The Girl Left Behind
The first day without Tavian felt like a storm inside Oriana's chest. The second day felt like drowning. By the third, her voice was gone from crying, her eyes were painfully swollen, and she could barely walk without feeling the echo of him leaving, the echo of her hands clutching his shirt as he pulled away.
He had promised once that he would never abandon her. But promises meant nothing in the face of his world, a world far bigger than hers.
The small hut felt emptier than ever before. Grandma Gina tried to comfort her, "Dear, you must eat," but she only shook her head. Grandma Gina prayed quietly in the corner, whispering that God does not forget the innocent.
But Oriana felt forgotten.
By God.
By destiny.
By the boy who had smiled at her like she was the sun and left her in the darkness.
For days she wandered back to the shore where Tavian used to meet her. The waves crashed softly around her, as if trying to soothe her sorrow. She sat on the sand for hours, hugging her knees, replaying every moment they had shared the laughter, the lessons, the way he treated her like someone worthy of love.
She whispered his name into the wind, hoping somehow he would hear her.
"Tavian, please come back."
But the only answer was the cry of gulls and the relentless push and pull of the tide.
People in San Martin noticed her silence. The same villagers who once teased her for being naive now watched her with quiet pity.
"Poor child."
"It's the rich boy, isn't it?"
"I knew he wouldn't stay."
Oriana tried to ignore their murmurs, but every word cut into her like a blade. Still, she returned to the beach every morning at sunrise hoping, praying, waiting.
But Tavian never came.
One afternoon, as Oriana sat by the rocks, she saw a fisherman approaching. An old man with a kind face placed a hand on her shoulder.
"You're waiting for him," he said softly.
She didn't answer.
The old man sighed. "Men like him, they leave, child. Their world is different. They don't look back."
Oriana's chest tightened painfully.
"He looked back" she whispered. "He cared."
The old man shook his head sadly.
"Maybe he cared. But caring is not the same as staying."
His words pierced her like a cold wind. The realization settled over her slowly, painfully, like a bruise spreading beneath skin:
He wasn't coming back.
She was waiting for someone who had already closed the door.
That night, Oriana finally broke. She collapsed on the sand outside her hut, sobbing uncontrollably the kind of cry that came from deep inside the soul, where wounds were raw and unhealed.
"I loved you" she whispered into the earth.
"Why did you leave me? Why?"
Her tears soaked the ground.
Her breath shook violently.
Her heart felt cracked beyond repair.
Grandma Gina ran to her, lifting her gently.
"Dear child, enough… enough, please," she begged, tears in her own eyes. "No man is worth this pain."
But Oriana clung to her like a child.
"I gave him everything I had and he still left."
Grandma Gina held her close. "You have me. You still have a life. One day, you'll understand this wasn't the end. It was the beginning of something greater."
Oriana could not believe her. Not yet.
The next morning, Oriana woke up feeling fragile, but something inside her had shifted a small spark, faint but present. She walked to the water again, but this time she didn't sit down. She stood, silent and still, watching the horizon where sky met sea.
For the first time, she whispered not with desperation, but with quiet resolve:
"If you won't come back then I will learn to stand without you."
The wind brushed her hair gently, as if approving her fragile courage.
Unknown to Oriana, someone was watching her from a distance. Not Tavian. Not a villager. Someone new, a stranger with sharp eyes, leaning on a wooden post near the shore, studying her with interest, curiosity, and something else. Someone who would soon change her life in ways she couldn't possibly imagine.