The night air in Tulsa was sharp with the promise of rain, the kind that drummed on cracked sidewalks and pooled in potholes like tiny, silver mirrors. The streetlights flickered over a quiet corner of town where fate had decided to stir up old ghosts.

Ponyboy Curtis—now fifteen, taller but still wiry—walked with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of a threadbare denim jacket. Two years had hardened him in small, almost invisible ways. His green eyes had always held a spark of wonder, but now they carried shadows too, the kind you only get from missing someone so fiercely you start to forget the sound of their laugh. Since being shuffled into foster care and then relocated to a different city, he had learned to keep to himself. The poetry books were still there, worn and dog-eared in his backpack, but he didn’t talk about them much anymore.

Just across the street, a seventeen-year-old with sun-bleached hair ducked out of a dingy auto shop. Sodapop Curtis hadn’t lost his easy grin, but it came slower these days, weighed down by memories. He’d drifted from job to job since the state split him and Ponyboy up, ending up in this city by coincidence—or maybe stubborn hope. He had a rag stuffed in his back pocket and grease on his knuckles, the kind of boy who could make friends in a heartbeat but hadn’t let anyone too close since the night everything fell apart. Somewhere deep down, he still half-expected to hear Ponyboy’s voice behind him or Darry’s strong, steady reassurance, but both had been absent for so long it felt like a dream.

And somewhere on the other side of the block, a tall, broad-shouldered twenty-one-year-old stepped out of a coffee shop, textbooks balanced under one arm. Darrel Curtis—Darry—had done what everyone told him he should: kept his head down, gone to college, built a future. But success hadn’t dulled the ache of losing his parents or the guilt of watching his family scatter like leaves. He told himself he had no choice—he was barely nineteen then, barely more than a kid himself—but every night he wondered if he could have fought harder to keep them together.

The rain finally started, a light drizzle turning the pavement slick. Ponyboy ducked beneath the overhang of a convenience store, wiping water from his face. Sodapop jogged across the street, laughing under his breath at the sudden downpour, when a familiar profile caught his eye—just a glimpse of brown hair and a slouch he’d know anywhere. His heart stuttered. “No way,” he muttered, his voice barely audible over the patter of rain.

Ponyboy froze. It couldn’t be—there was no way. But when he turned, his breath caught. “Soda?” The name came out fragile, a whisper cracked open by disbelief.

Sodapop’s grin broke through then, brilliant and raw. He closed the distance in a few strides, pulling Ponyboy into a fierce hug that chased away two years of loneliness. Ponyboy clung to him, his fingers bunching in Sodapop’s damp shirt as if he might vanish again.

A voice—steady, deeper than they remembered—cut through the rain. “Ponyboy?” Darry’s books slipped from his hands, forgotten on the wet concrete as he stared at the two boys. His chest tightened; they were taller, older, but they were still his brothers.

When they turned and saw him standing there, the world seemed to still. For a moment, the city noise faded: no rain, no traffic, no strangers passing by. Just three brothers, separated by circumstance, staring across the years they’d lost.

Sodapop was the first to move, shoving his hands through his wet hair. “Darry?” His voice broke, half laughter, half sob. Darry crossed the sidewalk in two long strides and wrapped his arms around them both, and suddenly it didn’t matter that they were standing in the rain, or that two years of regret and silence hung between them. For the first time since that awful night, the Curtis brothers were together.