Chapter 1
Phoebe
Jersey Shore Aquarium, Earth
Sometimes I think the ocean is the only thing that ever really loved me back.
Not this shallow tank of treated saltwater.
Not the squeaky pumps or the endless scent of disinfectant that clings to my clothes.
I mean the real thing—waves that could cradle you or kill you depending on their mood.
I grew up with sand between my toes, chasing seagulls on the Jersey Shore, believing the sea was infinite.
But standing here in an aquarium that sells “Meet the Sea Lion” experiences for ninety-five bucks a ticket? Infinite feels like a lie.
“Good girl,” I murmur, crouching at the edge of the pool.
Aggie—our resident diva sea lion—barks and swishes her whiskers through the water.
She noses at my hip like a dog angling for a treat, and I oblige with a fish.
She deserves better.
They all do.
The official line is that we rehabilitate, conserve, and educate.
And sure, some of it’s true.
The penguins we patched up from an oil spill, the dolphins rescued after entanglement—they’re alive because of us.
But alive isn’t the same as free.
Release is a slow, bureaucratic nightmare.
Approvals, permits, red tape, licenses, recommendations, and even more studies.
And the wild places they’re meant to go back to? They’re shrinking every year.
Plastics, noise, chemicals—half the time I feel like we’re just keeping them alive long enough to die somewhere else.
I stroke Aggie’s wet head, swallowing against the lump in my throat.
“You should be out there,” I whisper. “Chasing fish that don’t come from a bucket.”
She blinks at me with dark, liquid eyes.
As if she understands.
As if she aches the same way I do.
This job is supposed to be safe. Predictable.
Every shift is the same routine.
Feed, clean, smile for the tourists.
But it gnaws at me—the sameness. The pretending.
I can’t fix the ocean from here.
I can barely keep myself from drowning in hopelessness.
“Phoebe!” someone calls from across the exhibit.
A coworker waves, already wrangling the next school group.
I plaster on a smile, give a thumbs-up to the teacher wrangling kids at the glass, and turn back to Aggie.
“Showtime,” I sigh, tossing her another fish.
She barks, obedient, her whiskered face lifting toward the crowd.
They clap like trained seals themselves, delighted by the noise, the trick, the neat little moment of wild served in a concrete bowl.
And my heart splinters all over again.
I lean closer, stroke the slick curve of her head, and whisper so only she can hear.
“One day, girl. One day we’ll get you back where you belong.”
Dark clouds gather outside the skylights, heavy with the promise of rain.
But rain never stops school trips or tourists, not here.
The buses come, the teachers herd, the parents snap photos.
Rain or shine, the show goes on.
I give Aggie the hand signal to slide into the larger pool, where her primary trainer waits with a whistle and a bucket of thawed fish.
She arcs gracefully through the gate, and the kids squeal.
I stay behind, knee-deep in the smaller medical pool with a net and a scoop, left to clean and prep for the next feeding.
The seal encounter soundtrack pipes through hidden speakers, upbeat and oceanic, like a movie about adventure and discovery.
I know every swell of the strings, every canned splash sound effect. I’ve heard it so often it doesn’t register anymore—white noise that fills the silence where my thoughts should be.
The wetsuit pinches under my arms and rides up at my thighs. Sleeveless, unforgiving.
It isn’t made for bodies like mine, not really.
I call myself big-boned when I’m joking, but the truth is I’ve got thick legs, wide hips, and an ass that could stop traffic.
My Irish grandmother’s gift, alive and well on my thirty-three-year-old, five-foot five-inch frame.
Some days I wear my extra curves like armor.
Other days—days like this—it feels like another cage, just like the ones we keep our rescues in.
If I haven’t learned to love this body by now, maybe I never will.
I scrub at the slick edge of the pool, my reflection breaking into ripples with every stroke of the brush.
The smell of fish guts and bleach clings to my skin, and under it all is the sharp sting of helplessness.
I’m supposed to love this.
The ocean, the animals, the work.
And I do, but it feels like loving something through glass—frustrated, one step removed.
Conservation, rehabilitation, education—all just pretty words that keep us from saying the truth.
We’re just buying time while the wild places vanish.
And nothing could chill me to the bone more than that realization.
I turn my gaze to the crowd hidden just behind the huge privacy wall.
If I shift a little to the right, I can see them through a hairline crack—parents balancing cell phones, kids sticky with cotton candy, teachers doing roll call with the voices of the already defeated.
They see fun.
A spectacle.
Something to post online before moving on to the next exhibit.
They don’t see Aggie’s eyes when the pool gate shuts behind her.
They don’t see how she pauses before diving, as if she can feel the invisible bars hemming her in.
They don’t see how wrong it feels, a creature made for endless horizons trapped in a concrete circle.
I see it.
I feel it.
And I can’t do a damn thing to change it.
The ache crawls deeper, heavy as saltwater in my chest.
This—this job—was supposed to be everything. Years of study, long nights, student loans that still hang around my neck like an anchor.
It was supposed to be purpose. My life’s work.
But like so many other things—like the last boyfriend who swore forever and barely lasted a year—it’s been a disappointment.
I don’t have family waiting for me when I clock out.
No parents anymore.
No siblings.
Just a handful of cousins scattered upstate who send the occasional obligatory Christmas card.
My apartment is silent except for the hum of the fridge and the neighbors arguing through thin walls.
Some days it feels like I’ve been misplaced, dropped in the wrong life entirely.
What’s keeping me here?
Habit? Fear?
The thought that this—scrubbing tanks and feeding fish to applause that isn’t even for me—is all I’ll ever deserve?
I tighten my grip on the net, staring at the place where Aggie disappeared beneath the surface.
If only something—someone—would take me away.
Anywhere but here.
I stare at the water for too long.
Minutes blur—time does that here, folding into itself between feedings and flashbulbs—until the pool shivers beneath my hands.
At first, I blame the filter, the old system that always gives us grief. Another maintenance ticket to log, another promise that it will be fixed next quarter.
But something inside me tightens and I jerk back, because this isn’t the ordinary shudder of a pump.
Currents spiral through the pool with intent, not random wobble—an undercurrent that feels planned, like a hand drawing a line in the water.
“What the—”
The rest of the sentence dies in my throat.
The air in the exhibit goes thick, like the room holds its breath for me.
Charged. Heavy.
The fluorescent lights buzz in a tone I’ve never heard before.
And then I see him.