Chapter 15 #2
“If you’re not okay with this arrangement,” he adds, “I’ll figure something else out. I’ll stay in the damaged cabin. Whatever you need.”
“She said it’s not safe.”
“I’ll risk it.”
He stands, and suddenly I have to tilt my head to keep looking at him. He’s close, tall, solid in a way that makes the tiny cabin feel even smaller. But the tension in the room isn’t fear. It’s not discomfort. It’s the weight of knowing exactly how much of him I trust.
“Coralie,” he says, voice low, “tell me whether you’re okay with this or not. I don’t want assumptions. Just the truth. Use the wide range of vocabulary I know you have.”
I swallow. Not because I’m unsure—but because his voice is so gentle. Because he’s being so careful with me.
“I’m okay with this, Holden.”
He nods, once. His right hand twitches, like it wants to do something—reach for me, maybe—but doesn’t.
“Top or bottom bunk?” he asks.
I glance at the rickety wooden frame. “I feel like if you took the top, it’d collapse on me in the night. Which would be… less than ideal.”
That earns a real laugh from him, low and short. “Fair.”
He tosses his bag onto the bottom bunk, then lifts mine easily onto the top. There’s something almost domestic in the way he does it—quiet, smooth, like it’s second nature.
The next twenty minutes pass in silence as we unpack. I keep catching myself glancing his way, half-expecting this strange calm between us to break.
But it doesn’t. Not yet.
Dinner passes in a bit of a blur.
When Holden and I joined the others in the tent, the sun was setting just beyond the water, casting rays of molten orange and soft pink across the surface—only to have them swallowed up by the jagged black lava rocks lining the shore.
It felt unfair, how beautiful it was. Like a trick of light too good to be real.
I might seriously never want to leave this place.
The food was unbelievable. A seafood stew thick with coconut milk, fished near the islands and customary to the region, served with fried plantains and fruit so ripe it tasted like it had been grown just for us.
It’s simple. Fresh. The kind of meal that fills your stomach and then lingers on your tongue for a while after.
Food isn’t the reason I’m here, obviously—but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find some kind of joy in trying something entirely new.
There aren’t many of us—just the seven students, Holden, the two local guides, and a pair of assistants handling food and gear over the week.
Which means that now, with the meal over and most people either engaged in quiet conversations or, in Emma’s case, an intensely competitive game of Uno, there’s space to just.. . be.
Holden’s across the tent talking to one of the guides, probably going over tomorrow’s schedule. His brows are slightly furrowed, focused, but there’s an ease in his shoulders I don’t always get to see. I watch for a beat longer than I should, then slip out of the tent without a word.
I know tomorrow will be hours and hours spent by—or in—the ocean. I know I should wait. Be patient. Conserve the energy I’ll need for the long dives, the transects, the data collection. But the water’s only a short walk away, and honestly? Waiting until tomorrow feels impossible.
On the boat earlier, I spotted dark silhouettes drifting just under the surface—some small, some long, some almost too big to be real.
I could’ve sworn I saw a spotted eagle ray breach once, maybe twice, though the spray from the bow made it hard to be sure.
And now? Now the tide is low, the air is warm, and the entire coastline hums with the promise of something alive and ancient just below the surface.
I can’t sit under canvas lights and pretend the ocean isn’t calling. Not tonight.
I make my way toward the lava rocks, following an uneven path that’s probably not human-made, until I stumble onto the jackpot—a perfect natural formation carved into the shoreline, rimmed with shallow basins and glimmering pools. Tidepools.
It’s a few minutes from the cabins, just far enough to feel like my own private slice of coastline. The lamppost by the campsite barely reaches this far, but it’s enough. That, and the moon—nearly full tonight, casting silver light across the water like it was painted for this exact moment.
Gosh, have I ever mentioned how much I love tidepools?
They’re like nature’s pressure chambers—extreme little ecosystems where only the clever, the tough, and the endlessly adaptable manage to survive. Crashing waves, searing sun, cold nights, predators, still they hold on. They’re not just surviving in the margins. They’re thriving there.
In all honesty, that’s what I find comforting. Even when the ocean pulls away, tidepools cling to what’s left. Even when they’re exposed, cracked open under the sun or salt wind, they adjust. They make do. There’s a quiet lesson in that, I think.
One I haven’t quite learned yet. But maybe I will. Maybe this is the place to start.
I crouch near one of the larger basins, peering into the still water, waiting for it to come alive.
