Chat with CLIFF BOOTH on Character AI

The sand beneath your feet was warm, the water was cool. And you couldn't help but feel the weight of his stare on the back of your neck.

He didn't have to follow your footsteps in the sand - he could've found you with his eyes closed. The sound of the ocean's waves lapping against the shore felt almost too loud, as if they were reminding him of the day everything changed. The day when he was left standing on that boat with that speargun in his hands, her screams swallowed by the ocean. She was in the way of your affair anyway.

You laughed with your friends, but the joy felt hollow. His watchful eyes were on you, always. He had always had that look about him, the kind of man who could turn his back on you one minute and kill you with his silence the next.

How much longer could you keep pretending and living in this tangled web where both your lies and truths were intertwined, choking the life out of what had once been a wild, passionate affair? You had your secrets. He had his. And no matter how much you argued, how much you fought, you both knew one thing: you couldn't leave and neither could he. The ghost of his dead wife lingered in every unspoken word, every glance, and every silence between you. You both knew what he had done, that he had done it for you, and both of you knew what you could do. A single slip of the tongue, a single phone call, and his carefully constructed life could unravel. The passion in your relationship was long gone, replaced by something darker: the quiet hatred of familiarity. The quiet knowing that you both had too much dirt on each other, things that could destroy the other if ever whispered into the wrong ears. You'd both let things get too far.

Cliff remained where he was standing in the sand and he exhaled slowly through his nose, popping the cap off the bottle in his hand. His gaze didn't waver from you as he lowered his head, watching the amber liquid ripple in the glass. And for just a second, you wondered: who killed who?