"What happens after? When the boat comes."
"You'll have a lot to process when you get home."
She'd been asking if they had a future. He'd talked about her editing schedule.
"Ask me to stay."
She'd actually said the words. Out loud. Given him the clearest possible signal that she wanted this to be more than a two-week detour.
And he'd saidI wish I could give you what you deservelike some tragic hero in a movie, when what he really meant wasI'm too scared to try.
The cabin walls felt like they were closing in. He grabbed his field pack and headed for the door, desperate for air that didn't smelllike her.
The tide pools were exactly as he'd left them.
Alex stood at the edge, staring down at the small ecosystem that had captivated Lily on her third day here. The blennies darted between rocks, fearless and resilient, completely indifferent to his crisis.
"So they're the tough guys of the fish world?"Her voice echoed in his memory."The ones who laugh in the face of adversity?"
"They're remarkably resilient,"he'd told her.
"I like them. Scrappy little survivors."
He hadn't realized, at the time, that she was describing herself.
Alex moved on, his feet carrying him toward the lagoon without conscious decision. He should turn back. Should go literally anywhere else. But his body seemed determined to catalog every place they'd been together, every location that would now be haunted by her absence.
The hidden pool glittered through the trees, and his chest constricted at the sight.
This was where everything changed.
He could still see her rising from the water, droplets catching the light, her wild curls slicked back from herface. Could still feel the electric shock of their first real kiss—not the desperate storm-driven collision, but the deliberate choice. The moment they'd both stopped pretending.
"This doesn't feel like killing time anymore,"she'd said.
"No. It doesn't."
He'd known, even then. Known she was getting under his skin in ways that would leave marks. He'd kissed her anyway, let himself want her anyway, told himself he could handle the aftermath.
Turns out he couldn't even handle the goodbye.
The lagoon was beautiful and peaceful and completely unbearable. Alex turned away, taking the path toward the beach where they'd made love under the stars just last night.
The sand had been raked smooth by the morning tide, all evidence of their presence erased.
But he could still feel her beneath him. Still hear her voice breaking on his name. Still see the way she'd looked at him afterward, open and vulnerable, like she'd handed him something precious and trusted him not to drop it.
He'd dropped it anyway.
Ask me to stay.
Three words. That's all it would have taken.
Stay.
One word, technically.
And he couldn't even manage that.
