Falling Tide, Final Goodbye

The night before graduation, I finished tutoring early and dragged my suitcase to the station.

Lucia and I had promised our first trip would be to the ocean. That ticket cost three months of grueling essay drills with elementary students.

But the kiosk did not print my ticket. Instead, a text confirmed it had been refunded.

When I called Lucia, it went straight to voicemail.

Minutes later, I saw her at the far end of the waiting hall. She wore the white sundress I had bought her, crouching to adjust Pauls jeans. She held my camera, my graduation lanyard was around her neck, and my brand-new suitcase sat by her feet.

Before I could reach them, Pauls eyes welled with tears.

Noah, please dont be mad I really wanted to see the beach.

Lucia looked up, her face cold. How did you find us?

I pointed at the suitcase. Thats mine.

She tightened her grip with an irritated sigh. Pauls back is bad. He cant carry a heavy bag. Is it such a crime to borrow yours?

And my ticket?

She paused, then shoved a crumpled coach ticket into my hand. I booked you a seat home tonight.

Her voice dropped, each word hitting like a nail. This trip is a celebration. Dont tag along and ruin it.

Using my things, stealing my trip, and calling me the killjoy.

I stared at the crumpled piece of paper.

Back to my hometown.

Coach class.

Three months of saving every dime, and all it bought me was a one-way ticket backward, personally arranged by my girlfriend.

I ripped the ticket in half and dropped it into the nearest trash can.

Lucia's face shifted.

"Noah, are you out of your mind?"

I looked her dead in the eye.

"My camera, my suitcase, and my graduation lanyard are all in his hands. Why the hell should I be the one to leave?"

Paul immediately shrank behind Lucia's shoulder.

"Lucia, maybe... maybe I should just give his stuff back."

He said the words, but his knuckles were white as he gripped my suitcase handle. He wasn't letting go.

Lucia frowned at me.

"Paul gets motion sickness, and he can't carry a backpack. Do you really have to make a scene and humiliate him in public?"

As she spoke, I looked down and pressed the side button on my old phone.

The voice memo app lit up. The recording timer started ticking.

The overhead speaker blared, announcing the final boarding call for their train.

Paul gently tugged at her sleeve.

"Lucia, if we don't go now, we're gonna miss it."

She didn't look at me again.

With one hand holding Paul's arm and the other dragging my suitcase, she turned and walked through the boarding gates.

I stood frozen in the middle of the terminal as my phone screen slowly faded to black.

My chest felt just as hollow.

I went to the ticket counter and bought a standing-room-only ticket for the next train to Cape Haven.

Seven hours.

No seat.

I stood in the cramped, shaky vestibule between train cars the entire way. By the time we arrived, my legs were numb and trembling.

Halfway through the ride, Lucia sent me a text.

Paul is dizzy from the train. Don't come here and stress him out.

I didn't reply.

At two in the morning, I dragged myself into the lobby of the beachside resort.

The guy at the front desk pulled up the reservation, looking incredibly awkward.

"Mr. Davis, the reservation is under your name, and you're the one who paid for it."

"But the guest name was modified to Paul."

I gripped my ID so hard my fingers hurt.

"Who modified it?"

"A Miss Lucia."

The elevator dinged.

Lucia stepped out. Her hair was damp, and she was wearing a loose, oversized t-shirt.

When she saw me, her first question wasn't how I managed to survive a seven-hour train ride standing up.

She just frowned.

"You actually followed us?"

I stared at her.

"Where is my room?"

"Paul just fell asleep. Keep your voice down."

"I asked you, where is my room?"

Lucia rubbed her temples, looking thoroughly exhausted by my presence.

"There are no rooms left tonight. There's a storage closet downstairs on the ground floor. You'll just have to make do for now."

She tossed a rusted key at my chest.

"Don't go up there and make a scene. You know Paul gets anxious."

I looked down at the key hitting the floor. A dry, humorless laugh scraped out of my throat.

