Like the Moon to the Tide

Lina always said that life moved slower by the lake.

Maybe it was the way the water barely stirred in the early morning or how the willow trees bowed over the edge like they were whispering secrets. Maybe it was because this was the place where people came to forget the rush and just exist.

But for Maya, life had always been fast, loud, and packed with to-do lists. Until she met Lina.

They met in late summer, when the skies were warm but the air had started to carry the edge of autumn. Maya had booked a last-minute stay in a lakeside cabin to escape—though she couldn’t have said exactly what she was running from. Work stress, a recent breakup, or maybe just herself.

The first time she saw Lina, she was sitting on the dock in a faded blue sundress, her bare feet dangling just above the water, eyes lost in a paperback novel. A thermos sat beside her. Maya walked past with her coffee, nodding politely. Lina smiled.

“You're new here.”

Maya turned. “Is it that obvious?”

Lina shrugged playfully. “You’re wearing heels on a gravel path.”

They both laughed.

That was it. Simple. No fireworks, no slow-motion glance. Just a laugh. But it stuck with Maya for the rest of the day. And the next.

Over the following week, they kept bumping into each other. At the little bakery in town. On the forest trail by the lake. Lina seemed to have an endless supply of smiles and an easy way of talking that made silence feel like a shared thing, not an awkward one.

They started sitting on the dock together in the mornings, drinking coffee. Then came evening walks, barefoot through the shallow water, talking about books, family, and the things that hurt but never really healed.

Maya told her about the promotion she didn’t want, the city apartment that felt like a storage unit, and the ex-girlfriend who made her feel like a placeholder. Lina listened. She didn’t try to fix anything. She just sat with it, and somehow, that was enough.

One night, as the stars bloomed across the dark sky, Lina said, “I used to think I was broken because I never saw myself in love stories.”

Maya turned to her, brows raised.

“I don’t mean queer love,” Lina clarified. “Though yes, that too. I just… I never saw people fall slowly, without chaos. I always thought it had to be dramatic, messy, wild. And I’m not wild. I’m just… quiet.”

Maya didn’t say anything for a long time. Then she reached for Lina’s hand.

“Maybe quiet love is the kind that lasts.”

Lina looked at their hands and smiled. “I hope so.”

It wasn’t sudden. There was no first kiss that shook the ground beneath them. It was one morning, sitting on the dock, when Maya reached for Lina’s face and kissed her softly, like a whisper.

Lina didn’t pull away. She kissed back like it wasn’t the first time but the right time.

They didn’t talk about what it meant that day. They didn’t have to.

Two months later, Maya didn’t go back to the city. She extended her stay, then sublet her apartment. Eventually, she bought a small cabin just down the path from Lina’s.

People in town talked. Some with curiosity, some with warmth, and a few with coldness that never quite thawed. But Lina and Maya didn’t let it in. They built something of their own—gardens, a shared bookshelf, late-night baking experiments, inside jokes whispered during thunderstorms.

Maya started to write again, something she hadn’t done since college. She wrote short stories—romantic ones, about soft mornings, and complicated people who chose each other every day.

Lina drew in a sketchpad she never showed anyone but Maya. Her fingers stained with charcoal, her eyes always watching the way light touched Maya’s cheekbones.

One evening, watching the fireflies blink across the water, Lina said, “Do you ever miss the fast life?”

Maya looked at her. At the way her hair curled behind her ears, the way her eyes caught the starlight.

“Sometimes,” she said honestly. “But not the way I miss you when you’re gone for a day.”

Lina leaned her head on Maya’s shoulder.

“I’m glad we found each other,” she whispered.

Maya kissed her temple. “I didn’t even know I was looking.”