The story begins with Charlie who along with his brother Sam is competing in his school rowing race.
They surge ahead of their rivals and are celebrated as the winners.
After the race, Connors tells Charlie that his luck won't save him next time and vows to beat him.
Sam proudly flashes his metal at Connors before the brothers walk away.
As always, after the evening cannon fires at sunset,.
Sam and Charlie watch the boats docked at their harbor and dream about traveling the world together by ship.
At Charlie's graduation ceremony,.
He is awarded a scholarship as captain of the school's rowing team, earning cheers from his classmates and friends.
Afterward,.
Sully tells him that he and Green will be shipping out to the naval base the following week, and he asks Charlie.
To be there for their farewell gathering.
Later, after the evening cannon, Charlie promises Sam that every day after work, when the cannon fires, he'll spend an hour practicing.
Baseball with him so Sam can one day make it onto his dream team.
But there's one condition.
Sam must never be late. He has to be on time every single day.
Sam agrees, and the brothers begin their training ritual.
That night, Charlie's mother, stuck working an extra shift, asks him to watch over Sam.
She rushes off to catch the bus, leaving Charlie to prepare Sam's dinner.
But Charlie sneaks out to attend his friend's farewell party, only to run into Sam, who asks him to drop him at.
A friend's house so they can watch a baseball game together.
On the drive, the brothers talk about Charlie leaving town for a scholarship.
Charlie reassures Sam that he'll never abandon him.
Their playful banter grows rowdy, but Charlie quickly reigns it in with his steady, older brother, Authority.
Moments later, distracted by a careless driver behind them, their car is struck in a devastating accident.
When the ambulance arrives, Charlie drifts into a vision of Sam, injured and pleading with him not to leave.
After several electric shocks from the paramedics,.
Charlie is revived,.
Only to learn that Sam didn't survive.
He's the only one left alive.
At Sam's funeral, after the eulogy,.
Charlie refuses to hand over his brother's baseball glove.
Overwhelmed,.
He walks away.
Hearing the cannon, he runs into the forest as flashbacks of the crash flood his mind.
Griefstricken,.
He breaks down until he suddenly sees Sam standing before him, reminding him of their promise.
Charlie swears he hasn't forgotten,.
Vowing to meet Sam every evening after the cannon to practice together for an hour.
5 years later, Charlie's life has completely changed.
He now works at the cemetery where his brother is buried.
After scaring off a flock of troublesome geese and inspecting the grounds, he joins his co-orker Alistair, who jokes that the geese.
Must have a personal vendetta against Charlie, even vandalizing the gravestones.
He points out the ringleer bird as proof.
Charlie invites Alistister to his anniversary party, urging him to go meet someone new and break free from his monotonous routine.
Just then, Charlie notices an angry young woman approaching.
Tess, furious,.
Demands Alistister trim the flowers on her father's grave.
But when she notices Charlie, her tone softens, and she politely repeats her request before leaving.
As Charlie continues his work, he unexpectedly encounters Sully at the cemetery after years apart.
Charlie explains that his mother has moved to Portland and that Green is also buried there now.
Watching Charlie closely, Alistister realizes that he's speaking to someone invisible,.
Deepening his suspicion that Charlie might not be entirely sane.
Sully eventually bids Charlie farewell, though all the while Charlie has been standing beside Sully's gravestone.
His old friends, it seems, never made it back from the war.
Later, Charlie stops by a store to buy a toy.
The girls at the counter swoon over his looks, but Charlie brushes off their advances, pays, and leaves.
He grabs his baseball glove and ball and when the cannon fires, heads into the forest for his daily meeting with Sam.
After practice and recounting his day, Charlie tells Sam he ran into Sully by chance and that the encounter made him miss.
Green even more.
Still, he admits he's grateful to see his brother everyday,.
A secret just between them. When the geese return, Charlie launches his new remote control airplane to scare them off.
But after a flurry of goose counterattacks,.
He and Sam dive laughing into the river.
Charlie realizes the hour is up.
His younger brother is no longer beside him, so he walks home alone.
The next day, by chance, he runs into the paramedic who saved him from the car crash years earlier.
Florio invites him for coffee and a chat.
At the restaurant, Charlie notices Florio's frail health.
He's battling cancer and has already lived most of his life.
Florio tells Charlie that his survival happened for a reason and that he needs to change course, seize the opportunity he's been.
Given, and not limit his life to the cemetery where he works.
Stepping outside,.
Charlie's attention is caught by a striking sailboat.
Reporters are covering an upcoming trans oceanic race, and he realizes that Tess is one of its sailors.
Surrounded by fans eager to hear her thoughts, Tess is hailed as the favorite to win.
When the evening cannon fires, Charlie drops everything and runs to the forest to tell Sam about Tess.
Inspired by her boat and the graceful curve of a whales tail, he sketches his own design and heads to the harbor.
To refine it. There, he runs into Alistister, who invites him to join their anniversary celebration.
At the party, Alistair's wife tries to set Charlie up with Rachel, but the attempt fizzles.
To Charlie's surprise, Connors, whom he hasn't seen in years, shows up and insists he join them for drinks.
Meanwhile, Tess is at the same cafe with Tink, her coach and stepfather,.
Checking the weather. Tink warns conditions aren't right for training, but Tess insists she needs the practice before the race and that.
She'll steer clear of the storm.
Connors keeps pressing Charlie to drink, but when Charlie notices Tess nearby, he excuses himself.
Connors taunts him about the crash, pushing Charlie over the edge.
Enraged. Charlie knocks Connors down and storms out.
Later, while checking Tess's boat, he runs into her and apologizes for his behavior.
