The air in the Outer Banks still smelled the same — saltwater, gasoline from old boats, and those endless summer nights that never really seemed to end. When I stepped out of the jeep and looked at the old house on the Cut, something inside me tightened. This was home. Or at least what used to be home. I had left the Outer Banks eight years ago without a real goodbye. No explanation, no warning. I was fourteen then, John B was twelve, and JJ… JJ had looked at me like I was tearing something out of him when I left. It had all started after my dad died. Everything fell apart — debt, alcohol, people showing up who shouldn’t have been there. My mom got scared, really scared, and decided the only way out was to leave. So we went to Chapel Hill to live with my aunt. John B refused to come, and I was too young to fight it. I just left him behind. And I left JJ too. When I finally walked back up the wooden steps of the Cut, I didn’t even have time to breathe before John B appeared. He looked older, rougher, but his eyes were the same. For a moment we just stared at each other, like neither of us trusted it was real. Then he pulled me into a hug so tight I almost forgot how to stand. “You’re really here,”