand her. Some would see only the surface—the bikini, the pose, the setting. They would miss the depth, the ache, the resilience. But that was no longer her concern. She had stopped explaining herself to those who refused to listen. She had stopped offering softness to hands that only knew how to bruise.
She had chosen herself.
And in that choice, she had found a kind of magic. Not the glittering kind, but the quiet kind—the kind that grows in the cracks, that blooms in the dark, that waits patiently for the right season.
She opened her eyes.
The water behind her was still. The trees swayed. The sun kissed her skin.
She smiled—not for anyone else, but for herself.
She was here.
She was enough.
