Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Boston in late summer was a cacophony of chaos.
The noise. The crowds. The relentless pace of a city that didn't care about coral reefs or endemic species or the particular shade of green in a woman's eyes.
It seemed a lifetime ago that he was on the island, but Alex had been home for three weeks already and he was starting to question whether the entire trip had been a hallucination.
Except hallucinations don't come with heartache, and that hollow feeling in his chest each morning was very real.
Alex threw himself into work with the desperate intensity of a man trying to outrun his own thoughts.
He arrived at SPECA's research facility before dawn and left after dark.
He buried himself in data analysis, sample processing, report writing—anything that required enough concentration to keep his mind from wandering to wild curls and freckled shoulders.
It wasn't working.
"You're here early again."
Alex looked up from his microscope to find Dr. Harold Nichols leaning against his office doorframe, two cups of coffee in hand.
Harold was the closest thing Alex had to a friend at SPECA—which wasn't saying much, given Alex's general approach to workplace socialization, but the older oceanographer had been patient with him since Alex's first day three years ago.
"Couldn't sleep," Alex said, accepting the offered coffee. "Figured I'd get a head start on the sample analysis."
"Mmm." Harold settled into the chair across from Alex's desk, studying him with the same careful attention he usually reserved for sediment cores. "You've been different since you got back from Serenite."
"Different how?"
"Quieter. Which I didn't think was possible." Harold sipped his coffee. "Also, you keep staring at your phone like it's personally wronged you, and yesterday I heard you sigh so heavily in the break room that Janet from Accounting asked if someone had died."
Alex winced. "I didn't realize I was being that obvious."
"Don't get your knickers in a twist. Most people wouldn't notice." Harold shrugged. "But I've known you for three years, and this is the first time I've ever seen you look like you actually give a damn about something besides fish."
The observation landed uncomfortably close to the truth.
"It's nothing," Alex said. "Just adjusting to being back."
"Right." Harold's tone made it clear he wasn't buying it. "Well, if you ever want to talk about whatever 'nothing' is keeping you up at night, I'm usually here until six. And I've been told I'm an excellent listener, mainly because I don't care enough to judge and I'm too old to interfere."
He left before Alex could respond, which was probably for the best since Alex had no idea what he would have said.
You keep staring at your phone like it's personally wronged you.
He hadn't realized he'd been doing that. But now that Harold mentioned it, Alex became acutely aware of his phone sitting face-down on the desk, the urge to search Lily's Instagram handle burning like an itch he couldn't scratch.
He'd been deliberately avoiding it. Couldn't handle seeing her back to her old life—laughing, traveling, doing her influencer thing like they'd never happened.
Worse, what if he clicked on her profile and saw her with someone else?
Some bronzed model type at a rooftop bar, his arm slung around her shoulders while she smiled that camera-ready smile?
He might lose what little sanity he had left.
"You look like hell," his sister Megan announced during their monthly video call, her ER-nurse bluntness cutting through any pretense of small talk.
"Thanks. Love you too."
"Seriously, Alex." She leaned closer to her camera, studying him with the same professional assessment she probably used on trauma patients. "What happened on that island? You're even more broody than usual, which I didn't think was possible."
"Nothing happened."
"Liar."
Alex sighed, running a hand through hair that badly needed a cut. “Would you believe I met a girl?”
Megan's eyebrows shot up. "You? Met someone? On your isolated research trip specifically designed to avoid human contact?"
"It wasn't planned."
“The plot thickens.” She was grinning now, looking far too delighted by his misery. "Tell me everything. Is she a scientist? Another researcher? Please tell me she's not a mermaid, because I don't think Mom's wedding china will work for an underwater ceremony."
"She's an influencer."
The silence that followed was deeply satisfying.
"I'm sorry," Megan said finally. "I think I hallucinated. Did you just say influencer? Like, social media influencer? The thing you've ranted about destroying authentic human connection for the past five years?"
"The very same."
"And you... met her? And liked her? And are now moping around Boston like a Victorian ghost because...?"
