Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
My therapist once told me to “find what brings me peace and lean into it.” And it’s great advice, except I’ve chosen marine science, which is like voluntarily signing up to be stressed and underpaid forever. Okay, maybe not forever, but definitely at first.
Sometimes I wonder who I would’ve been if I hadn’t discovered the ocean early and decided, with the kind of certainty most adults don’t achieve, that this was it. That this was the thing I’d orbit for the rest of my life.
Growing up on the Atlantic does one of two things to a person: it makes you loathe the cold and salt and wind so deeply you flee inland and never look back, or it hardwires something briny into your blood.
I’m clearly the latter—every birthday, every break, every moment of unstructured time has to be spent in or near water.
But if you strip away the word ocean and everything related to it, what’s left?
I make a solid grilled cheese, but I’m too easily distracted to be trusted in a kitchen with anything sharper than a butter knife.
I read constantly, the way some people scroll—compulsively, and with minimal regard for social interaction—so maybe I could’ve been a writer.
Except I have no idea what I’d write, and an even worse idea of what parts of my brain should ever be made public.
And kids? I love kids. The way their brains tilt sideways to see things we’ve long forgotten how to notice. Maybe I could’ve been a teacher.
Instead, I chose this field. Benthic systems, behavioral anomalies, and the ongoing challenge of working with species that routinely outperform the expectations of their human observers. And I don’t regret it. Not really.
Yesterday, however, I strongly considered dropping out to launch a grilled-cheese-only food truck.
Damon has refused to repeat the neural miracle that had me spiraling in Holden’s office two weeks ago.
He’s reverted back to his usual arm patterns, his usual attitude, and his usual refusal to perform under pressure.
Which means my experiment has stalled. My data is stale. And peace, once again, is theoretical.
And that is how I end up sitting across from the largest breakfast plate I have ever seen, wondering which of my recent life choices brought me here, while Alana laughs hard enough to develop an entirely new muscle group.
“I didn’t know it would be this big,” I say, staring down at the mountain in front of me: fried rice, scrambled eggs, a beef patty, and what appears to be gravy.
The guy behind the counter called it a classic, said everyone had to try it at least once, and because I apparently left my last functioning brain cell somewhere between baggage claim and the parking lot, I said yes.
“I’ll help you eat it,” Alana says, already reaching for her phone. “But this is too good. Hold it next to your head.”
I do, carefully tilting the plate so the gravy doesn’t slide off while still capturing the full, horrifying scale of the thing. It is, quite literally, the size of my face.
She takes the picture, turns the screen toward me, and we both lose it. Not polite, contained laughter either. The kind that makes people look over from their tables. The kind that has me pressing a hand to my mouth like that has ever once helped.
And honestly? I don’t care.
Spending the day with Alana feels like a perfectly valid use of the free will I’ve spent twenty-something years earning. Thank you very much.
Turns out the breakfast mountain is absurdly good. It takes two of us, and the discreet unbuttoning of my shorts, to summit the whole thing, and I’m still short on vocabulary for how good it is. Alana nods through a blissed-out bite and informs me it’s one of Maya’s favorites, for good reasons.
We pay and head toward the beach, weaving through the usual saturation of tourists.
Finding a free spot on the sand proves nearly impossible.
Waikīkī is stunning, in the way postcards always suggest but never quite capture: crystalline water, palm trees that actually sway, a skyline trimmed in volcanic ridges and souvenir shops.
But it’s so, so busy. People fly in from every continent to sit exactly where we’re trying to position ourselves, and as someone who’s spent most of her life under cloud cover, I can understand why.
Still, it doesn’t make it any easier to find a free patch of beach.
Alana has, at least, made all of this bearable by introducing me to the structured sport of people-watching.
Not just noticing people, apparently. That would be amateur work.
Alana turns strangers into entire case studies.
She gives them names, childhood wounds, failed engagements, unresolved tension with their mothers.
Within thirty seconds, a man buying shave ice becomes a divorced orthodontist named Drew who still sends his ex-wife articles about gut health.
From our newly towel-staked perimeter, we have an uninterrupted view of the boardwalk, the shoreline, and a couple digging side-by-side in the sand like they’re unearthing something valuable.
Alana spots them instantly.
