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 itworse.
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 totoday.
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 Idorecall 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 Icould. I really, really could.
Because it’s not just Damon.
It’s what he’sbeento 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 itfeelslike 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 naïve. 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 déjàvu: 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.
