Chapter 88 Shadows on Return
Malia's POV
Our car pulls into Mooncrest college and halts with a metallic thud that vibrates through the hull and slams into my chest. I can feel it deep in my bones — that ultimate, gut-punching breaking away from the island and everything that comes after.
Ahead is the campus—brick buildings familiar to anyone who’s attended college, the same meandering paths, lined with oak trees that still can’t decide whether to bloom or pack up for another cold snap.
But everything is different now. Sharper. Smaller. Like the island bent time and space in ways I can never quite grasp, and now we’ve come back too vast for this place, too broad to squeeze our edges back into the shapes we left.
Only a few students are beginning to trickle in. Early arrivals clutching housing assignments. Stragglers with oversized suitcases and travel mugs of coffee that's long since gone cold.
The air is redolent of wet leaves rotting on brick sidewalks, of the faint chemical tang of fresh paint left by the maintenance staff as they prepare the dorm halls for the new term, and of something else — something I can’t put my finger on but that tastes like endings.
No crowds. No welcome banners. No leaders with clipboards and manufactured enthusiasm. Just quiet, broken by the far-away drone of a lawnmower, and the argument of seagulls over a few slices of pizza crusts caught near the student centre.
Aiden walks beside me, his duffel slung over one shoulder, the strap already digging a red mark into his neck.
His hand brushes up against mine every few steps—deliberate but tentative—never quite holding it. As if he's checking the temperature of the water before jumping in. Like he's already pulling away.
Rowan and Cian trail a little behind us, lugging the cooler between them like pallbearers, as if it is the last part of the island they can physically grasp. Inside: half-melted ice, two neglected beers, a bag of lemons we never used, and a conch shell July insisted on holding onto. The cooler sloshes at each footfall.
July and Freddy are bickering all ready to start off the group about I don’t know what because I’m not listening. Their familiar and comforting voices overlap, a rhythm that I have come to depend on.
We drop our bags at the entrance of the dorm with our heavy thuds reverberating in the vacant lobby. Their suite is on the top floor of the west wing.
July stretches dramatically, her arms overhead, her shirt riding up to show a strip of sunburned skin. “God, I need caffeine. And gossip. Mostly caffeine, but also gossip."
Freddy grins. “Cafe. Now. Before the line gets long and we are behind some poor soul who ordered triple-shot, half-caff, oat milk monstrosity with extra foam."
We make our way to our usual spot—the small outdoor table hidden beneath the striped awning that’s been ours since the day I arrived. The barista — Emma, a grad student with sleeve tattoos and a nose ring nods as if nothing’s changed. Maybe for her, nothing has. Maybe we’re just another flock of students coming back to the same predictable routine, the same standard orders.
We order the usual. Aiden silently orders his regular Americano, but when Emma inquires if he wants room for cream he just shakes his head. No smile. Just a “quiet thanks” that never quite reaches his eyes.
We drop into our seats, the legs of the chairs rasping across the speckled concrete floor. July immediately pulls out her phone, screen brightness at max despite the cloudy sky.
Freddy leans over her shoulder. "Show me the island pics again. I need visual serotonin.”
July scrolls through her camera roll with skilled efficiency, gasping at a shot of Freddy mid-cannonball, body contorted, face frozen in pure terror-joy. "Look at this idiot. He looks like a drowned cat who's having an existential crisis.”
Freddy grabs the phone, his fingers smudging the screen. "Delete that right now. I'm known for being suave and mysterious, not like that guy—what’s his name?"
Rowan chuckles softly, the sound barely audible over the café's background music—some indie folk song lost-summers. Cian just sips his water, condensation dripping onto the table, eyes following the students who pass with an intensity that makes me think he’s mentally noting potential threats.
Aiden sits beside me but not touching. But here, under the table, his leg is against mine — I can feel his warmth through his denim — and there’s a purposeful inch of space between us. Intentional distance. His phone lies face-down on the table, black and silent.
It hasn’t buzzed since the boat ride. He hasn’t checked it either. That’s unusual, Aiden is glued to his phone. The silence from it seems louder than any notification.
Still scrolling, July’s thumb dances. "Wait a moment. Look at this one. Lydia’s story last night.”
She 𝗍ᥙrᥒs the screen to the middle of the table.