"Lucia, I booked that room. With my money."

"I know."

Her voice dropped to a harsh whisper.

"But Paul has a weak constitution, and the travel wiped him out. Just act like an adult, Noah. Stop throwing a tantrum."

I slid my hand into my pocket and pressed the button on my old phone again.

The recording app was still running.

This time, I didn't try to convince myself to just let it go.

I unlocked the storage closet. A wave of mildew and damp earth hit my face.

Mops, dirty buckets, and a half-collapsed mattress were piled inside.

My suitcase was shoved into the corner.

The lock had been completely pried off.

My clothes were thrown around in a messy pile.

I squatted down, sifting through the mess piece by piece.

My toiletry bag was there.

My charger was there.

But the blue button-down shirt my dad had bought me... was gone.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

It was a text from Lucia.

Paul was nice enough to unpack your suitcase for you. Don't be ungrateful.

The next morning, the class group chat pinged. Everyone was supposed to meet on the beach at nine for graduation photos.

I hadn't slept a wink. I carried my busted suitcase upstairs to the lobby.

The moment the elevator doors parted, I saw Paul standing right outside the ocean-view suite.

He was wearing the blue shirt.

Lucia was standing in front of him, buttoning the collar.

Her movements were so natural, so practiced. Like she had done it a thousand times.

That shirt was the last thing my dad ever bought me before he passed away.

He had been sitting in the hospital gift shop, IV tape still plastered across the back of his bruised hand.

He had smiled and said, "Noah, when you go to the beach for your graduation trip, wear this. Take a picture for me so I can see the ocean too."

I walked over. My voice was trembling, thick with venom.

"Take it off."

Paul's eyes instantly welled up with tears.

"Noah... I didn't know it was yours."

Lucia stepped right in front of him, shielding him like I was a monster.

"Are you seriously making him strip in the hallway?"

"There are cameras here, Noah. Have a little decency."

I kept my eyes locked on him.

"That shirt is the only thing my dad left me for graduation."

Lucia's face stiffened for a fraction of a second.

But then her brow furrowed in annoyance.

"Your dad is gone, Noah. Are you really going to bully a living person over a piece of fabric?"

Paul started sobbing, his shoulders shaking pitifully.

Lucia turned around, her voice softening into a gentle coo.

"Hey, don't cry. It's okay. He's just having one of his moods."

Down on the beach, when the group photo was taken, Paul stood dead center.

He was wearing my dad's shirt. He was holding my camera. He was leaning right against Lucia.

Someone in the crowd whistled.

"Lucia, Paul, you guys totally look like a couple!"

Lucia didn't deny it.

She just looked at me.

There was no guilt in her eyes.

Only a warning.

After the group shots, Paul grabbed the hem of the blue shirt and jogged toward the jagged rocks near the tide pools.

"Lucia, come take some solo shots of me!"

I lunged forward and grabbed the camera strap from his neck.

"Give it back."

Paul yanked backward.

"Noah, come on, I'm not done yet!"

"It's my camera."

As we pulled back and forth, he suddenly let out a sharp shriek.

He slipped. The bottom of the blue shirt caught on a jagged rock, tearing all the way from the knee to the calf.

Paul used the momentum to fall right into Lucia's arms, gasping for air like he was having a panic attack.

"I didn't mean to! Why does he always have to fight me for everything?"

Lucia shoved me hard in the chest.

I stumbled backward, my palms scraping against the barnacles on the rocks. Blood immediately welled up, stinging violently against the salt air.

But she didn't even look.

She was too busy checking Paul.

"Are you hurt? Did you scrape anything?"

I looked down at the blood dripping from my hands, and then at the massive tear running up my dad's shirt.

Lucia glared over her shoulder at me, her eyes like absolute ice.

"Are you happy now?"

I opened my mouth, but before I could make a sound, Paul fished a soaked, crumpled wad of paper from the shirt pocket.

