Chapter 8 #2
Eventually, he stands and moves to the whiteboard. He picks up a marker, flips it between his fingers with quiet control, then begins.
“One thing that’s gotten me this far? I only believe in two absolute truths,” he says. “One: everything is made of atoms. Two: humanity will never agree unanimously on one thing.”
He writes them out in clean, narrow lettering. His handwriting is absurdly neat and I catch myself wondering if he ever writes messily. If anything about him is allowed to be uncontained.
“Everything else,” he continues, “is negotiable. Including how we solve problems in the field. Disagreement isn’t an obstacle—it’s the mechanism.”
He scans the room again, and this time, his eyes catch on mine. Not long enough to mean anything. Just long enough to feel like it might.
“In fact,” he adds, “if you find yourself agreeing with everyone around you, you’re probably not asking the right questions.”
Jolly. Cast him as the grinch, pronto. Leave it to Holden to make radical nonconformity sound like a departmental policy.
Still, I can’t deny the pull of it. There’s something about the way his mind works—ruthless, exacting, always two steps ahead—that makes me want to follow just to see where it goes.
Even if I’m not sure he wants anyone close enough to find out.
He spends the rest of the class walking us through worst-case field scenarios—diver down, gear failure, boat adrift.
Every situation escalates like a slow-boil disaster movie, and he forces us to think our way out.
No guesswork. No hypotheticals without logic.
It’s like sparring with someone who makes every sentence feel like a thesis defense—tight, surgical, impossible to argue with.
It’s maddening.
It’s also—unfortunately—maybe a little bit hot. Which feels like a betrayal of both my feminist ideals and my lifelong fear of being confidently, publicly wrong.
“I think you should go after them. I mean, save them,” a guy says when the next scenario comes up: diver disoriented, losing buoyancy, time-sensitive conditions.
A girl a few rows back speaks up. “If they’re alert and able to signal, you go for the sample. Do the job, circle back. Otherwise the dive’s wasted.”
Someone mutters, “Damn. Cold.”
Holden tilts his head toward her. “You think that’s the right call?”
She nods, steady. “We train for this. Minimize net damage. Coral loss is permanent. A manageable injury doesn’t outweigh the long-term ecological cost.”
He nods once, slowly. “That’s utilitarian logic. Sometimes, it works. Depends on the diver’s condition, the sample’s value, the team's capability.”
Then he steps forward, tone tightening.
“But here’s the rule. You do not compromise your own safety. You do not try to be a hero. You do not—ever—escalate a crisis by overestimating your role.”
It isn’t loud, but it hits exactly where it’s meant to.
“If you lose comms and get pulled by the current, that’s two lives at risk. If the site’s damaged in the process, that’s three consequences, not one. You assess. You act. But you don’t become the next emergency.”
Someone raises a hand. “So… you’d leave them?”
Holden pauses. Then answers, calm and final:
“If I believed I couldn’t get them out without risking both of us? Yes.”
The words land like an anchor.
And I believe him.
It’s the kind of answer that makes sense in the field manual. Rational. Efficient. The way you survive the impossible. And yet—I wonder. Quietly, irrationally—what he’d do if the diver wasn’t just a teammate.
What if it was someone he couldn’t bear to lose?
The lecture wraps, and the room disperses in slow waves—some students still debating the ethics of hypothetical disasters, others drifting toward Holden with questions, or maybe just excuses to linger. I fall into the latter group, despite myself.
We haven’t spoken since the other day and, while I can appreciate the irony of two allegedly brilliant minds derailed by a single, unspoken sentence, I’d like to believe we can settle back into some version of normal. Whatever that is.
I wait while a girl corners him with what I can only assume is a question wrapped in a crush, judging by the hair twirl and proximity. He catches my eye over her shoulder—just for a second—before returning his focus to her. A few exchanges later, she thanks him with a wink and walks off.
He doesn’t watch her leave.
He’s sitting back in the desk chair now, arms folded, eyes already on me. There’s something in his expression—measured, maybe a little unreadable—but definitely not indifferent.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hi.”
Flawless. Truly masters of communication.
“You did good. I mean—” I gesture vaguely around us. “It was a solid lecture.”
His mouth quirks slightly. “Thank you.” He tilts his head. “What had you spaced out earlier?”
I freeze. Because saying you, in a wetsuit, probably illegal in several states feels... inadvisable. “Science?” I offer.
He huffs out a quiet laugh. “Naturally. Did you have a question?”
Not one that makes any sense out loud. But I nod anyway, buying myself time. “I was wondering if you could give me Theo’s number.”
He frowns, leaning forward slightly. Despite him sitting and me standing, we’re perfectly eye-level.
“Why do you need Theo’s number?” he asks, and his voice drops into that lower register that feels borderline unfair.
“Well, um... he said he’d take me to the Makapu?u tide pools. I have some free time later this week and thought I’d reach out.” I bite my lower lip, immediately regretting it when his gaze flicks to my mouth. “I don’t know his office hours. Otherwise I’d just stop by.”
His expression shifts—just slightly. Surprise, maybe. Or something else. He stays quiet long enough for me to fill the silence with self-doubt.
When he speaks again, his voice is stripped of humor. “Coralie, Theo’s brilliant, but marine fauna isn’t his field.”
I blink. “I know that.”
His eyes stay locked on mine. “If someone’s taking you to the tide pools near my house, it’ll be me.”
Heat floods my neck like a switch got thrown. “What?”
“If it’s Theo you want, I’ll give you his number.” His voice is steady—neutral, almost—but the air between us has compressed into something sharp. “But I wouldn’t be thrilled about it.”
He unfolds his arms, leans forward slightly, elbows on his knees. “If you just need someone to bring you there—someone who’ll watch out for rogue waves or stay while you explore—I’ll take you.”
The silence between us stretches, and I have no idea how to fill it because he isn’t blinking and my heart is no longer obeying basic rhythm.
This is how I know I did not, in fact, think this through. I could’ve asked Alana to bring me. I could’ve just taken the bus.
“I—” There goes the speech center of my brain again. “Okay. Thank you.”
He nods, unreadable again. But his gaze lingers, like he’s waiting for something else. When it doesn’t come, he leans back. I grab my bag with what I hope is a neutral expression and make a polite, hasty retreat up the steps and out of the hall.
The air outside doesn’t help. My insides feel like magma—dense and volatile—and right now, the only thing I’m clear on is that I need distance. From him. From that voice. From the idea that he might care.