“Okay,” she says. “Look at these two. They were together for four years. Broke up three months ago.”
“Who ended it?”
“She did. She’s moving to the big city. He’s staying in their hometown to coach high school baseball and live with his parents for the foreseeable future.”
I glance over. They’re not talking, but there’s no tension either. Just quiet, synchronized digging. I could picture it.
“So why are they here?” I ask.
“They booked the trip before they broke up,” she says. “Couldn’t get a refund, so they decided to take it anyway. Closure week. One last civil goodbye before the post-breakup blues.”
It’s all made up, obviously, and for all we know they could be siblings. Or coworkers. Or cult members. But I like this version. “Why the digging?”
“Mementos,” she says, immediately. “She’s going to leave the necklace he gave her on their first anniversary. He’s burying the CD she made him last Christmas”
I look at her. “You’re unreasonably good at this.”
She shrugs. “Your turn.” Her gaze sweeps the beach before settling on a blond guy crouched near the rock cap at the far end of the shore, feeding ducks. “That one.”
I study him. Broad-shouldered, wearing a white short-sleeved button-down that’s entirely unbuttoned, and red swim trunks. His hair curls slightly where it hits the tops of his ears, and though his back is to us, I’d bet he’s talking to the ducks.
“Okay. Um. Let’s see.” I tilt my head. There’s something in the way he moves—deliberate, unfazed, extending a hand with the kind of quiet assurance that assumes the birds will come to him.
“He’s actually a prince. From some small European country with a lot of coastline and very little press coverage.
He can’t go anywhere back home without being recognized, so he convinced his father to let him spend a week here, undercover.
Just to know what it feels like to be normal. ”
Alana perks up. “Oh, this is good. Keep going.”
“He meets a girl. At an ABC store, obviously. He’s trying to buy milk but is completely overwhelmed by the fifty-seven variations.”
“You really need to let that go.”
“I will not.” She snorts. “Anyway, she helps him. She doesn’t know who he is, just thinks he’s a little clueless but in a charming way.
She gives him a tour of the island. Takes him hiking up Diamond Head.
” I gesture at the ridge in the distance.
“By the time he has to leave, he’s torn.
Return to his royal duties… or give it all up for the girl who still has no idea who he really is. ”
Alana kicks her feet in approval. “This is peak storytelling.”
We both look back at him. He’s trying to keep up now, ducks swarming his fries like it’s a competition. I still don’t support feeding wildlife, for the record—but when he laughs—loud, easy, completely unconcerned—it carries all the way to us.
It’s unexpectedly disarming.
Just as I resign myself to letting the fake prince narrative die and start digging through my bag for a book, he stands and answers a call.
His voice is low, a little amused, and while I can’t make out the words, there’s something oddly familiar in the sound of it—just enough to pull my attention back.
Then he turns, and it clicks instantly. The teasing edge, the rhythm of his speech—it’s Theo.
He’s standing fully now, laughing at something on the other end of the line, clearly unaware that he’s just dismantled an entire imaginary life I built for him.
Which is fine. What’s less fine is the fact that I now need to look away—immediately.
Because if he glances in our direction, I can’t be caught mid-stare.
I’m not ogling, exactly. But I’m also just a girl, and Theo looks like he wandered off the set of a Baywatch reboot—shirt open, red swim trunks, a hint of tattoos curling just under his ribs.
Seriously. What is this university feeding its marine science TAs?
“Woowee, now that’s a man,” Alana whistles, full of unapologetic appreciation. I’d love to bury her in the sand just for the fact that the sound makes Theo look up in our direction.
His eyes flick wide in recognition, then settle into a boyish grin. He says something into the phone and hangs up before jogging toward us. Great.
I stand, mostly because the kind of humiliation that’s coming deserves an upright witness.
“Coralie!” he calls out just before reaching us, and then—because apparently he does that now—hugs me. Full body. Abs and all. I blink, twice, resisting the urge to dissolve into the sand.
“You’re outside school grounds,” he says, like I’ve been caught where I don’t belong. Yeah? Well, he’s in a whole other country than the one he’s supposed to be governing.
“I have a life beyond academia,” I say, arms crossing on instinct. Both he and Alana raise a brow. Right. I guess it’s debatable.