Page 50 of Bite Marks & Broken Hearts

She heaved her great heavy sigh—the one that meant she was deeply disappointed in me. “You could have just told us you didn’t want to do it, you know. It didn’t need to become… this massive deal. Not worth you leaving home over! Moving to another country, for Christ’s sake!”

It was no mystery what she was referring to—taking overSeabreeze Sailing.The company my dead grandfather founded when he was just sixteen, with only a single penny in his pocket. If the tale was to be believed.

After he’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer earlier this year, he’d spent months trying to hand everything over to me. It made sense to him—I’d worked there under him since we moved to Braymore.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t talk to me.” Raw hurt trembled in her words, another twist of the knife in my gut. “We all thought you loved Seabreeze. That you loved the boats. The water.”

“I did. Ido. It wasn’t that, Mum.” A small sigh slipped out. “It wasn’tjustthat. I’m sorry. I can’t explain it, but I just… needed to leave.”To escape.She wasn’t entirely wrong. The weight of expectation had been like a rope around my neck, drawing tighter with each sympathetic look at my grandfather’s funeral. “Is Katie helping you with the company at least? I thought Mack might step up to run it?”

A pause. “We’ve decided to sell it.”

“What?”

“Flynn, you know it’s impractical for me to take it over.” The metallic click of her wheelchair brake being set made me picture her exactly:probably by the kitchen window, looking out at the dark garden I usually tended for her. “And Katie’s got her own life. Her own career.”

Did you not stop to think that I might have wanted that too?

“But you can’t sell it,” I whispered, remembering Grandad teaching me my first bowline knot. Katie had been rubbish at knots, preferring her flowers to the sea, but she’d still kept me company during quiet mornings.

The sea was in my blood—I loved the gentle rock of waves, the salt spray, those quiet moments before dawn. But taking over Seabreeze felt like watching my life stretch out on unchanging tracks, leading nowhere new. I’d be trapped by duty and expectation, watching others live while I stayed frozen in place. I needed more than that. Needed to know what lay beyond our coast.

Needed a chance to find someone who’d understand all the parts of me I’d kept hidden in Braymore’s shadows.

“It’s already decided, Flynn. Connor is helping us with the sale.”

At the mention of my sister’s husband, my stomach lurched. The room spun, and I gripped the edge of the bed.

What happened with Tom—the mess I’d made of our friendship that night—the taste of whiskey on his lips, the way his hands had pushed me away… That would have healed. Time smooths most wounds.

ButConnor.

The memory hit with the force of a breaking wave, pressing against the edges of my mind like a dark tide threatening to drown me. Me, huddled alone on the beach, shoulders shaking, the kind of crying that leaves you hollow. Connor’s shadow had stretched across the sand towards me, and I think I’d known somehow, even before he’d reached me, that whatever came next would destroy what little I had left.

And it did. He lit the fuse that would blow my whole life apart, sending me running for the last bus to Dublin.

My throat closed up. The room felt too small, too warm.

“Flynn?” Mum’s voice crackled through the phone. “Are you still there?”

Bile rose in my throat. I swallowed hard. “I… I have to go.”

“Will you come back for the festival at least?”

“Maybe,” I said. If I wasn’t dead already by then, I supposed I could attempt to make it.

We said our goodbyes, with me promising to call weekly from now on, then I stared at my phone.

Connor.Just the name made my skin crawl, made me want to scrub myself raw until the memory of his touch disappeared.

Him, finding me that night on the empty beach, salt-streaked tears mixing with the sea spray as I sobbed into my knees. The rough scratch of his wool jumper as he wrapped his arm around me, Katie’s husband playing the role of concerned brother-in-law. His calloused thumb catching my tears, a gesture that should have been comforting but felt wrong, so wrong. I’d frozen, stone still, like a rabbit caught in a snare, unable to even breathe. And that’s when he’d kissed me. The taste of beer on his breath. The scratch of his stubble. The nauseating realisation that this was my sister’s husband, that he’d destroyed what little stability I had left in one selfish moment.

The urge to scream built within me.

Sleep.Sleep would help. Or at least, lying in the dark would give me space to process everything without anyone watching me fall apart. I yanked off my clothes, letting them fall where they landed, and pulled on my soft chequered pyjamas.

My phone lit up on the bedside table.

Sebastián

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