They commiserate about Connor's being a jerk, and Tess reveals she actually went to high school with Charlie.
She's known him all along.
Charlie shows her his sketch, explaining his ideas for improving her boat's design.
She glances at the drawing in his notebook.
Charlie wishes her luck in the race before leaving.
The next day, Tess once again checks weather conditions with her coach.
Despite Tink's insistence that she stay clear of the storm, Tess deliberately sails into it, determined to test herself in rough waters.
Before the big race.
Later, Charlie tells Sam about the trans oceanic competition,.
Saying he could easily win, but won't compete because Sam takes priority over everything.
He has no regrets.
The brothers play their usual muddy games in the rain, laughing and enjoying the moment.
After chasing off some geese, Charlie notices Tess nearby.
She admits she got caught in the bad weather the night before and ended up falling asleep by her father's grave.
Charlie takes her home and tends to her wounds.
Curious, Tess asks why he never returned to sailing after his brother's death.
Charlie deflects, saying he'll tell her another time.
She reminds him she'll be away from town for 6 months for the race, then leaves.
Calculating the time before the cannon, Charlie hurries to invite Tess to dinner at his house before heading into the forest.
During practice with Sam, he tells him about the dinner plans.
That evening, over food and drinks, Tess asks Charlie to give her his sailboat sketch as a gift when she returns from.
The race. When Charlie leans in to kiss her, she changes the subject, answering his question about her limp.
During the storm, she was thrown across the deck and injured.
Eventually, Charlie kisses her anyway.
But Tess pulls back, insisting she can't lose focus on the race.
She won't see him again for 6 months and she can't afford to be mentally distracted.
She leaves abruptly.
Moments later, there's a knock at the door.
Tess asks Charlie to find her in the forest.
He follows and in the darkness, they embrace, sharing a passionate night together.
Charlie confides the scars on his chest are from the defibrillator shocks that once revived him.
Tess finds them beautiful. They fall asleep in each other's arms.
Charlie wakes the next morning with a goose nestled against him.
Tess has left a note taped to the door asking him to come find her.
He does and for the first time in years, Charlie boards a sailboat again, setting out with Tess toward the ocean waves.
At sunset, from a top the watchtower, Tess recites a beautiful poem for Charlie and asks him to join her in the.
Race as her backup crew, but he refuses.
When the cannon fires, Charlie urges her to return to the cabin and runs quickly into the forest, just in time to.
Stop his brother from leaving. Sam confronts him, saying he feels Charlie's love for him has begun to fade, that without him,.
He feels empty and invisible.
Charlie insists that will never happen, that he will always be at his little brother's side.
Then suddenly, he realizes Tess has followed him and overheard his conversation with Sam's spirit.
Charlie explains the promise he and Sam made and tells Tess he can't abandon his brother.
Despite her pleas for him to leave the forest with her, he asks her to go home and forget him.
The next day, while out walking, Tess notices something strange.
Her reflection no longer appears in the mirror.
At the same time, Charlie, drinking coffee at home, hears a police report.
Tess's boat was caught in a storm 3 days earlier, and there has been no word of her since.
Panicked, he rushes to launch his own boat, only to realize it's already too late.
Instead, he goes to Tess's father's grave, where he explains that her boat never returned and that she is now trapped in.
Limbo. Tess begs Charlie to find her and pleads for his help, but he breaks down in tears and she disappears.
Consumed by grief, Charlie wrecks his house.
When the cannon fires, he staggers back into the forest and tells Sam what happened.
His brother comforts him. Later, while Charlie is cleaning the wreckage, Florio's wife comes to his home.
She tells him her husband has passed away, and in his final moments, Florio asked her to give Charlie his Star of.
David necklace.
Florio believed Charlie was chosen, meant to save someone else.
Examining the necklace, Charlie notices Tess's handwriting hidden there.
Remembering Florio's words, he realizes Tess is still alive and that he must find her before it's too late.
Charlie begs Tessa's stepfather, Tink, to let him use his ship to search for her.
Tink refuses, dismissing him as a madman.
But when Tink leaves to run errands, Charlie steals the vessel with Alistair's help.
Tink arrives just in time to leap aboard, furious, but Alistair holds him back.
After hearing Charlie describe where Tess might be, Tink reluctantly decides to trust him.
Together, they set out toward the coordinates.
After 16 hours at sea, Tink urges Charlie to rest.
As Charlie retreats to the stern, sunset falls, and when the cannon fires, Sam realizes his brother won't be coming that night.
Charlie apologizes to Sam, promising they will always remain brothers.
Sam smiles, says goodbye, and chooses to leave limbo.
He dissolves into light. Finally at peace after 5 years.
Guided by the trail of a comet sent like a sign from Sam, Charlie steers the ship toward the wreckage, they find.
Pieces of Tess's sunken boat. Despite Alistair's desperate warnings about the freezing waters and dangerous weather,.
Charlie dives in to save her.
Swimming through the shattered hull, battered against the rocks, he forces his way into a cave and finally reaches her.
Pulling Tess into his arms, he brings her back from the brink.
Both of them survive.
Later at the hospital, Alistister relays the doctor's words.
Tess was saved.
Sometime later, Charlie sails his old boat to Tessa's home.
After speaking with her about her recovery, he asks her to return to the water with him.
Tess hesitates,.
Explaining that during her time in limbo, she lived vivid dreams with Charlie.
Dreams that felt even more real than waking life.
Charlie tells her those weren't dreams,.
But memories.
And to prove it, he recites the very poem she once read to him from the watchtower.
With tears in her eyes, Tess realizes.
It's true.
In the end, she accepts Charlie's invitation.
Together, they set sail, ready to explore the oceans.
Side by side.