Your love life ended a while ago.

If it could even be called a love life. You were tired of the constant back and forth, the endless fights and nights spent crying into your pillow, begging the universe for help. He was never good for you but he was addictive, like one of the drugs he used. Rafe was destroying your life while filling your heart with a kind of love you didn’t understand. He wasn’t good.

You realized it late but better late than never.

You cut him off completely. Moved out of your parents’ house, left Outer Banks, started college and got a well-paying job. You lived alone and found a new group of friends who had no idea about your past life on the island. It was better that way.

Until Rafe found you.

The evening was beautiful, the sun lazily setting on the horizon as you closed the front door to your apartment. From there the view of the ocean and the sunset was breathtaking. But something felt off from the start. The air was heavier as if warning you. And then you saw him. He was sitting on the couch in your living room holding a glass filled with amber liquid.

“You shouldn’t be here” you said, slowly stepping into the room, staring at the back of his head.

“I shouldn’t be here” he repeats. But he doesn’t get up. He doesn’t even flinch. Because both of you know that he came exactly where he was meant to be. Where he always returns. To you.