Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next time someone tells me to “be grateful,” I’m putting shrimp in their car’s AC vents. Seriously. Do you know how long it would to get that sort of smell out? Let them sit in that aromatic hellscape and see how quickly their need to force-feed gratitude to everyone dissolves.
And, for the record, I am grateful. Deeply.
For almost everything, all the time. I nearly cried over a sandwich last week.
Not even exaggerating—the lady at the deli somehow found the perfect toast-to-melt ratio, and I thanked her five times, minimum.
I’m the kind of person who writes thank-you notes to professors for feedback I didn’t want to hear.
I’m grateful for being here, at a university I used to dream about like it was a place on the moon.
I’m grateful for the brain in my skull—she’s come a long way since her pea-sized days.
And I’m grateful for the people who keep me tethered to myself.
My parents, who send me blurry but heartfelt sunrise photos from back East. Blythe, who floats in and out of my inbox with advice, memes, and the occasional existential scream.
And my friends—well, they’re a chaotic blessing. Loud, loyal, and exactly what I need.
I’m even grateful for the sting Holden left behind last month when I, in a brief lapse of self-preservation, confronted him in his office.
Because as much as it hurt at the time, the wondering—the hoping—has stopped.
He made the boundaries clear, sharp as glass, and since then, there’s been nothing left to reach for.
And weirdly enough, that clarity has been a relief.
I’ve had more space in my brain for everything else: classes, lab, my thesis, my friends. Life, basically.
He’s tried to talk to me about it since.
Twice. Told me he was sorry for the way he said it.
Told me I had to believe him when he said it was for my own good.
The words came out in that very Holden kind of way—measured, controlled, half-coded.
As if he hoped I’d decode the subtext he couldn’t say out loud.
His face gave almost nothing away, but his eyes were.
.. something else. Alive. Burning. But both times I told him the same thing: he was right, and I was sorry for putting him in that position.
And I meant it. He’s my TA. There are rules.
Boundaries. Lines that aren’t supposed to blur.
As Theo’s best friend and Summer’s ex and the school’s walking brainiac, he’s got enough pressure on him already.
Of course there are things he can’t let himself do.
So yeah, I do regret barging into his office, drenched and spiraling, trying to make sense of a situation I’d built out of fragments and almosts. I wanted an answer. He gave it to me.
Has that made it easier to be around him?
Not even remotely. The tension still hits like a rogue current whenever he walks into a room.
I still can’t help but track the movement of his shoulders, or the way his voice sounds when he says pectoral fin like it’s a line of poetry.
I still think about him more than I should.
But I keep it to myself now. It’s mine. Just a private, harmless ache shared between me, myself, and I. We’ve found a rhythm—clean, professional, efficient. Science questions, science answers. Polite nods in hallways. And, okay, the occasional glance at his biceps when he’s looking the other way.
Progress, not perfection. Right?
So no—today’s shrimp-scented vengeance fantasies have nothing to do with Holden, or school, or this island, or anyone living on it.
They have everything to do with Damon. With the dullness of his skin, the way he barely reacted to the LEGOs I brought, or the PVC pipes I usually can’t pry him out of.
The stillness. The absence of curiosity.
I noticed it the second I walked into the lab this morning for the first time in three days. Something was wrong.
When I asked the guy working near the tank if he’d seen anything off, he barely looked up from his notebook. “Don’t octopuses only live, like, eight months?” Then, as if that should be enough of an answer, he added, “We’re lucky he’s even alive. You should be grateful.”
Grateful.
Well, I’m not. Day octopuses like Damon can live anywhere from twelve to fifteen months, and he’s not even ten. He shouldn’t be fading like this. He shouldn’t be… withdrawing.
So I checked everything. The water quality, his limbs—no injuries. No signs of parasites or trauma. Nothing obvious. And that somehow made it worse.
I told Damon I’d be back, then bolted. Which is why I’m now climbing the stairs to the marine science faculty two at a time, heart pounding in a way that has nothing to do with Holden for once, and everything to do with the small, brilliant, slippery creature that’s come to mean more to me than I ever meant to let happen.
Kai texts back almost instantly, as he tends to even when busy:
On Moku o Lo‘e for data collection, sorryyyyy :-(
I stare at the message, heart sinking. Right. I knew that. He mentioned it earlier this week. I just didn’t connect it to today.
