The pitch of my voice rises slightly—possibly from surprise, possibly from the fresh spike of pain behind my temples. Okay. Maybe he has a point.
We walk to the small tent near the cabins that doubles as the camp’s first-aid station. The concerned murmur of students fades behind me, like background noise swallowed by rising pressure.
I sit on the little chair while Holden explains the incident to the guide—clinical, detailed. His tone is all clipped restraint, every word precisely chosen. Then, without looking at me again, he turns and walks out.
The guide looks me over, pulling out a checklist that includes everything from reaction tests to breathing exercises. At one point I blow into a plastic tube like I’m failing a roadside sobriety test. She checks my blood pressure, pupils, pulse, and expression.
When I insist, for the fifth time, that I’m fine, and her instruments appear to agree, she finally nods and tells me to wait while she steps out to find her colleague.
I swing my feet gently under the chair, the cool air in the tent doing wonders for my pulse. If someone handed me a blanket and told me to nap, I wouldn’t argue.
And then I hear it.
Holden’s voice.
Outside the tent, sharp, unmistakable.
“Do you know how dangerous this could’ve been?”
The words land hard, carved out of ice.
“I—I don’t know what happened, sir. Everything looked okay, and?—”
“Okay?”Holden’s voice cracks into something raw. “One look at the rusted pressure ring should’ve told you it wasn’t safe! You could’ve killed her!”
That last sentence hits like a dropped weight. Not just the words—but how loud they are. How uncharacteristically uncontrolled. Holden, who keeps his emotions filed away like field notes, is suddenly a storm front.
I sit frozen, every muscle in my body reacting to the fury in his voice. He’s never sounded like this. Not when Mateo chased a shark. Not even when Summer yelled at him in front of his office. This is different.
The assistant mutters something—an excuse, maybe. Something about the tank lasting one more dive, that he planned to fix it before tomorrow.
But Holden’s silence now feels even heavier.
Then footsteps. Fast, retreating. And silence.
I sit there for maybe another five minutes, eyelids heavier with each passing second, before the guide returns. She offers a warm smile and tells me I’m good to go—but that I should rest for the remainder of the day.
I nod, thank her sincerely, and step out into the warmair.
Chloe and Emma are the first to rush me, pulling me into a hug, followed closely by the others. There are more questions than I have energy for—Are you okay? What happened? Do you remember everything?—but I give the same answer to all of them:I’m fine.I downplay it, say it was nothing, promise I’ll sleep it off and be better tomorrow.
They nod, reluctantly, but their brows stay drawn as they let me slip past them and back toward the cabins.
When I step inside ours, Holden’s there. Sitting on the bottom bunk, elbows braced against his knees, head cradled in his hands.
He looks up the second the door clicks shut—and then he’s on his feet.
He crosses the small room in a single stride and his hands are on my face, large and warm, tilting my chin up. His fingers are steady but his eyes—those deep, dark eyes I’ve spent too long trying not to memorize—search mine like he’s making sure I’m really here. That I’m breathing. That I’m real.
“You only have two eyes now,” I say softly, smiling.
A joke. A small one. But it’s what I can offer.
He doesn’t smile back.
And I don’t care. Not right now. Not after today. Not after the scariest moment of my life—whether I’m ready to say that out loud or not. His hands on me feel grounding, like an anchor, and I lean into one without thinking.
To my surprise, he lets me.
