Chapter 15 #3
I trail a finger near the edge of the water, careful not to disturb the octopus. “I’ve realized I like knowing things. Or… I need to. I’m only just starting to be okay with not knowing. I guess that includes how Damon’s doing. And how things will end up. And… other stuff.”
Like how you feel about me. But that part doesn’t get a voice.
Holden doesn’t speak, and for a second I think I’ve lost him to thought again—retreating behind his quiet and letting me spin my wheels solo. So I keep talking because, somehow, in his presence, silence makes me more reckless.
“I know you’ll probably tell me to stop talking,” I start. His brows lift in surprise. “But… you’re a good TA. You’re always there for the students, even though—” I hesitate. “Even though you’re going through your own stuff.”
He straightens a little, brows furrowing.
“First of all,” he says, slowly, “no one should ever tell you to stop talking. Not even me. And I’m sorry for ever making you feel like I wanted you to.”
I blink, startled by his memory—and even more so by the sincerity in his voice.
“Second… what do you mean by what I’m going through?”
Heat flares up my neck. There it is. The ramble trap, sprung.
“Um. I might’ve… seen a text on Theo’s phone. Once. The one that said you couldn’t stop thinking about someone.”
He stills. His expression doesn’t give anything away, but I rush to fix it anyway.
“I didn’t mean to look! I promise. I looked away as fast as I could, and it’s none of my business. I just—when Summer showed up at your office like that, it sort of… clicked. And I guess I just wanted to say that even if you’re dealing with your own life, you still show up. For all of us.”
It comes out fast, breathless, messy—the verbal equivalent of tripping and spilling everything at once. I stare at the water, willing a Sally Lightfoot crab to launch itself at my face and save me from this moment.
Holden is quiet again. Too quiet.
But I don’t think it’s silence for the sake of distance. I think it’s the kind he slips into when he’s thinking too hard. The kind right before he says something I’m not ready for.
“I’ve learned more from failed experiments than successful ones. Including Summer, apparently.”
The words are soft, but they land with the weight of something he's been carrying for a while. I turn to him instinctively, watching the profile of his face lit faintly by moonlight, the curve of his jaw taut like he's holding back more.
“I’m not great with people,” he adds, quieter now. “I think… maybe I used to be. But I met Summer after that part of me had already gone quiet. I’ve been trying to find my way back to him ever since.”
He says it without looking at me, like it’s easier to admit hard things to the tide than to another person. I sit very still, absorbing it. Not just the words—those I could’ve guessed—but the honesty, the effort it’s taking for him to give them to me.
“I don’t think you’re that bad,” I murmur. But it’s not what I mean. I meant to say you’re already there, more than you think.
He huffs a dry laugh. “Thanks.”
He glances my way briefly, as if considering something else, then drops it, his gaze returning to the tidepool. The water glimmers faintly between us. I trail my fingers through it, feeling the way the tiny blennies dart away, fearless in their own territory. He watches the motion.
“This isn’t Makapu?u,” he says eventually, “but it’s pretty damn great.”
My chest tightens. “That, it is.”
The Makapu?u tide pools. The ones he said he’d take me to. The ones he later claimed he shouldn’t have brought up. I watch the water instead of him and try to keep the memory from aching.
“Did you get to look at these last time you were here?” I ask, to shift the air between us.
He shakes his head. “No. Never really cared to.”
He doesn't finish the sentence.
“Back then I was still in marine bio. But I focused mostly on cnidarians.”
That catches me off guard. I knew he’d switched from marine biology to oceanography, but cnidarians? Jellyfish and corals? I blink at him like I’m seeing him through a new lens.
“Why did you switch?”
“You’ve asked me that before.”
“You didn’t answer me.”
He exhales, his hand moving idly over a piece of basalt, rough and crumbling under his thumb. His eyes lift, not to me, but to the open sea again.
“At the start of my master’s, I lost my brother.”
The breath leaves my lungs. I blink, hard. A gasp tries to escape, but I press my lips tight, afraid that if I interrupt the moment, it’ll disappear.
“He was five years older. Used to sail all over the world. Basically lived on his boat in his twenties.” His voice is steady, but only just. “That little girl you met during the outreach day—Penny? She’s his.”
The ache that rolls through me is slow and hot. I remember her small fingers gripping mine at the touch tanks, her sweet smile when Holden lifted her onto his shoulders somewhere in the crowd.
“He had her young. Stopped sailing when she was born. But… a few years ago, he wanted to go back out. Said it would be short, easy. I told him the weather didn’t look great.”
He pauses, his jaw tightening.
“He said he’d sailed through worse. And I didn’t push. It wasn’t my field. I didn’t think—” He breaks off with a humorless breath. “The storm hit faster than expected. Took out houses on Maui and O?ahu. He never came back.”
He goes still. All I can hear is the water lapping against the rock and my own heart breaking open.
“Parts of his boat were found weeks later,” he says finally. “Scattered along the shore like driftwood.”
The rock he’s been holding splits in his hand, and he flicks a piece into the dark.
“I know, logically, there was nothing I could’ve done.
He wouldn’t have listened anyway. He was even more stubborn than I am,” he adds, the smallest smile ghosting his mouth.
“But after that... as much as I loved marine biology, I needed to be somewhere else. Somewhere I could do something useful. Predict systems. Prevent damage. Maybe help someone else keep their brother.”
He finally looks at me, like he’s gauging how much he’s just given away.
And I—God—I have nothing eloquent to say. Just this warm ache in my chest that burns to say, you already are useful. You already are helping.