When did this start feeling normal?
The question nagged at Lily as she scrubbed through clips. The video was genuinely good—not "look at me in a bikini" good, but actually substantive. The kind of content that might make someone think differently about the world.
It was a weird feeling. Not bad, just... unfamiliar.
"Hey," she said, breaking the comfortable silence. "What you shared earlier—about your mom. I know that wasn't easy."
Alex looked up from his microscope. "Itwasn't."
"Why did you decide to do it?"
He was quiet for a moment, considering. "Because you asked me to trust you with something important. And I realized I wanted to."
The words hung in the air, simple and devastating.
You're in trouble, St. John. Real trouble.
By sunset, they'd dragged a blanket down to the beach for dinner—more of Alex's grilled fish, the last of the mangoes, and some kind of root vegetable that tasted like a cross between a potato and an apology.
"Okay, I have a confession," Lily said, setting down her makeshift plate.
Alex tensed. "What kind of confession?"
"Relax, it's not murder." She pulled her knees up to her chest, watching the sun bleed orange and pink across the horizon. "When I first got here, I was planning to film you as the villain. Grumpy scientist ruins influencer's vacation, that kind of thing. My audience would have eaten it up."
He was quiet for a moment. "And now?"
"Now that feels..." She searched for the right word. "Cheap. Like I'd be missing the actual story."
"Which is?"
Lily considered the question seriously. "I don't know yet. But it's not what I thought it would be." She glanced at him. "You're not what I thought you'd be."
Alex's expression was unreadable in the fading light. "Is that good or bad?"
"Jury's still out." But she was smiling, and after a moment, so was he.
They sat in comfortable silence as the sun continued its descent. Lily was acutely aware of every point where their bodies almost touched—his shoulder inches from hers, his hand resting on the blanket between them.
"Can I ask you something?" she said eventually.
"You're going to anyway."
"True." She turned to face him more fully. "Why does this island matter so much to you? Like, personally. Not just professionally."
Alex didn't answer immediately. He stared at the water, his jaw tight in that way she'd come to recognize as him wrestling with whether to let her in.
"You already know about my mom," he said finally. "After she died, I just... shut down. Couldn't connect with anyone. My dad tried, my sister tried, but I'd already decided that caring about people was too risky." He picked up a shell, turning it over in his hands. "The ocean was safe. It didn't leave. It didn't expect anything from me emotionally. I could study it, understand it, protect it—and none of that required being vulnerable."
Lily's heart ached at the image of a lonely little boy finding solace in tide pools because humans were too unpredictable.
"And now?"
"Now I've built my entire life around that coping mechanism." A humorless smile crossed his face. "Not exactly a recipe for healthy relationships."
"Hey, at least you're self-aware. That's more than most people manage."
"Self-awareness doesn't fix anything. It just means you know exactly how screwed up you are while continuing to be screwed up."
