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 sayingyou, in a wetsuit, probably illegal in several statesfeels... inadvisable. “Science?” I offer.
