Chapter 4
I have, through no fault of my own except perhaps every choice I’ve made this week, completely forgotten how to behave like a normal person around him.
Holden’s cold one second, warm the next.
He seems to want to help me achieve my academic goals, but can’t stand to be near me in any other capacity.
Which, in retrospect, is probably exactly how a TA should act.
But I, as a student, now friends with his roommate, have absolutely no clue how to behave.
“I never really thanked you for helping me with Damon’s switcheroo,” I say, because when in doubt, default to science.
He gives me none of the unexplained tension he fired at Theo, though his eyes are not exactly soft. “No problem.”
He takes a small step closer, then seems to think better of it and retreats.
“Did you learn anything new?”
“Um, no, not really. He has…” I search for the right words and come up short. “Issues.”
His brow lifts in a silent prompt.
“He hasn’t really been cooperating. He also stole this girl’s phone and drowned it.” Or so Kai told me.
His mouth quirks in the slightest. “Yeah, that I know. To be fair, she shouldn’t have left it so close to the top of the tank.”
I nod. Octopuses are natural kleptomaniacs, and unapologetic about it. Damon, in particular, never resists temptation when it comes to anything rectangular.
Holden sighs, running a hand through his hair before sliding the cap back on—and I hate that it makes something fizz behind my ribs. Then he takes that step forward again. Not tentative. Not hesitant. Just deliberate, like he’s settled something internally.
From this close, I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. His scent hits me first—pine, salt, and whatever cologne he uses that smells like an open window during a storm. Everything sharpens. The air around us contracts.
I could say something. I want to say something. I want to crack open the vault of questions gathering dust inside me and ask: Am I irritating? Do you hate being near me, or am I reading everything wrong? Do you think I’m smart enough, capable enough, worthy of being here?
But I don’t. Because asking him means accepting the answer. And I’m not ready to let someone, anyone, define me. Not when I’ve worked so hard to build myself from scratch.
His chest rises with a slow inhale. His jaw ticks. He’s not touching me. But it feels like he is. Every part of me is aware of every part of him, and it’s infuriating how easily he does this—how proximity alone can undo me.
The tip of his nose is pink from the sun, but his eyes—they’re relentless. Focused. Fully, entirely on me.
“I’m going to do something, okay?” For the first time since meeting him, he looks almost nervous. Unsure.
I nod, and he lifts a hand. Measured. Controlled. Like everything he does. His fingers slide through a strand of hair that’s come loose, pushing it gently behind my ear. The touch is intentional, reverent, like he’s daring me to flinch.
I don’t.
I can’t.
The brush of his fingers against my cheek is fire. When his knuckles graze the side of my neck, I forget how lungs work. My mouth parts. It has to. No one can possibly be a nose-breather through something like this.
And just like that, it’s over. He drops his hand, the warmth vanishing with it, and takes a step back. Then another. Back to safe distances and unreadable expressions.
His eyes search mine, and the fingers of the hand that touched me flex once, twice. Then he opens his mouth, that low rumble I can’t deny liking coming forward.
“Coralie, listen, I think you should know tha—”
Alana strikes again in the most unoriginal plot twist there is, cutting him off and snatching his attention as she and Theo walk back our way. “Alright, girl, if we don’t leave now I’ll spend all of my very few dollars on this boardwalk.”
Theo chuckles, glancing at her and the small bag she’s holding that definitely wasn’t there earlier. I nod, though my mind’s still fogged and my body’s still buzzing from everything that did and didn’t happen.
And then it all moves too quickly. Goodbyes get said, Theo asks Holden where he parked—it’s in the opposite direction from Alana’s car—and just like that, our paths split. Whatever Holden was about to say is now a sentence without an ending, floating somewhere I can’t reach.
He was about to tell me something. I know that. And the problem is, I’m good at knowing things. Great, even. But waiting to find out is where my dignity goes to die. And this? This in-between mess of glances and tension and half-started sentences? It’s uncertainty incarnate.
I wish, just once, I could do the thing where people “find peace and lean into it.” But peace feels like a luxury. And clearly, in or out of the lab, the universe isn’t planning on handing it to me anytime soon.