The Edge of Seventeen Miles

Seventeen miles of Oregon coastline. Five best friends. One secret that could break them all. Every summer, they ride the same stretch of coast — Leo counting down the minutes, Nora softening every hard edge with laughter, Aria tracing answers into the dirt, Jax turning silence into music. And me, pretending my smile isn't a frame with nothing behind it. I have something to tell them. Something I've folded so tight into myself that even I'm afraid of what happens when it unravels. But out here, with the ocean pulling at the rocks and the road stretching wide open, there's nowhere left to hide it. By the time we reach the end of these seventeen miles, we'll know the truth — about me, about each other, about whether the friendship we built can survive what I've been carrying. Some journeys aren't about the miles you ride. They're about the ones you finally stop running from.