Hannah fell asleep almost the moment her head touched the pillow.
The day had been long, full of travel, meetings, and unpacking the logistics of an office that didn’t even exist yet. Her body was tired enough that the quiet hotel room felt like a relief.
But sleep came with the same dream it had brought before.
The wind.
It always started with the wind.
Hannah stood on a stretch of beach where the sand was pale and coarse beneath her bare feet. Tall grass bent and whispered behind her, moving in long restless waves. The air smelled of salt and something older.
She knew this place.
She had dreamed it before.
When she was younger, the dream had come and gone in pieces. Her parents had once asked why she kept drawing the same house over and over when she was little.
She had forgotten about it for years.
Until tonight.
The old house stood behind her.
The wood siding was gray and worn, faded by years of salt and wind. The boards creaked softly as the wind pushed against them. A narrow porch wrapped around the side, its railing smooth from countless storms.
The house sat right at the edge of the beach, as if the ocean had slowly crept closer over time.
Hannah turned toward the water.
The long blue dress she wore moved around her legs as the wind caught it. The fabric fluttered, tugging at the ribbon tied loosely in her hair. One end slipped free and whipped against her shoulder.
She didn’t try to fix it.
Her attention was somewhere else.
Someone was there.
The feeling came before she saw him.
A quiet certainty, deep and familiar, like the moment you recognize a voice in a crowded room.
Hannah turned.
A man stood a short distance away on the sand.
He looked like he had just come down from the house behind her. The wind pressed against his clothes, lifting the edge of his coat as the waves crashed softly behind them.
For a moment she couldn’t see his face clearly.
Only his shape.
But she knew him.
Not the way you know someone you’ve met once or twice.
The way you know someone whose presence belongs in the world around you.
The wind moved between them, carrying the sound of the house creaking behind him.
He took a step toward her.
The sand shifted under his feet.
Hannah felt the strange pull she always felt in this dream.
Something that had already happened before. Something important.
“Wait,” she tried to say.
The wind caught the word and scattered it across the beach.
The man came closer.
Now she could see him clearly.
His face came into focus with sudden, startling clarity.
The same dark hair.
The same thoughtful expression.
The same eyes that had been watching her across a burger table only hours before.
Jason.
The recognition hit her like a jolt.
Not vague.
Not uncertain.
Absolutely, unmistakably him.
Her breath caught.
“You—”
Hannah woke with a sharp inhale.
The hotel room was dark.
Her heart was pounding as if she had been running.
For a few seconds she lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to steady her breathing.
The dream clung to her with unusual sharpness, every detail still vivid.
And his face.
Jason’s face.
She pushed herself up onto her elbows, confused and unsettled.
“How…” she whispered to the empty room.
She had dreamed about that beach before.
About the house.
About standing there in the wind.
But until tonight, the man had never had a face.
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