“Hilarious,” he says, trying for deadpan, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Look at that. The ocean stripped the scowl right off him.
“I’m going to check them out,” I say, half expecting him to tell me I shouldn’t. Or to give me some rule. Instead, he just nods and dives back under like he trusts me not to get eaten alive.
I leave my snorkel out, take a breath deep enough to stretch my ribs, and fold myself in half, kicking toward the seafloor. Equalize—pinch, blow,pop—then keep descending.
They’re beautiful. Each one maybe four or five feet long, all perfectly still. Unlike many shark species that need to swim constantly to ventilate, white-tips can breathe by buccal pumping—basically gulping water through their mouths while staying still. It's what allows them to rest on the ocean floor, looking unbothered and vaguely judgmental.
I hover a few meters above them, arms tucked in, legs still, watching the gentle rise and fall of their gills. They barely glance my way. I admire the pale tips on their dorsal fins, the lazy flick of a tail, the soft, almost sleepy eyes.
I glance up at Holden, who looks like a silhouette framed by the surface light, arms folded as he floats in place. I pinch my thumb and forefinger together, the universal diver sign forall good, though I’m tempted to throw in a heart sign just to mess with him.
Only when my lungs tighten and my body reminds me I am, unfortunately, not a fish, do I kick my way back toward the light, sending a tiny wave of bubbles in my wake.
I wave goodbye tothe sharks as I go.
The next hour passes in a rhythm that feels suspiciously like bliss. We swim, one of us spots something, I dive down to inspect. Sometimes he follows. Most of the time, he just floats above, arms folded like he’s evaluating a student presentation, even though I know he’s just letting me enjoy it.
At one point, he’s tailed—relentlessly, comically—by a green sea turtle, easily the size of a carry-on suitcase. The animal shadows his every movement, hovering at his side like an old friend who refuses to leave the party.
He does his best to give it room, kicking backward like he’s politely excusing himself from a conversation, but the turtle is persistent.
“New best friend?” I ask after surfacing, laughing.
“Apparently,” he mutters, trying to pivot without smacking it with a fin. “I’m being stalked by a prehistoric Roomba.”
I’m still giggling when something flashes in the water below. It’s fast—too fast to identify—and I immediately dunk my face back under, spinning slowly in place like a satellite scanning for signs of life. Then I see it again—low, fast, sinuous.
“Holden!”
His head snaps toward me, all tension and immediate concern. Then he sees my face—grinning—and groans.
“We really have to work on your urgency scale,” he says, pulling his snorkel free. “You can’t yell my name like that every time you find a cool fish. I almost had a cardiac event.”
“Just look,” I say, swimming closer. “I swear this one’s worth it.”
He gives me a long-suffering look, then dips back under. When he surfaces again, there's a spark in his eye.
“Well, shit,” he says.
“Told you,” I say, smug. “Want to go swim with them?”
“I don’t know,” he hums, already mentally calculating. “They can be territorial, especially if it’s mating season.”
“They’re not males,” I point out. “Those are females. And probably two juveniles. No aggression signs.”
He’s still hesitant. Ever the cautious scientist. But then he gives me a nod. “Alright. Let’s go before I talk myself out of it.”
We dive together, his body cutting through the water with the kind of power and grace that makes it impossible not to notice. Even in the ocean, Holden moves like he’s in control of the entire ecosystem.
Midway between the surface and the rocky seafloor, the sea lions return—four of them—slicing through the water like living boomerangs. Their bodies coil and spin, doubling back to circle us. They’re not cautious like the reef sharks from earlier; they’re bold and unbothered, dipping between our legs and rising like shadows.
One of the pups loops around me, then flips upside down, watching me from beneath like it’s daring me to play. I arch backward into a lazy flip of my own, and the little blur copies me. The mimicry is so deliberate it nearly knocks the breath out of my lungs. I glance toward Holden—who’s watching with something caught between awe and disbelief.
We’re careful, of course. We never reach out. A single touch could imprint a human scent on a pup and cause the mother to reject it. But the sea lions don’t seem to mind the boundaries—they slip between us like we’re just two more curious things in the water.
So instead, we just... dance. Or whatever this weightless, wordless ballet is. Two humans moving as carefully as possible in a space not built for us, trying not to disturbthe magic.
When our lungs start to ache with carbon dioxide, we resurface, both panting and laughing like kids who just got away with something.