"Ew, what's this? It's all soggy."

The blood drained from my face.

It was the graduation card my dad had written for me.

I had tucked it into the pocket right before I left, planning to read it once I finally stood in front of the ocean.

I lunged to grab it.

Paul yelped and let go.

The card dropped right into the churning tide. A wave crashed in, sucking half of it out to sea.

I fell to my knees in the wet sand, desperately clawing at the water.

I only managed to snatch a torn corner.

There was only one line of ink left visible.

Noah, keep moving forward.

Lucia stood behind me, crossing her arms. She sounded thoroughly annoyed.

"It's literally just a piece of paper. Get over it."

I gripped that torn, soggy corner of the card. My hands were shaking so hard they didn't even feel like mine anymore.

That was the moment it finally clicked.

It wasn't that she didn't know I was bleeding.

It was just that my pain would always take a backseat to his tears.

At noon, my phone buzzed. A text from Lucia.

Bring the spare camera battery to the restaurant.

I didn't go.

I sat on the curb outside the resort and turned on my camera.

The SD card had been swapped.

The only things left on the new card were blurry selfies of Paul.

My entire senior thesis film was gone.

The project was titled Taking Dad to the Ocean.

I had been shooting it for three years.

I filmed the misty bus stops in our small town at dawn.

I filmed the bruised purple sunsets on my way home from tutoring.

I filmed the glass of water going cold on my dad's hospital nightstand.

I filmed his trembling hands, secretly wiping away sweat the day he bought me that blue shirt.

I had planned to shoot the final sequence here, on the beach.

I was going to set his photograph in the sand, let the waves touch it, and tell him, I graduated, Dad. I really made it out.

Now, it was all gone.

I called Lucia.

Before the call connected, I woke up my old phone.

I checked to make sure the recording app was still ticking.

She took her time answering.

In the background, I could hear glasses clinking. People laughing.

"What is it now?"

"Where is my SD card?"

Dead silence on the line for two seconds.

"Paul has his grad school portfolio interview coming up, and he didn't have enough footage. I transferred your raw files to his laptop."

Rage spiked through my veins so hot it made my fingertips go numb.

"Who gave you the right to touch my things?"

Lucia's tone went ice-cold.

"Noah, can you stop being so incredibly selfish?"

"You're not even applying for grad school. That footage is just going to sit on your hard drive doing nothing."

"It's different for Paul. He needs this opportunity."

A bitter, venomous laugh tore out of my throat.

"So my thesis film is just supposed to be a stepping stone for him?"

"He's just borrowing it."

"Lucia, that film was for my dad."

She went quiet.

When she finally spoke again, her voice was dripping with disgust.

"Stop using your dead dad to guilt-trip everyone."

I hung up.

Ten minutes later, the class group chat exploded.

Paul had just uploaded a short film.

The title was I Finally Saw the Ocean.

The first frame was my shot of the small-town bus stop.

The second frame was the sterile hallway of my dad's hospital wing.

The third frame was the exact voiceover script I had written in my notes app.

I clawed my way out of a small town to reach the ocean, not so the world could see me, but so my dad would know... I didn't lose.

Except Paul had deleted "my dad."

He changed it to:

...but to prove that I deserve a better future.

The comments were a flood of praise.

"Paul, this is so raw. You have such an artistic eye!"

"If this doesn't win the Outstanding Graduate Film award, the system is rigged."

Then, the department head chimed in.

"Paul, this is phenomenal. I'm submitting this for the campus-wide showcase."

I stood up and sprinted to the seafood restaurant.

When I pushed open the door to the private dining room, Lucia was peeling shrimp for Paul.

She had never peeled a shrimp for me in her life.

Once, I sliced my thumb open on a crab shell, and she laughed and called me dramatic.

Now, a whole plate of perfectly peeled shrimp sat in front of Paul.

The waiter brought out a platter of roasted crab.

Lucia immediately held up a hand.

