wandering specters

An excerpt if you’re interested:

And the ghosts were merging, following along her crest, but they didn't hold the same power, they never did, it was why he could walk away so easily from them. Easily in comparison to Rook. He knew he could not walk away from her, he'd let her drown him in her flighty ways, because every time she pulled back it was just building to the next wave of all consuming, barreling need. Because she had seen his softheartedness, when she would lay across him and listen to him recite lines in books, and bring her delicate fingers to the corners of his eyes, catch the droplets that formed there at the saccharine words he longed to experience, adding them to her growing force. And to think she was always there, somewhere out there, whilst he was here with these ghosts. That maybe in some other place and time, if he wasn't an idiot, an insecure failing of a man, he wouldn't have chased the others, formed a pattern that marked him like a stain.

Also I’m just liking this section-

He remembered when he was a boy, the first time experiencing the ocean, staring at its beauty and power and unfathomableness and believing something so crystalline and graceful could do no harm to him, so he rushed in to greet the waves, and they washed around his torso, splashed about his hair, released boastful laughter from his small frame. They played about, and with gaining trust he dipped further in, knowing the ocean would do no harm. It was too brilliant, too grand, too all consuming to do such a thing to someone who saw that in it. And then he was ripped underfoot, gasping water and salt and sand, tumbling in confusion and violence, clinging to the hope that maybe the ocean would realize its mistake, guide him up and out again, kiss his head with droplets and float him in apology. Instead he landed in the sand, scraped and gasping and crying. And it still brushed over him, continuing on, as it always would.