Okay. Fine. If not Kai, then—
I reach Dr. Kymbert’s office, breath catching in my chest, and raise my hand to knock—only to freeze mid-motion.
She’s not here either.
The thought lands like a quiet thud in my stomach. I don’t remember the exact reason—fieldwork or a conference, maybe—but I do recall hearing that her office hours were cut short this week. I’m left standing right here with my hand poised in the air like an idiot.
I exhale and lean my forehead against the cold door. My breath shudders on the way out. I’m not crying. But I could. I really, really could.
Because it’s not just Damon.
It’s what he’s been to me—steadiness, simplicity, presence. When everything else this semester has veered off course, he’s been the one constant in my day. The one creature who never judges, never leaves, never expects me to be anything other than exactly who I am.
And now, something’s wrong with him. Something I don’t know how to fix.
I’ve told people before—Damon is a reminder of what I came here to do. That’s only partially true. He’s also a reminder of what it feels like to be needed by something. To show up every day and have that mean something, even if it’s just to a clever little cephalopod.
It’s not that I expect people—or octopuses—to stay forever.
I’m not na?ve. I grew up by the sea. I know how easily people leave.
I know what it means to watch boats depart from the harbor and return short one crew member.
I know the soft violence of someone saying goodbye without actually saying it.
But Damon has never left. Not when the tank was open. Not when the lab was loud. Not even when I was too tired to talk to him.
He’s always just... stayed.
And I don’t know how to lose something like that without it undoing something essential in me.
I slide down the wall until I’m sitting outside her office, knees pulled to my chest, arms wrapped tight around them like I can physically keep myself from unraveling.
I'm not ready to let go of him. Not yet.
After a few deep breaths, I look to my left, down the hallway, past the gold plaques to the silver ones.
Holden might be here.
He could help. He’s helped before—more times than I can count—with my thesis, with the Damon experiments. He cares about the science, even when it’s tangled up in me. And he’s smart. Always so damn smart. If anyone could figure this out fast, it’s him.
But the last time I knocked on his door like this, I was unraveling.
Nearly crying over hypotheticals. This feels dangerously close to déjà vu: same hallway, same cracked voice, different heartbreak.
Now it’s over a mollusk. Please help me, Holden.
I know I’m a mess again, but this one’s not about you.
Still, for Damon, I’d do it. I’d risk the discomfort. The vulnerability. I’d knock again.
I push off from Dr. Kymbert’s empty door and start toward the far end of the corridor. I’m almost at Holden’s office when a familiar melody stops me in my tracks—Brazil by Declan McKenna, playing softly from the room just ahead.
I recognize it instantly.
That playlist—Maya’s “Surfer California Mascot” mix. She made it for Theo two weeks ago when Alana invited him to come have dinner with us.
Right. Theo’s office is next door. I’ve never gone to him for help—Holden made it pretty clear that marine biology isn’t Theo’s wheelhouse—but right now, the music takes the sharp edge off my nerves. And Theo… Theo feels like a safe place to land.
I shift sideways and knock lightly on his open door.
“Yup! Come in!” he calls out.
I step inside, and his beautiful smile falters the second he sees me. His gaze sweeps over my face, and that familiar frown of his—soft and worried—takes its place.
“Coralie? What’s wrong?”
He stops the music and crosses the room in two long strides. His hand lands gently on my arm, grounding me.
I tilt my head up, meeting his gaze. His dark blue eyes search mine. Something about the quiet care in them makes my chest ache.
“I… I’m sorry to bother you,” I murmur. “Something’s wrong with Damon. The octopus in lab three.”
“I know who Damon is,” he says, already frowning deeper.
“You do?”
“Of course. Holden always—” He cuts himself off, then gives my arm a soft squeeze. “What’s going on?”
“He’s pale. Not interested in anything. He didn’t even touch the LEGO I put in his tank this morning.”
My voice catches at the end. I blink fast. Damn it—I didn’t want to cry over this, but I really might.
Theo doesn’t hesitate. He pulls me into a hug, arms wrapping tight around my shoulders. He rests his chin lightly on the top of my head.
He smells like sunscreen and clean laundry and some kind of citrus soap. The kind of scent that makes you think things will be okay, even when they’re not.
“What’ve you tried?” he asks softly.