"Paul can't eat crab. He's allergic."

I stopped in my tracks.

A second later, she pushed the only bowl of warm, soothing porridge directly in front of him.

"Your stomach has been acting up. Eat this first."

It was almost hilarious.

It wasn't that she was forgetful or careless.

She knew exactly how to care for someone. She just chose to care for someone else.

I walked right up to the table and held out my hand.

"Give me my SD card."

Paul's eyes immediately reddened.

"Noah, I swear, I was just trying to work hard for once."

I stared down at him.

"Working hard at stealing other people's lives?"

Lucia slammed her chopsticks onto the table.

"Noah, watch your damn mouth."

"Then watch your damn actions. Both of you make me sick."

The entire private room went dead silent.

Lucia's face darkened into something ugly.

"Are you seriously going to ruin this lunch for everyone?"

"You ruined my film."

Paul shook his head, tears spilling over his cheeks.

"Noah, Lucia gave me the files! I swear, I thought you agreed to let me use them!"

Lucia looked up at me, jutting her chin out.

"I gave them to him. You have a problem, you take it up with me."

I smiled. A tight, dangerous smile.

"Perfect. Then why don't you tell the whole room right now? Are those files mine or not?"

She clamped her mouth shut.

Paul started crying louder.

"Noah, why are you forcing Lucia into a corner like this?"

Just then, a notification popped up on my phone. A direct message from the department head.

Noah, someone submitted an anonymous report accusing you of plagiarizing Paul's project.

Your nomination for the Outstanding Graduate award has been suspended pending review.

Right beneath it, another message popped up. The HR rep from the local TV station back home.

Mr. Davis, due to the ongoing dispute regarding your academic integrity, we are placing your internship offer on hold.

I stood in the middle of the restaurant, the blood turning to ice in my veins.

I found out later exactly how it happened.

The anonymous report was Paul. He had sent an email to the college board and the TV station.

He attached a heavily edited, ten-second clip of me yelling in the restaurant, framing me as the aggressor, and linked the video he had already claimed under his own name.

He didn't just want to steal my work.

He wanted to permanently brand me as a thief.

I didn't come from money like Lucia did.

I didn't have the luxury of crying to get my way like Paul did.

That internship was my only lifeline.

And now, they were casually snapping it in half.

Lucia noticed the look on my face. She frowned.

"What's wrong now?"

I tossed my phone onto the table in front of her.

She read the messages. For a split second, genuine panic flickered across her face.

But then Paul gently tugged at the hem of her shirt.

"Lucia... I'm scared."

And just like that, the panic vanished, replaced by an iron-clad defense of him.

She slid the phone back to me and lowered her voice.

"Noah, let's not blow this out of proportion."

"Just admit it was a misunderstanding. Tell them you got confused, and Paul won't press the plagiarism charges."

I stared at her like she was an alien.

"You want me to apologize?"

She couldn't meet my eyes.

"Just put the fire out first. We'll deal with the rest later."

It was pure, unadulterated insanity.

The footage was mine.

The thief was him.

The one who handed him the knife was her.

And the one who had to get on his knees and apologize... was me.

At eight o'clock that night, the department held an emergency Zoom meeting.

I was sitting on the half-collapsed mattress in the storage closet.

The single naked bulb above my head flickered, buzzing like a dying insect.

On the screen, Paul was sitting in the plush chair of the ocean-view suite I had paid for. His eyes were puffy and red.

Lucia was sitting right beside him.

Looking like his girlfriend.

Looking like his bodyguard.

The counselor spoke first.

"Noah, Paul. We need to clear the air regarding this thesis dispute right now."

Paul instantly started weeping on camera.

"Professor, I swear I didn't steal anything."

"Lucia gave me the footage. I swear I thought Noah said it was okay."

"He's been mad at me ever since we were at the train station. I had no idea he was going to take it this far."

I didn't say a word. I just dragged my raw camera files, cloud backups, and the creation dates of my script notes into the Zoom chat box.

