She stared out at the gentle ebb and flow of the sea, watching the waves crash against the shore, feeling the icy cold water slap her bare feet. She could taste salt and damp, cold fog on her tongue. The air around her was eerily quiet in the mist. The seagulls weren't out and squawking; presumably they were hidden in their nests, away from the cold, like any sensible being should be. She had been feeling much less than sensible lately.

Her feet were numb. She pulled them out of the freezing water and onto the chilly sand. Carefully, she lifted one foot, wobbled precariously for a few seconds as she balanced on the other, and slipped one of the shoes she'd been holding between her fingers on. She repeated the process with the other foot. The shoes were cheap ones, so she didn't mind getting sand and water in them. They were nice and warm, though, and soon she started to regain feeling in her toes.

She took a deep breath, feeling the sharp air tingling down through her throat and lungs, then come back up lukewarm and unwanted as she exhaled. Then she turned to her left and began strolling south along the coast.

She didn't think about anything in particular at first. Then she noticed with some curiosity that no matter how far she walked, no one else seemed to be on the beach. Most people chose to stay away from the ocean on cold days like this, she knew, but she had half-expected there to be at least one other person here today. Yet she was alone.

This led to another train of thought, one much more personal. She came to the beach every day that she could, when she wasn't working or otherwise busy. It didn't matter what the weather was like. The sun could be shining so hot on the sand that sunblock didn't prevent getting burned, or the beach could be filled to the brim with brightly colored umbrellas that provided feeble shade for tourists in bikinis and swim trunks, or it could be drenched in thick rain that blurred your hands held out in front of you so much that they looked like a Van Gogh painting, and she still came.

Why did she though? Why did she practically torture herself by braving the elements, even when she didn't want to, when she could safely be at home, in her room, or out with friends in some air conditioned shop?

Simple.

She was waiting.

Waiting for what was the real question. Sometimes she wasn't sure herself. The first few times she had come to the beach, she had thought that she was waiting for him, who had left over half a year ago. Then her first visit to the beach when it was cold had happened, and she remembered that he hated the cold. Then she began to wonder why she was waiting for him at the beach. She had never seen him near water before, let alone the ocean. He probably hated swimming, for all she knew. And then she had realized, for about the hundredth time, that she really didn't know much about him beyond what was on the surface.

He projected an attitude that was rude and crude with a rough, dangerous look in his sharp little eyes. When they had first met, she had felt certain that there was absolutely nothing beyond that. Nothing beyond the pleasure he seemed to get from hurting others physically or emotionally, or from benefiting himself at the expense of others.

The first cracks in her theory that he was nothing and never would be anything but a violent menace to society appeared during that oft-remembered day in which she accidentally discovered his secret love for taking care of animals. They had both been staying at a mutual acquaintance's house at the time, and she had been looking for something she couldn't quite remember at this point, when she had opened the door to a back room by mistake and found him sitting in the corner with a bird nestled in his lap. A sharp instrument of some kind laid at his side, a few drops of blood on the blade. She had assumed that he meant the creature harm, and rushed forward to stop him. They argued for a moment, until she noticed that he looked mildly embarrassed. He was never embarrassed, especially about being caught doing something nefarious, and that realization caused her to take a closer look at the bird, which sat calmly chirping on his thigh. Gauze was wrapped around one of its twig-thick legs, a tiny spot of blood in the middle of it. Her eyes flickered to the sharp instrument and she noticed that a thorn lay next to it. A few questions were asked, and their reluctant answers revealed that he had used the sharp object to pull the large thorn out of the bird's leg.

It hadn't made sense to her then. Why had he, the unruly, ill-tempered one of their group, bothered to help a pathetic creature no bigger than his palm? It hadn't made sense. But it had led her to observe him more closely and she discovered many more, very subtle clues that betrayed the gentle nature that lay deeply buried at his core.

These discoveries hadn't stopped him from being himself, however. He was still sordid and malevolent, still enjoyed harming other human beings, still didn't care to listen to other people's advice. That was why he had left six months ago, because he hadn't listened to her. At that point, they had become something like friends, although it was a strained and painful friendship. Sometimes she would tell him stories about her childhood and growing up and where she had lived, and once in a blue moon, he would tell her a tiny tidbit about himself as well.

And then he left. Just vanished into thin air. He had mentioned to her his desire to leave, to explore elsewhere, a few days before his departure. She had laughed it off, thinking, or rather hoping, he was joking. He hadn't said anything else to her for the rest of the day, and then he was simply gone.

She paused in her slow walk down the coast. A familiar pang on guilt clenched her stomach and pained her chest. How selfish, she thought, how selfish of me to think he wouldn't leave because I didn't want him to.

But why hadn't she wanted him to leave? That question had been bothering her more and more lately. He had done everything in his power to hurt her and her friends, though he had never laid a hand on her personally, and fisticuffs involving her friends had slowed to a trickle and then had stopped all together in the last year. She realized all at once that that was why she hadn't wanted him to leave. She had seen his gradual, slow-as-molasses progression from bully to civilized human being, and wanted to continue to witness it.

Was that really it, though? The entire reason? Like everything else, there had to be more than one reason for it.

She took a hesitant step forward and continued her walk. The ocean lay churning at her right and to her left were high cliffs that a few sparse houses perched upon. Up ahead, a rickety old wooden staircase started between two of the houses and wound haphazardly down the cliff-side until it hit the sand. She was so lost in her thoughts at this point that she didn't notice the figure carefully making its way down those steps.

The ocean was a lot like him, she was thinking now. One minute it was placid and serene and the next it was flooding houses, crushing surfboards and drowning people. She supposed that was why she waited for him at the beach, because it reminded her of him. But it wasn't just the ocean that reminded her of him. Everything, from a scrap of trash on the sidewalk to a murder of crows chattering away on an electrical wire reminded her of him. Why was that? Why couldn't she think about anything else?

She stopped abruptly, in front of the wooden stairs and laughed derisively at herself. Woman's Eternal Curse, her grandmother had told her while sucking on her ever-present pipe, to fall for a man that would only bring you trouble. Could it really be something as simple, as pathetic, as that? Could she have really... fallen in love with him? In any case, she could see that his leaving her for adventure was a sign for her to get over it. He wasn't coming back, she knew, it just wasn't in his nature.

The stairs creaked beside her. She heard her name called out in a familiar voice. Slowly, cautiously, she looked over and saw him standing there on the last step. His head cocked to the side, he looked at her with the piercing, clear eyes she had missed, a wry grin twisting his lips. She heard herself calling out his name too, and suddenly she was running toward him as fast as she could. She had never been completely correct about him before, so who was she to judge his nature?