It's a professionally taken carousel post. Lydia in the Upper Territory Park— the gated, manicured green space reserved for the wealthiest families in the city, whose names are on buildings and scholarship funds.
She’s posing on a marble bench that likely costs more than my entire tuition, legs crossed at the ankle, designer bag placed just so next to her, sunset behind her like it was hired to show up on cue.
Freddy snorts, coffee nearly coming out his nose. “She’s so extra. Who even captions like that?”
I touch the moonstone pendant at my throat—the first gift Aiden had given me.The stone is cool against my skin, smooth and grounding. I roll it around between my fingers, finding solace in something tangible. Aiden's phone vibrates a single time - short, sharp, shaking the table. The This sound silences the noise.
He doesn’t turn it over. Doesn’t look.
I keep my voice low, steady. “You gonna check that?”
He exhales through his nose. "Later."
Sounds good. But he doesn’t, I know he won't.
We sit in silence a good sixty seconds. The café hums around us—students laughing about summer internships, trays rattling as they’re piled, somebody’s playlist spilling out of cheap earbuds, it sounds like early Taylor Swift. Normal sounds. Normal college life reestablishing its rhythms.
Except nothing feels normal anymore.
Nothing snaps into place.
July brightens the air. “Okay, enough of Lydia’s psychological warfare bullshit. New topic. Best island memory. Everyone goes. Right now."
Freddy jumps in immediately, thankful to get out of there. “The night we attempted to teach Cian to dance to that absurd reggaeton and he stumbled across. Epic, catastrophic fail.”
Cian actually smirks, a rare break in his usual armor. “You stepped on my foot three times.”
July laughs, head thrown back. “And Freddy singing off-key to your guitar playing? Iconic. I do have video proof. It's my insurance policy."
Freddy rolls his eyes, but he's smiling. “I was trying to harmonize. There’s a difference.”
The talk goes on, but Aiden does not speak. He just takes a sip from his cup of coffee — now cold, likely bitter. He looks down at the table like he’s reading something in the lines of the wood that nobody else can see.
I lean in, my shoulder pressed up against his. “Hey.”
He looks at me. Fakes a small smile that doesn’t make it to his eyes. “I’m good.”
He’s not. I know he’s not.
The island made me learn to read him—the little faces he makes, the quiet moments, the things he doesn’t say.
But I don’t push. Not here. Not now. Not in the collective gaze of the world.
We finish our drinks in a silence that feels increasingly uncomfortable. Bags are carried dragged back toward the dorms, wheels catching on uneven brick. Hugs are exchanged — quick, tight, desperate in their brevity.
July kisses my cheek, whispers "call me later"
Freddy fist-bumps Aiden, says something about gym tomorrow that neither of them means. Rowan gives me a one-armed hug that smells like summer and laundry detergent. Cian just nods, but his eyes say more than words ever could.
Aiden walks me to my dorm building, our steps effortlessly synchronized.
We stop at the door. Above us the hallway light bulb sputters—strobing, hesitant, throwing odd shadows that make his face look like he’s possessed.
He looks at me truly looks, as if he’s committing to memory the features of the person he never wants to lose sight of.
Then he pulls me into his arms. He holds me as if I were the only firm thing in a world that’s rolling under his feet. Like he’s scared I’ll vanish if he relaxes his grip even the littlest bit.
"I'm sorry," he whispers into my hair, his warm breath against my scalp.
"For what?”
"For everything that's coming."
I draw back just enough to see his face."We'll face it together. Like we said."
He kisses me—slow, deep, desperate, tasting of coffee and goodbye. As though he's trying to taste-memorize me before the world takes that away. Before reality sets back in and drags us back to the places we’re meant to be.
When he releases me, his eyes are dark. Storm-colored. “Sleep well.”
“You too.”
He nods but doesn’t promise. Turns, straightens up and starts to walk away, hands in pockets, Hunching shoulders.
I follow him with my eyes as he rounds the corner of the quad, until he is naught but a shadow among shadows.
Then I touch the moonstone again. It's still cool.
Still full of unspoken promises.
And I cannot get rid of this feeling—this I know to my bones certainty that the island was the last place we would ever be truly free together.
That everything that follows is just damage control, tightly managed.
That we left something behind on that beach we’ll never get back.