"I shot the footage."

"I wrote the voiceover."

"Paul had absolutely zero involvement."

The class president, who was also on the call, squinted at his screen and muttered, "Yeah... the timestamps definitely line up with Noah's timeline."

Paul's face went chalk-white. He whipped his head to look at Lucia.

"Lucia, please, tell them!"

I looked at her on the screen too.

Even after everything, some pathetic, naive part of me thought she might finally tell a single ounce of the truth.

Lucia stared at her webcam for a few seconds. Then, she spoke.

"The raw footage is technically Noah's."

The tight knot in my chest loosened for a fraction of a second.

But her next sentence dragged me straight to the bottom of the ocean.

"But Paul spent a lot of time editing it, color grading it, and rethinking the narrative structure. You can't just call it theft. It was a collaboration."

I stared at the pixelated version of the girl I had loved for four years. I didn't even recognize her.

"Lucia, do you hear the words coming out of your mouth?"

She scowled.

"Noah, stop being so aggressive."

"Blowing this up isn't going to do you any favors."

I laughed out loud.

"Do me any favors?"

"My train ticket was refunded. My hotel room was hijacked. The shirt my dead father bought me was torn to shreds. My thesis film was stolen and submitted under his name."

"And now my job offer is suspended."

"Tell me, Lucia. What part of this exactly is doing me a favor?"

The Zoom room was dead silent.

Paul sniffled, holding up his phone to the camera. He had pulled up a screenshot of his texts.

I'll handle Noah.

He's a pushover. He won't actually do anything about it.

Just submit the film. Let me do the talking.

Everyone on the call could clearly see the contact name at the top: Lucia.

Lucia's face drained of color.

Paul sobbed even harder.

"Professor, I was just so scared!"

"Lucia promised me Noah wouldn't mind, that's the only reason I used it! I didn't want to fail my portfolio review!"

"If Noah really wants me to apologize, I'll do it."

He wiped his nose and looked straight into the webcam.

"But Noah, shouldn't you apologize to me too?"

"You screamed at me in the middle of a restaurant. You called me a thief in front of everyone."

Lucia rubbed the bridge of her nose, letting out a long, suffering sigh.

"Noah. Just apologize. Let's move on."

I stared into the screen.

"Apologize to who?"

"To Paul."

She said it so quietly.

But every syllable felt like a blade slicing across my throat.

"Just admit it was a miscommunication. I'll pull some strings with my dad's company and figure out a way to get your internship back later."

I started laughing again. It echoed off the damp walls of the closet.

"Later?"

"Lucia, when you left me stranded at the station, you said we'd talk about it later."

"When you locked me in a closet, you said you'd deal with it later."

"When my dad's shirt was destroyed, you said we'd handle it later."

"When my film was stolen, you still said later."

"Is your definition of 'later' just forcing me to get on my knees and take it, over and over again?"

Lucia's jaw tightened.

Paul whimpered, "Noah, stop bullying Lucia! She's trying to help!"

The counselor finally chimed in, sounding stressed.

"Noah, the optics on this aren't great for you right now."

"If you two can just settle this privately and issue a joint statement, that would be the cleanest way forward."

I looked down at the scratched screen of my old phone.

The red dot was still blinking.

From the train station, to the hallway, to the restaurant.

I wasn't recording because I was waiting for some dramatic rescue.

I was recording because from the exact second she shoved that coach ticket into my hand, I finally realized I could never rely on her conscience ever again.

Every time she told me to grow up, every time she told me to stop being a buzzkill, I just pressed the button.

To document the reality I was living in.

When my dad passed, I couldn't bear to throw this crappy phone away.

I never expected it would be the only thing left in the world willing to tell the truth for me.

On the screen, the professor sighed.

"Noah Davis. Do you have anything else to add to the record?"

I looked up. I looked at every single face staring back at me in the grid.

"Yeah. I do."