Finnick and Annie

Annie never liked the ocean, not really. It wasn’t fear—it was memory. Saltwater reminded her of too many things: promises made on sun-drenched docks, broken bottles tossed into tidepools, and the echo of a boy's laughter fading into the waves.

Finnick loved the sea. He called it “God’s mirror,” a place that reflected everything: the sky’s moods, the fisherman’s hopes, and his own wandering soul. He grew up on the coast of Maine, in a town where everyone’s job depended on something that could kill you. But he didn’t care. He said the ocean was like life—too wild to control, too vast to waste.

Annie met him during the summer she decided to forget everything. She had just dropped out of college in Vermont, unsure of who she was without straight A’s and someone else’s expectations. She found a listing for a bed-and-breakfast job and took it without thinking. The inn was three miles from the harbor, and Finnick was its handyman—though, truthfully, he was more like a wandering myth in worn-out jeans and a compass tattooed on his collarbone.

He had this way of speaking like he was reading poetry off the back of clouds. He told Annie stories about whales migrating like old souls, about sailors who tied knots not just in rope but in fate. She listened, half in love, half unsure if he was entirely real.

One morning, Finnick asked her if she’d ever seen the fog roll in like a secret. She said no.

They drove to a cliff that overlooked the Atlantic. The sky was bruised with early dawn, and the fog crept like ghosts from the sea. Annie hugged herself, shivering. Finnick watched the water.

“Most people think love’s like a lighthouse,” he said. “Strong, still, guiding you home.”

“And it’s not?” she asked.

“No,” he said quietly. “Love’s more like the fog. It comes in quietly, changes everything, and you barely notice it until it’s surrounding you. It doesn't always guide. Sometimes, it confuses. But it’s real.”

Annie didn’t say anything then. But her hands stopped shaking.

That summer passed like a dream someone forgot to write down. The inn closed in the fall. Finnick said he was going to New Orleans, “to chase warmer storms.” Annie almost went with him. Almost.

They kissed once. It was neither planned nor accidental. It was the kind of kiss that doesn’t ask for anything after. A moment sealed, not promised.

He left on a Tuesday. Annie never saw him again.

Six Years Later

Annie sat on a flight from Boston to San Francisco, reading an article in National Geographic about rising sea levels. Her eyes caught on a name in the byline: Finnick Darrow — photographer and climate storyteller.

The article was filled with images of half-sunken houses, fisherman's boats abandoned in rising tides, and people clinging to islands that no longer stayed still. His captions weren’t technical. They were gentle. Poetic. Like always.

One photo stopped her cold.

A small girl stood in a flooded backyard, water up to her knees, clutching a soggy teddy bear. Behind her, a hand reached from a boat. The caption read:

"The ocean takes. The ocean gives. We only learn when we stop pretending we can tame it.”

Annie closed the magazine and pressed her forehead to the cold airplane window. The sky outside was cloudy. Not quite fog, but close.

She remembered what Finnick said about love. And she realized, for the first time, he hadn’t just been talking about romance. He had been talking about life itself.

REMEMBER:

Love, loss, the environment, our choices—they all roll in like fog. They change everything before we even notice. The lesson isn’t in resisting them. It’s in learning how to see clearly within them, how to move forward through the haze. Not all things that disappear are gone forever. Some, like tides, return when the world needs reminding.