This Was Home

The strobe light, brighter than the day, blinked like a heartbeat over the desert floor. It pulsed from the top of a rusted radio tower that no longer transmitted anything but nostalgia. We had seen it a hundred times—on aimless drives, on late-night hikes, on those summer nights when the air was too hot to sleep. But this night was different.

I hadn’t been back in six years.

The Jeep’s tires crunched over gravel as we pulled into the overlook. It was just like I remembered—dry, wind-scraped hills rolling into the blackness, broken only by the distant glow of that blinking tower. I stepped out into the silence, dust curling around my boots, the same kind of dust that used to stick to our sweat and skin like a second layer.

Claire stayed in the car. I could feel her watching me, unsure of why we’d come back.

“Is this it?” she asked, her voice cutting through the warm wind. “Where you used to go?”

I nodded, but words caught in my throat. How could I explain this place to someone who hadn’t lived it? Who hadn’t sneaked out after midnight just to lie under the sky with friends who felt more like family than blood ever had? Who hadn’t whispered secrets into the air, believing the stars might carry them somewhere safe?

It wasn’t just a place. It was a time. A feeling.

It was home.

Back then, we called ourselves the Dust Kids. There were six of us: Me, Miguel, Ava, Henry, Sierra, and Jess. We were all broke in some way—parents who drank, dreams we couldn’t afford, anger we didn’t understand yet. But out here, with no walls and no rules, we could breathe.

We’d park the truck, climb onto its roof, and pass around a cheap flashlight like it was a sacred torch. Each night, someone would tell a story. A lie, a confession, a dream, a poem. It didn’t matter which. The rule was: You had to speak your truth, even if it wasn’t real.

That was the first place I ever admitted I wanted to leave. That I didn’t want to rot in this desert town like everyone else. That I wanted more than a minimum wage job and a trailer with a broken A/C.

And when I finally left for college—something no one in my family had ever done—I told myself I wouldn’t look back. But some roots don’t untangle just because you cut them.

Claire stepped out of the car finally, her heels crunching softly. She stood beside me, arms folded against the wind. She was wearing the blue jacket I’d bought her in San Francisco, the one she only wore when she knew I was nervous.

“You okay?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. I was staring at the rock formation just a few yards off—the one shaped like a reclining giant. We used to sit there and make up names for it. Jess said it looked like a sleeping god. Miguel called it “Old Man Sand.”

Now, it looked like a gravestone.

“I brought them here once,” I said finally. “My friends. The night before I left.”

Claire waited. She knew I wasn’t done.

“I thought leaving would make everything better. I thought forgetting would make the pain go away.”

“And did it?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “It just made it quieter.”

The last time I saw Jess, she had tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. “Go,” she said. “Get out while you still can. But promise you’ll come back one day.”

She didn’t say why. Maybe she knew the town wouldn’t hold her much longer. Maybe she sensed that not all of us would make it out.

She died two years later. Car crash. Drunk driver. The funeral was small. I didn’t go.

I was in New York, chasing a promotion. Telling myself I was too busy. Telling myself I’d visit her grave someday.

The strobe light blinked again—white, then dark, then white again. It used to annoy me. Now it felt like it was watching, waiting. Like an old friend who never moved away.

Claire took my hand. Her fingers were cold.

“Want to show me the rock?” she asked gently.

We walked to it in silence. I sat down first, ran my fingers over the rough stone. Dust still clung to it. It still smelled like heat and time.

“I used to think this place was nothing,” I said. “Just empty land and broken dreams. But we filled it with something. Our stories. Our fears. Our laughter. That made it home.”

Claire rested her head on my shoulder.

“It still is,” she said.

The wind picked up, scattering small stones, kicking up the smell of sagebrush and summer. I could almost hear the others again—laughing, yelling, daring each other to scream into the void.

I whispered into the dark.

“Hey, Jess. I came back.”

The light blinked once more.

And in that moment, for the first time in years, I felt like I belonged.

This was home.