The Best Man retreats to his room, attempt­ing to unwind with a small stash of mar­i­jua­na pur­chased in Dublin’s famed Tem­ple Bar dis­trict. The crowd­ed, tourist-heavy area had pro­vid­ed a quick solu­tion, though he knew the qual­i­ty of the weed wouldn’t match his usu­al sup­ply back home. Still, he hopes it will grant him the peace of mind he so des­per­ate­ly seeks. The crash­ing waves out­side form a rhyth­mic sound­track, their unre­lent­ing force mir­ror­ing his rest­less thoughts. The island’s rugged iso­la­tion serves as an unwel­come reminder of Trevellyan’s, the board­ing school where he spent his for­ma­tive years. The par­al­lels are unavoidable—both set­tings encir­cled by unyield­ing waters, both places steeped in a mix of beau­ty and unease. The waves become a trig­ger, pulling him back to a dor­mi­to­ry where barred win­dows framed his view of the world, leav­ing him to ques­tion whether they were there for pro­tec­tion or to pre­vent escape. In this moment, the sounds of the sea are no longer calm­ing; they are a por­tal to mem­o­ries he has strug­gled to for­get.

For years, he has avoid­ed revis­it­ing his time at Trevellyan’s, know­ing that the expe­ri­ences there are too heavy to car­ry into his present life. Yet, some­thing about this island refus­es to let those mem­o­ries lie dor­mant. The atmos­phere seems to crack open the care­ful­ly con­struct­ed walls in his mind, allow­ing sup­pressed emo­tions to flood back in. Despite the alco­hol he has con­sumed through­out the evening and the weed he now smokes, which would nor­mal­ly leave him sedat­ed, he finds no relief. Instead, his body is over­tak­en by an unbear­able rest­less­ness. His skin crawls as if insects are skit­ter­ing across it, though he knows it is only his imag­i­na­tion man­i­fest­ing the unease bub­bling inside him. Sleep, once a reli­able refuge, now feels like a threat. It isn’t the dis­com­fort of the bed or the lin­ger­ing effects of the sub­stances he’s consumed—it’s the fear of what awaits him in his dreams. After years of bliss­ful igno­rance, the night­mares have returned, vivid and mer­ci­less, drag­ging him back into the shad­ows of his ado­les­cence.

The root of his unease is not just the iso­la­tion of the island, nor the psy­cho­log­i­cal effects of the sub­stances cours­ing through his sys­tem. It lies deep­er, tied to the pres­ence of cer­tain peo­ple he is now forced to face and the unre­solved secrets they share. This trip, which should have been a cel­e­bra­tion, has instead unearthed a part of him­self he thought he had buried for good. The island feels alive, its air thick with the weight of unspo­ken truths, its crash­ing waves like a relent­less reminder of what he’s been avoid­ing. He knows he can­not blame the set­ting entire­ly; the past has been knock­ing at the door for years, and this place, this moment, has sim­ply flung it wide open. It isn’t just the phys­i­cal sim­i­lar­i­ties to Trevellyan’s that are haunt­ing him—it’s the mem­o­ries of nights spent in silence, hid­ing truths he was sworn to keep, and the real­iza­tion that those truths are still claw­ing at him, refus­ing to be for­got­ten.

As he stares at the ceil­ing, his mind races, cir­cling the same mem­o­ries and ques­tions over and over again. He won­ders if his cur­rent rest­less­ness is a pun­ish­ment for hav­ing ignored these feel­ings for so long or if it is sim­ply a coin­ci­dence, stirred by the island’s eerie ambiance. He can­not shake the sense that this place, this gath­er­ing, and these peo­ple are all forc­ing him to con­front some­thing inevitable. The con­nec­tion between the set­ting and the com­pa­ny he keeps grows sharp­er, point­ing to unre­solved ten­sions that can­not be ignored any longer. Final­ly, he clos­es his eyes, not because he feels ready to sleep but because he has no oth­er choice. His exhaus­tion is out­weighed only by his dread, a fear that what waits for him in his dreams will be just as relent­less as the mem­o­ries that echo in his wak­ing mind. Sleep becomes not a reprieve, but anoth­er bat­tle­ground, one where he knows he will face the weight of a past that has nev­er tru­ly let go. The island may be remote, but its pow­er to strip him of his defens­es is unde­ni­able, leav­ing him vul­ner­a­ble to the very truths he’s spent a life­time avoid­ing.