It doesn’t take long. Tiny movements catch my eye—gastropods grazing algae in slow, determined arcs, their bodies gliding like soft punctuation marks over the rock.
Spiny urchins nestle in crevices, unmoving but ever-watchful, while chitons cling like ancient armor along the basalt edges.
In the shallower rim of the pool, a few flickers of movement make me lean closer, hands braced on my knees. Small, darting fish flit from shadow to shadow—four-eyed blennies. My breath catches.
They’re rare even among rare things—fish that breathe air, that “walk” on land with modified pectoral fins. True liminal creatures, adapted to survive between worlds. It feels like a strange kind of poetry to find them here, in the place that inspired Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
I move from pool to pool with a quiet focus until a splash of color stops me—an entire basin crawling with Sally Lightfoot crabs, their shells glowing crimson in the moonlight like molten glass over obsidian.
They scuttle like they’re dancing—quick, precise, uncatchable.
My fingers itch with the urge to touch one, to feel the segmented shell beneath my hand.
I resist, of course.
When one creeps a little too close to my shoe, I slide sideways on the rocks.
“Nope. If I’m not allowed to touch you, you don’t get to touch me either.”
“Who are you talking to?”
I startle so hard I nearly lose my footing. My balance tips forward, then back, and I land flat on my ass with a quiet oof. My first instinct is to check I didn’t crush anything, craning to look around me like a panicked crab myself.
Holden stands a few steps away, hands in his pockets, one side of his face cloaked in shadow.
“The crabs,” I say quickly, as if that explains anything.
He lets out a soft chuckle. “So the animal whispering isn’t limited to the lab.”
I squint, unsure if that’s amusement or judgment in his tone. His face, as usual, doesn’t give much away.
Then his brow furrows, a shift so subtle I almost miss it.
“You’re a little far from camp.”
I glance around. He’s not wrong. I hadn’t realized I’d wandered this far.
“Sorry. You didn’t have to come get me—I was going to head back soon.”
“I can’t exactly let students roam around alone at night.” His voice is quieter now. “Or during the day either, for that matter.”
“Right,” I murmur, and drop my gaze back to the tidepool. I shift to push myself up, ready to fall into step behind him.
But instead, he crouches beside me, balancing easily on the balls of his feet. He dips a fingertip into the edge of the nearest pool, tracing a ripple into its mirrored surface.
“We can stay a little.”
His gaze meets mine then, dark and unreadable in the low light. I blink in surprise, then smile, small and honest. He takes a seat beside me, legs stretching long over the edge of the rock ledge. The tide is still low, the waves whispering far off below us.
For a moment, neither of us says anything. The world hums quietly between us—salt and stone and silence. And in the shallow water, the crabs keep dancing.
The silence doesn’t last long though—something stirs in a crevice closer to the edge. I move toward it instinctively and, behind me, I hear Holden mutter a curse under his breath.
“Coralie, will you—can you just be careful?”
His hand finds the bend of my elbow, gentle but firm. It doesn't stop me from leaning in.
“Oh my god,” I whisper.
Once he’s sure I’m not about to tumble into the Pacific, he releases me and crouches beside me to see what’s caught my attention.
“Wow,” he says. “What species is that?”
I blink at the octopus, barely visible in the shadows, its body a rippling shade of brownish purple. Just behind the mantle—there it is: the distinctive false eye spots.
“It’s a Galápagos reef octopus,” I breathe. “They’re endemic. Only found here.”
It’s smaller than Damon, but breathtaking. Delicate arms tucked tightly, watching us just as carefully as we watch it. I didn’t expect the wave of emotion that crashes into me—the sheer, aching rush of missing my own little mollusk. God, I hope he’s okay.
Holden’s gaze shifts to me the way it always does—like he’s tuning into something unsaid. And, true to form, he doesn’t ask directly. He just starts gently probing, like it’s safer that way.
“What’s special about this one?”
I answer, though I suspect he already knows. “It uses ocelli—fake eyes—to confuse predators. Makes them think they’re dealing with something bigger.”
A little like him, I think. Big, imposing, unreadable. A presence you don’t question. But then he opens his mouth again, and that theory starts to unravel.
“Have you heard from Damon?”
“No. Not since they took him.”
He nods, watching me. I keep my eyes trained on the tidepool, because I don’t trust myself not to cry over a cephalopod in front of him.
“It’s been hard,” I admit. “Not being able to check on him.”