"Because I let her leave without telling her how I felt." The words came out flat, matter-of-fact, as if he were describing the life cycle of a sea urchin rather than his own emotional catastrophe.
Megan's expression softened. "Oh, Alex."
"I know."
"Did she feel the same way?"
"I think so. She kept giving me openings to say something, and I just..." He made a vague gesture that was supposed to convey the full scope of his failure but probably looked like he was swatting at an invisible fly.
"Let me guess." Megan's voice was gentler now. "You got scared. Told yourself all the logical reasons it wouldn't work. Decided it was better to protect yourself from potential loss than risk actually being happy."
"When did you get a psychology degree?"
"I don't need one. I've known you for thirty-five years." She paused. "Alex, I say this with love: you've been using Mom's death as an excuse to avoid real connection for almost three decades. And I get it—losing her was devastating. But she wouldn't want this for you. She'd want you to be brave."
The words landed somewhere soft and painful in Alex's chest. "I know."
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know. She's back in California. She has six million followers and a whole life that has nothing to do with me." He stared at the ceiling. "I had my chance, Meg. I blew it."
"Since when does Alex Carmichael give up on something he cares about?" Megan's voice sharpened. "You spent two years fighting for access to that island. You've devoted your entire career to protecting ecosystems that most people don't even know exist. You don't quit."
"This is different."
"Is it? Or is it just scarier?"
Alex didn't have an answer for that.
After they hung up, he sat in his dark apartment, staring at his phone. His thumb hovered over the Instagram app—Don't do it. Looking will only make it worse.
His thumb had other ideas.
He typed in her handle: WanderLily.
The first thing he saw was a pinned video with 10.2 million views.
Alex stared at the number, then at the thumbnail—a sweeping shot of Ilot Serenite at dawn, mist rising from the jungle like something from a dream. The title read: "What Actually Matters: A Conservation Love Letter."
His heart stopped.
Then started again, beating so hard he could feel it in his throat.
He pressed play.
The video opened with that same dawn shot, the one she'd captured their first morning of filming together. His voice came through—raw and vulnerable, talking about his mother and tide pools and finding meaning in fragile ecosystems.
But Lily had done something magical with it. She'd woven his words through footage of the reef, the beach, the intricate dance of species he'd dedicated his life to protecting. She'd added her own narration—thoughtful, genuine, nothing like the chirpy influencer persona he'd initially dismissed.
"Five weeks ago, I got stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere with a man who thought I was everything wrong with modern society," her voice said over images of coral formations glowing in crystalline water.
"He wasn't entirely wrong. I'd spent six years building a brand based on pretty pictures and curated moments, never stopping to ask if any of it actually mattered. "
Alex's chest tightened.
"But here's the thing about being stuck somewhere with no Wi-Fi and no escape—you have to actually face yourself. And when I did, I didn't love what I saw."
The footage shifted to the tide pools, to close-ups of the creatures he'd taught her to identify. Blennies darting through crevices. Sea anemones waving their delicate tentacles. The hermit crab she'd joked about having commitment issues.
Alex huffed a laugh despite himself. He remembered that afternoon—the way she'd crouched beside him, genuinely curious, asking questions that proved she was actually listening instead of just waiting for her turn to talk.
"This island is home to species that exist nowhere else on Earth.
An ecosystem so fragile that one wrong step could disrupt centuries of balance.
And there's a man who's dedicated his professional life to studying how to protect it—not for fame or followers or sponsorship deals, but because he genuinely believes it matters. "
A lump formed in Alex's throat.
"He made me want to believe it matters too."
The video continued, weaving together everything they'd filmed—his explanations of biodiversity, her questions about resilience and adaptation, moments of genuine connection that she'd somehow captured without him realizing.
She never showed his face. She'd kept her promise about that.
But she'd shown his hands, his voice, his passion. She'd shown the island through his eyes.
There was a moment—he remembered when she'd filmed it—where his hand reached into frame to point at something in the tide pool, and her own hand appeared briefly beside his.
Just a flash, barely a second. But Alex saw it, and he knew her audience would see it too: the way their fingers almost touched.
The way the space between them seemed to hum with unspoken meaning.