The Breakwater

Here is Episode 5 of "A Little Lost, A Lot Found". This episode brings deeper emotion, temptation, and a critical turning point:

---

Episode 5: The Breakwater

Jeaner had always thought closure came with silence.

But after Kellan’s visit, she realized: closure was noisy. It rattled old bones. It shook the walls you rebuilt. It lingered—not in words, but in questions.

For three days, she didn’t see Rowan.

Not because he avoided her, but because she avoided him.

She needed time to breathe. To be sure of herself. Of him. Of everything.

Mrs. Tilly, ever perceptive, left a small note with Jeaner’s tea:

“Storms don’t ask permission to come. But they always pass.”

Jeaner clutched that note like a lifeline.

---

On the fourth evening, Rowan was waiting by the docks.

He was barefoot, sleeves rolled up, sanding the edges of a weathered plank. When he looked up and saw her, he didn’t smile—not yet.

She walked to him slowly.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?” he asked, voice even.

“For disappearing. For… not knowing how to hold things that matter.”

Rowan set down his tools. “You don’t have to explain.”

“I want to.”

She sat beside him on the dock, legs dangling over the edge, the wood warm beneath her.

“Kellan was the love I thought I’d grow old with,” she said. “But now I see—I was just someone he wanted until he didn’t.”

Rowan’s jaw clenched slightly, but he said nothing.

“And you,” she continued, “you showed up without asking for anything. Without trying to fix me. That scared me more than being hurt again.”

He looked at her then. “I’m not here to be the next chapter in your tragedy, Jeaner. I’m here if you want something real.”

“I don’t want perfect,” she said. “I want honest. And I want you.”

For the first time, his eyes softened fully.

“You have me,” he said.

And then he kissed her.

It wasn’t fireworks or a sweeping movie moment. It was stillness. Steady. Warm.

Like finding your way home in the dark.

---

The next few days were a quiet bloom of something new.

They shared breakfasts and boat rides, sketching sessions and stories. Rowan showed her the hidden cove where he went to think. Jeaner painted her first mural on the side of the local bakery—a woman holding a lantern against a dark sky, smiling into the unknown.

People began recognizing her. Smiling at her. Not as someone broken, but as someone who belonged.

But even in calm waters, undercurrents stirred.

---

One afternoon, Jeaner got a call.

It was Arielle.

She almost didn’t answer. But curiosity—no, closure—demanded she pick up.

“Jeaner,” Arielle’s voice was quieter than she remembered. “I know I’m the last person you want to hear from.”

Jeaner said nothing.

“I just… I need you to know something,” Arielle continued. “I didn’t come after Kellan. He came to me. Lied to me. Told me you left him first. I didn’t know he was still with you until it was too late.”

Jeaner swallowed hard. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because I lost him too,” Arielle said. “He left me a month after you did. Said he wanted to find himself. I thought I took something from you, but really… he took everything from both of us.”

Silence.

Then: “I’m sorry.”

Jeaner didn’t say I forgive you. But she said, “I hope you find peace.”

That was enough.

---

That night, she walked to the cove and found Rowan standing at the waterline.

She told him everything—about the call, the truth, the ache that finally stopped stinging.

And then she said, “I think I was supposed to break. So I could put myself back together better.”

He took her hand. “Then let’s not waste what we’ve found.”

...---...

......------......

...-----...