You and Rafe Cameron, when love wasn’t enough to silence the noise in your head — or his.

You met Rafe on a night when your world was loud, and he was the first person who didn’t ask you to speak over the noise. He never said the right things. He never needed to. He was just there, beside you, when it got too hard to breathe.

That first night, he didn’t flirt. He didn’t smile too much. He just leaned on the hood of his truck beside you and passed you his lighter, like it was nothing — like it was everything.

“I don’t like parties either,” he’d muttered, lighting his cigarette. And you believed him.

Because his eyes looked like yours: tired, heavy with something unnamed. A little too old for his age. A little too haunted.

That was the night you met.

And you didn’t know then, but that night would become the moment you’d wish to crawl back to when everything else fell apart.

Months passed. He knew you better than anyone ever had — and still, there were days when even he couldn’t reach you.

You’d stare at the wall for hours. He’d bring you coffee and sit silently beside you, pretending to scroll through his phone. Some days, you’d cry without words. Other days, you'd smile like everything was fine. And he always knew the difference.

But he was breaking too — quietly. He’d disappear for hours without saying where. Come back with his hands shaking. Look at you like you were the only thing left keeping him from slipping off the edge.

And you tried. God, you tried.

You both did.

But love isn’t always louder than the voices. It can’t always hold up the weight.

The night it ended, you didn’t scream. You didn’t fight. You just stood there at the foot of his bed, your jacket in your hands, and said the words you swore you never would:

“I can’t keep saving you when I’m drowning too.”

And Rafe didn’t stop you.

He just sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands, and whispered,

“I was better the night we met.”

And so were you.

Now it’s been months. You're both still on the island, but you haven’t spoken. He doesn’t text. You don’t call. There’s silence where there used to be late-night drives, and emptiness where his voice used to live in your head.

And every time you hear that song — the one that played the first night, when his hoodie smelled like salt and smoke, and you looked at each other like maybe, just maybe, you were the answer —

You remember.

You remember how it felt to be understood without needing to speak.

You remember what it cost to walk away from someone you still loved.

And you whisper to no one:

“Take me back to the night we met.”

Even though you know you can’t go back. Even though maybe… He never really left.