She had always moved fast. High school, college, the first job, the promotion, the better apartment, the trip that was supposed to feel like freedom but felt like a checklist. She was a blur of efficiency, an expert at the urgent, a stranger to the essential. "All the time in the world" was a cliché she used ironically while rushing out the door.
Alina Lopez had all the time in the world. alina lopez all the time in the world
She bent down and pressed her palm flat against the salt. It was cool and rough, older than memory. She thought of all the moments she had fast-forwarded through: the last five minutes of a sunset, the quiet pause before a good friend laughed, the simple act of doing nothing. She had treated time like an enemy to be outrun. She had always moved fast
She smiled. Not the quick, polite smile she gave to strangers in elevators. A real one. Slow and unguarded. "All the time in the world" was a
Her phone was in the car, three miles back, turned off and buried under a sweatshirt. For the first time in a decade, no one knew exactly where she was. And the silence was not empty. It was full. Full of the whisper of wind across the salt, the thud of her own heart, the slow, deliberate crunch of her footsteps.