Rebuilding What We Left Behind

CHAPTER THREE

Nova’s POV

The music hit me first when I stepped back inside. Too loud. Too bright. Like the world hadn’t just tilted slightly off its axis on that balcony.

I didn’t look at Malakai. I couldn’t. Not after the way his voice had softened when he said my name. Not after the silence that felt heavier than conversation.

I scanned the room until I found Kayla. She was already watching me. Of course she was. Her expression shifted the second our eyes met, subtle but knowing.

“You okay?” she asked as I approached, her voice casual enough that no one else would notice the concern underneath.

“Yeah,” I lied automatically. Then softer, “Can we go?”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “Already?”

I nodded. “I’m tired.” Another lie. Or maybe not. Emotional exhaustion counted.

Kayla studied me for a beat too long, then glanced past me. I didn’t have to turn to know who she was looking at.

“Okay,” she said gently. “Let me grab my bag.”

I exhaled, relieved. I didn’t trust myself to stay. Not when every room felt smaller with him in it.

Leigh appeared beside us before we could make it two steps toward the door. “You’re leaving?” she asked, pouting slightly. “You just got here.”

Guilt pricked at me. She looked happy. Glowing. Unaware.

“I’ve got an early morning,” I said, forcing a smile. “And jet lag sympathy by association.”

“She laughed and pulled me into a quick hug. “Fine. But you’re coming over tomorrow. I refuse to let you disappear again.”

“Deal,” I said. My voice felt steadier than I felt.

As we pulled apart, I made the mistake of glancing up.

Malakai was watching. Not obviously. Not in a way anyone else would notice. But I knew him. I knew that stillness. That unreadable expression that meant his thoughts were anything but calm.

For half a second, I thought he might walk over. Say something. Stop me.

He didn’t.

He just held my gaze.

And somehow that was worse.

Kayla touched my arm. “Ready?”

I nodded quickly and turned toward the door before I could change my mind. The cool night air hit again as we stepped outside, but this time it didn’t calm me. It only sharpened everything.

We walked in silence for a moment toward the car. Then Kayla unlocked it and slid into the driver’s seat. I buckled in, staring straight ahead.

She didn’t start the engine immediately.

“You want to tell me what happened out there?” she asked quietly.

“Nothing happened.”

Kayla hummed. “That’s not what I asked.”

I swallowed. The balcony replayed in my mind—the way he’d said my name, the way the space between us had felt dangerously thin.

“I can’t do this again,” I whispered, more to myself than to her.

“Do what?”

“Feel like this.”

Kayla finally started the car. “Then don’t.”

I let out a shaky breath. “It’s not that simple.”

“It never is,” she said softly. “But leaving was a good start.”

I watched the party house shrink in the side mirror as we drove away. Somewhere inside, Leigh was probably laughing. Malakai was probably pretending he wasn’t thinking about me.

And I was sitting here, running before something crossed a line I wasn’t ready to face.

The problem was…

Leaving didn’t feel like freedom.

It felt like postponing something inevitable.

Back in our apartment, the city lights spilled through the blinds, painting stripes across the walls and the bed where I finally collapsed. Kayla had left me to my own thoughts after tucking me in with a tired smile, muttering something about ordering food in the morning. I stared at the ceiling, tracing the lines of shadows, replaying the party over and over in my mind—the way the music thumped, the way everyone laughed too loudly, and the way I had tried so hard to disappear from it all. But I couldn’t escape him. Malakai. The way he had watched me from the balcony, the subtle tilt of his head, the way he didn’t speak until I had stepped into his. He wasn’t the boy I had left behind two years ago. The easy smile, the playful teasing, the quiet patience—it was still there, but beneath it was something sharper. Tension. Coiled wire. Controlled resentment. I thought back to the one other time I had seen him recently, weeks before the party, in our apartment lobby. He had been there to pick up Leigh, and the air had shifted in that brief instant we locked eyes. A few seconds of words, a forced casual hello, but my chest had thumped like I’d run a marathon. I had caught glimpses of that restraint even then, the same quiet anger simmering under his calm, the same weight I hadn’t been able to name. And lying here now, I realized how much had changed in him—the subtle measuring in his gaze, the pauses in his speech, the way he didn’t step back like he used to. He still cared, maybe, but he was no longer just the boy I remembered. He was someone sharper, more wary, someone carrying a quiet resentment that I had helped shape, and maybe even anger that I had walked away once and returned only to stand across from him again. My chest ached with it all, the thrill, the fear, and the undeniable awareness that I wasn’t ready for the gravity of this Malakai.