I tell them the decision I made—the rules I’m setting for myself. Sanity preservation protocols. Boundaries.
“Have you ever considered he might feel the same way?” Soren asks, sipping her soda.
“Uh, no. He has agirlfriend. And I don’t like jumping to conclusions.”
“Yeah, ‘cause you sprint there,” Maya deadpans.
I smack her with a napkin.
“Plus, if you got your answers from him, what would you spiral about at 3 a.m.?” She adds.
That earns another round of laughter. Even I have to smile. Because the worst part is, they’re not wrong. Not about any of it. And now that I’ve admitted it out loud, the truth is harder to ignore:
I crossed the line from academic admiration to full-blowninterest weeks ago.
And no amount of self-imposed intellectual detachment is walking me back now.
CHAPTER NINE
“Can we eat it?” The little ginger kid—drool clinging to the corner of his mouth—asks for what has to be the third time in five minutes.
“I wouldn’t,” I say, just as I did the last two times, while keeping one eye on the girl beside him who seems suspiciously determined to smuggle a specimen into her Hello Kitty purse.
Little freaks. I love them.
The university’s been planning this outreach event for months—a kind of public science day-slash-charity initiative aimed at getting kids engaged with marine life. When Dr. Kymbert forwarded the volunteer signup, I didn’t hesitate. Between coursework and lab hours, it felt like a low-stakes way to spend a Saturday doing something useful.
Plus, it’s a good idea. Here, kids grow up with the ocean within arm’s reach—swimming in it, surfing it, hearing it outside their bedroom windows. Back in Canada, kids barely registered the Atlantic unless it was throwing a nor’easter at their front doors. Here, the ocean ispart of their lives. That proximity breeds familiarity, but not always awareness. And definitely not always education.
Early this morning, the university set up half a dozen booths across the beach lawn, each focused on a different aspect of marine science. Mine focuses on benthic species—mostly shallow-water invertebrates, the ones kids are most likely to stumble on during tide pool field trips or beach days. The university provided tanks, signage, handling gloves, and a few laminated info cards, but the real interest comes from letting the kids get close. Observe, ask, poke—gently. Ideally, leave with one less reason to be afraid of things that move without bones.
Next to me is a booth where kids paint shell replicas and try to match them to the real thing. Get it right, and they get to toss their painted shell into a shallow return tank with tongs, like tiny marine biologists-in-training. They’ve been running between our two tables all morning like it’s a competitive sport.
Further down, there’s a seaweed booth offering different local varieties to touch and taste—yes, taste. One mom gagged. One kid asked if he could replace lettuce in his burger with limu. Another booth shows off shark teeth from local species, while another offers ocean-themed face painting and temporary tattoos—the cetacean researchist from BIOL 403 is working that one, and she’s aggressively good at dolphin outlines.
At the far end, there’s a ripple tank station that lets kids simulate wave behavior using model surfers and toy boats. They’ve learned that the stronger the wave, the faster they can drown the fake surfer. Chaos. Science. Both thriving.
Theo lifts his head from that last booth and grins when he sees me. He points toward my table, mouthing something I can’t make out from this distance, but his finger isaimed directly at the tank. I didn’t know he’d be here today—or that Holden would, for that matter. But of course he is.
Plenty of students volunteered for this thing, but with booths scattered between the beach and the aquarium lawn—everything from snacks and drinks to Q&A panels and university outreach—they needed all hands on deck. Naturally, the ripple tank station, the only one that leans more towards oceanography than marine bio, drew Holden and Theo in.
Fitting, considering I could’ve sworn I saw a Karen-adjacent mom earlier trying to correct them about how waves break near the shore. I’m guessing she didn’t realize she was debating with the only two PhD candidates here. Bold choice.
I turn to see what Theo’s pointing at, and yep—my food enthusiast is back. The same redheaded boy from earlier now has his face pressed dangerously close to the water’s surface, eyes wide and very much considering whether a live organism might make a good snack.
“Buddy,” I say gently, trying not to laugh, “I know it looks... tasty. But you’re really not going to enjoy it if you bite that.”
He scrunches his nose. “Then why is it blue? It looks like candy.”
He’s pointing at theLinckia—a bright cobalt sea star, striking even in a tank full of weird little wonders. “Good eye,” I say, nodding. “That’s actually because of special pigments—blue ones, obviously, but also some yellow carotenoids mixed in. Not all sea stars are that color, though.”
I step aside, motioning toward a soft pink one nestled in the corner. “See that? Different species. That one’s pink. Some are orange, some brown. They come in all kinds of shapes and colors, and it has more to do with where they live than what they taste like.”
“Yeah,” he says, still practically nose-to-glass. “Still wish I could taste one.”
I laugh—loudly this time—and tap the edge of the table. “You and me both. But I think you’d be happier with a cookie. There’s a snack stand over there. I bet they have candy that’s blueandedible.”
His eyes light up like I just told him he won a prize. He waves at me, then at the sea stars, and sprints off toward the food.
