Because I hadn’t left.
I had stayed.
Not because what he did was okay. It wasn’t. It had been invasive and frightening and so unbelievably strange that I still hadn’t fully processed it.
But because Tobias was Tobias.
Which was not a defense. It was barely an explanation.
“Well, for the record, I’m glad you did stay. We both are.”
And for those first few days afterward, Tobias gave me space.
He stayed mostly out of the aquarium wing unless I asked him something directly. He didn’t linger in my office. He didn’t appear at lunch unless Ben was there too. When we spoke, he kept more distance between us than usual.
It should have been comforting, and it was. Sorta.
But it also made me feel weirdly hollow.
Which was annoying, because I had no right to miss the intensity of someone who had just massively overstepped a boundary.
And yet, I still ended up wondering when he’d start coming by again to talk. And by talking, I mean me over-explaining things he already knew, while he stands there and nods along.
I was ridiculous.
That was the only reasonable explanation.
Still, once I noticed the hollow feeling, it became harder to ignore. It wasn’t that I wanted him hovering. I didn’t—or I didn’t think I did. Having space after what happened had been necessary, and a large part of me appreciated that he understood that enough to give it without making me beg for it.
But Tobias had a way of making his attention feel like weather.
At first, it had been overwhelming, too direct and too difficult to stand under for long. With time, I’d adjusted to it. I’d learned how to move beneath it.
And then, when he withdrew it, the whole house felt colder.
The first time I sought him out, I almost turned around three separate times.
I’d been working on the ghost shark’s feeding schedule, which was a legitimate reason to speak with him because her appetite had shifted with the new lighting gradient and I wanted to know whether he had noticed similar patterns before I started changing anything too dramatically.
That was the excuse, anyway.
The truth was that I missed having him beside me.
Which was embarrassing enough that I refused to phrase it that way even inside my own head.
I found him in the smaller observation room off the deepwater corridor, reviewing something on his phone while the low blue light of the tank moved over his face. He looked up the moment I appeared in the doorway, his expression tightening with a kind of restraint I had started to recognize.
He was trying not to do too much.
It made my heart ache inexplicably.
“Do you have a minute?” I asked.
“Yes, of course.”
Swallowing down my nerves, I stepped inside, clutching my tablet to my chest like a shield. “I wanted to ask about the ghost shark. Her feeding response has changed since we adjusted the lighting.”
His attention sharpened, but he did not move closer. “How has it changed?”
