You didn’t expect to see him like that—on the cold, cracked floor of Tannyhill.

You hadn’t meant to be there. You were just passing by, walking the trail behind the property like you had so many times growing up on the Cut, knowing better than to tangle with the Camerons. But something—maybe a sound, maybe a feeling—drew you up that hill and into that house.

The door was slightly open. The lights were off, but the place reeked of something chemical and sad.

That’s when you saw him.

Rafe Cameron.

Your chest caved in on itself the moment your eyes adjusted. There he was, the boy who once ruled the Outer Banks like he was made of gold and flame. The football captain. The boy who had the world at his feet and fire in his hands.

He wasn’t golden now.

He was curled up on the hardwood, shirt soaked with sweat, hands twitching, eyes wide and vacant. There was blood under his nose and track marks on his arm, and you swore he looked right through you.

You dropped to your knees without thinking.

“Rafe,” you whispered, already reaching for him. “Rafe, it’s me.”

At first he didn’t move, and then he shivered so hard it looked like his soul was trying to leave his body. You pulled him into your arms, his skin ice-cold despite the summer heat still clinging to your skin from the outside.

“I got you,” you murmured, your voice breaking, one hand cradling the back of his head. “I got you, okay?”

He was the boy who used to wink at you from across the football field, who once told you he wanted more than the island could give. Now he was broken and bruised by the very same place he’d tried so hard to escape.

You knew about the drugs. Everyone did, but it had always been whispers. People said he was reckless, said Ward couldn’t control him anymore, said he was spiraling. But no one did anything. No one saw him.

Except now—here—you did.

You rocked him gently, tears sliding silently down your cheeks as he mumbled something into your chest.

“I didn’t mean to—” “I know,” you said, brushing his hair back. “I know.”

You held him for a long time, listening to his shallow breaths, the way they hitched when he tried to cry but couldn’t. You felt the weight of everything he had lost, everything you couldn’t save him from—not yet.

Maybe you never would.

But in that moment, with his body trembling in your arms and the ghost of who he used to be flickering behind his eyes, you swore you would try.

Even if it broke you too.