Not once, I realize, has his face shown even a flicker of emotion. Not annoyance, not interest, not curiosity. Nothing. Like someone forgot to code that part of him in.
“This is Mr. Wilkes,” Dr. Kymbert says, eyes glinting like she knows exactly what effect he’s having on the room. “And through no gracious offer of his own, he’ll be my TA this year.” Her smile toward him is pointed, wry. “The joys of being a PhD candidate include having to put up with me… and you.” There’s a light ripple of laughter as she gestures loosely toward us.
It’s clear I’m not the only one mentally recalibrating. He does not look like a PhD candidate.Mr. Wilkeslooks nothing like the countless students I’ve met throughout my academic career. Or the professors. Or any human person, really, who hasn’t been genetically engineered to make eye contact a high-stakes event.
Frankly, if this is what they used to advertise marine biology, enrollment would be up by 300%.
He steps forward, nodding at Dr. Kymbert with the kind of deference that somehow still looks vaguely annoyed.
“Holden is fine,” he says. “Hi.”
That’s it. Justhi.
Okay, so maybe he’s not exactlywarm, but he’s not cold either—more like… temperature-neutral. Impossible to read. And yet, every part of my nervous system seems to be reading him just fine.
The only sound that follows is Dr. Kymbert’s low chuckle behind him.
He exhales, as if speaking to a group of eager graduate students is the sort of burden no one warned him about. “My research focuses on ocean-atmosphere interactions and coastal storm systems. Probably overlaps with most of your interests. I’ve also had a generous number of things explode in the field, so that qualifies me to help you not do the same.”
At that, one side of his mouth tugs upward—just barely, just enough to short-circuit a few people in the front row.
“I’ll cover lectures when Margaret’s unavailable?—”
I choke.
Not like, politely clear-my-throat choke. Like anactualwheeze, one that earns me an immediate shift of his attention. His brow arches, slow and surgical, in my direction.
He doesn't say anything. Just stares. The whole room holds its breath.
“Sorry,” I manage to cough out, mortified. “Water. Went down wrong.”
Technically true. Also technically a lie. I simply wasn’t prepared for someone to refer to Dr. Kymbert by her first name like it wasn’t a privilege earned over years and years of collaboration.
Holden nods once, moves on. “And I’ll hold office and lab hours weekly. If something’s not working—your data, your equipment, your experimental design—you come to me.”
He raises an eyebrow again—so slight it could be mistaken for a twitch of disinterest—and waits. Like he’s not surprised that no one jumped in with a question, but mildly disappointed we didn’t try.
“As I mentioned,” he says, voice low and precise, “my research centers on cyclogenesis. The atmospheric conditions that allow coastal storms to form, escalate, and—if misjudged—level entire communities.”
He writes the wordSTORMin clean, precise lettering that somehow manages to radiate knowledge. There’s something unsettling about a man that confident with a dry erase marker.
“These systems operate on razor-thin margins,” he continues, sketching out an arrow towardLEVELS OF RISKandMARGIN OF ERROR.“A one-degree temperature differential, a delay in data modeling, and your forecast becomes fiction. And fiction,” he adds, as he caps the marker, sets it aside, and turns to face us again, “doesn’t save lives.”
“And yes,” he adds, gaze steady, “this class will change the way you work. Or it should.”
There’s something so maddeningly self-assured about the way he says it. Not arrogant, exactly. Just certain. Like the math always checks out in his head, and he’s generous enough to let the rest of us try and catch up.
“Don’t mistake this for a lack of understanding in biology. I will understand your theses, that I can guarantee.”
A frown pulls at my eyebrows, because here we go. Sometimes I wonder if male TAs are issued a starter pack that includes two button-downs, a superiority complex, and the phrase ‘actually, what you meant was?—’.
His eyes land on me, and a frown of his own pulls at his face. “Let’sgo around and hear what you’re working on, and why you picked the subject.”
We make it around the room quicker than I thought, which makes sense—there are only so many of us who willingly enrolled in a class designed to dissect failure.
And I’m into it. Every second of it.
One girl near the front, with a highlighter-yellow scrunchie and a beautifully steady voice, is studying the reproductive rates of silky sharks in high-impact fishery zones. She says it like it’s obvious, like she just woke up one day andhadto know why the numbers weren’t lining up.
