Scott Taylor and Jeff Fahlman live on a small barrier island on the Texas Gulf Coast and have been best friends since early childhood. Scott's family owns the local bait and tackle shop and lives in the house right next door. Just a mile across the way, Jeff if in the fourth generation of the Fahlman family to live in the old keepers' quarters on the property of the Karankawa Point Lighthouse. The top of the old lighthouse is a special place for the boys. As kids, they would meet and play, and as teens, they would hang out and escape the pressures of school, family, and life. The lighthouse stands on the west end of the island in the small community of Karankawa Point, which is just across the bay, and a twenty-minute ferry ride from the mainland. While the physical distance between the island and the mainland is only three miles, the bay is a chasm between the lifestyles of the islanders and the mainlanders. When tragedy forces Scott's family to move to the mainland right before his first year of high school, the friends' lives are forever changed. As Scott tries to adapt to his new life on the mainland and Jeff remains on the island, they struggle to keep their friendship together. Throughout the triumphs and tragedies of their lives, the battle to keep their friendship alive always seems to find them back together at the top of the lighthouse.