A guitar.
Not new. Not fancy. Scratched in places, worn smooth where someone else’s fingers once lived. The kind of instrument that’s already been loved—and is ready for more.
I lift it down. Strum once.
The sound settles into my chest like it recognizes me.
New strings.
New songs.
New memories waiting to be made.
I smile to myself.
Somewhere behind me, the past finally lets go.
EPILOGUE
TONY
When I heard from Ethan,it had been more than a while.
A decade, maybe halfway to another one—long enough that the sharp edges had dulled, long enough that memory had stopped feeling like an open wound and started feeling more like scar tissue. You forget the exact pain, but you never forget where it lives.
Life happened fast after that summer.
When I got married, I rode off into the sunset—or rather, sailed off into it. That’s the joke Ethan would’ve made. But the truth is, once my father passed and I inherited the businesses, I couldn’t go back to the Cape. Not really. Not after that season. Not after 9/11. Not after the way everything fractured so quietly you didn’t realize the sound you heard was something breaking until it was already gone.
The group scattered.
Chris joined the Army. We kept in touch for a while—emails, the occasional call—but the shit he saw overseas rewired him. His brothers became the men he fought beside. That kind of bond replaces everything else. I understood it, even when it hurt.
Beth… that one still twists my gut if I think too hard about it.
She didn’t mean to blow anything up. She never did. But Sage found out it was Beth who tipped Ethan off—that she’d been in Sage’s place that day, the day we were skiing. And Sage? Sage would’ve burned Beth’s life down without blinking. I saw it coming before anyone else did. So Beth left. New job. New city. No looking back. She married later. Built something clean and quiet. I like to think she’s happy. I hope she is.
Me? I had to protect Melissa. And the baby.
We conceived. We lost it.
That’s another story. One I don’t tell much.
So when Ethan reached out years later—out of the blue—and told me he was writing this book, I didn’t know how to react at first. I didn’t know if I wanted to open any of those doors again. There are things a man does in his life that don’t need witnesses. Things you don’t do for credit or redemption. Things you do because someone has to.
And there was a lot Ethan didn’t know about his own story.
Like my wedding day.
What I did for her.
That secret? I’d planned to take it to my grave.
I didn’t want a pat on the back. Didn’t want anyone calling me a good guy. I wasn’t interested in being noble. I just needed her gone—from Ethan’s life, from Melissa’s, from all of ours. Whether she went on to ruin someone else’s world after that… I don’t know. I didn’t follow. I didn’t look back.
I just closed the door.
So I told Ethan I’d write one chapter. One. And I told him not to read it until he was finished—until the story was whole in his hands. He could drop it in wherever it belonged.
