The beachcomber didn’t do anything wrong when she found the earring or when she decided to sell it.

Clark, the pawnshop owner, didn’t do anything wrong when he paid twelve hundred dollars for it.

The rescue center didn’t do anything wrong when they received that money as a donation.

If I ask Rosa to give me the money so I can buy back the earring—it hurts the center.

If I tell Clark that Maya is the rightful owner, he’d be forced to give it back and he’d be out all that money—it hurts him and his business.

I could just tell Maya that I saw her earring at the pawnshop and let her go get it back herself, but the only thing that solves is my avoiding an awkward interaction.

So what do I do?

Mulling it over has given me a headache, and for the first time since I realized the reality of this karmic power of mine, I’m mad at it. Why has the universe woven this complicated web and stuck me in the center?

It’s a conundrum I’ve been deliberating all morning, my brain struggling to find a solution in which no one gets hurt, stretching and straining and running in circles, while my hands have been busy sorting and rinsing bucket after bucket of fish. I didn’t realize until I’d arrived today that Quint wasn’t on the schedule. He doesn’t work until Wednesday, and I have Wednesday off, and I am extremely uncomfortable with how disappointed this has made me.

Quint Erickson.

Who’s made my skin prickle with loathing for so many months. Who’s been the source of fathomless irritation. Who’s made my blood boil with anger. Who I have fantasized about strangling on more than one occasion.

Who isn’t at all what I thought.

It’s a problem, learning that I was wrong about him. Because if I don’t hate him, then suddenly there’s a big open spot where those feeling used to be and … well, that spot seems to be filling up with something else entirely.

Which is its own sort of terrifying. Despite the way we’ve grown comfortable in each other’s presence and the way he’s so quick to smile at me these days (although he smiles easily at everyone, I have to remind myself), despite all that, I don’t think Quint likes me that way. I don’t think he could. We’ve become friends, sort of, which makes me happy, in a way. But sad, too.

Fun-loving, easygoing, obnoxiously charming Quint Erickson—having a thing for Prudence the Prude?

Yeah. Right.

So, maybe it’s a good thing I’ve had the moral ethics of a lost earring to consider all day to keep my mind occupied. To keep it from straying too often toward the topic of Quint. For down that path lies danger.

Finished with my food prep duties, I do a quick wipe-down of the kitchen before hanging up my apron. I start making my way down the corridor, peeking over the walls to check on the patients who haven’t yet been moved out into the yard. Almost half the pens are empty now. The busy season for bringing in newly stranded sea animals has ended and I’m told the center will empty out almost entirely between now and the winter, before breeding season in the spring leads to a slew of new patients. Rosa told me after the release celebration that this is actually a great time of year to be refocusing their efforts on fundraising campaigns and community outreach, when they aren’t quite as slammed.

Technically, with my work done for the day, I could go home. I haven’t been trained to help with the hands-on care of the animals yet, so there isn’t much else I can do. But I take my time, watching a harbor seal snooze on its blanket for a while and a volunteer clean an infected wound on one of the sea turtles. I see how many of the patients I can name without looking at their charts and am surprised to realize I recognize most of them. There are clear giveaways—such as wounds or scars left behind from various traumas and the geometrical markings we shave into their fur to help tell them apart. But there are other things, too. A unique collection of speckles on Junebug’s brow. The tawny coloring of Clover’s back. The way Galileo’s bark sounds like an amused chortle.

Then I come across a sea lion and freeze.

I know him immediately. And—yes—the cloudiness in his eyes is probably a dead giveaway, but I think I’d know him either way.

I check the chart, and there’s the name I gave him, right at the top. Lennon.

“Hey, buddy,” I say, folding my arms on top of the wall that divides us. “How are you doing?”

Lennon lifts his head and then pushes himself up onto all four flippers and waddles closer to me. He looked so tiny on the beach, and I know he’s still significantly underweight compared with a healthy sea lion, but even still, he seems much bigger today. His head, when he has himself pushed up to his full height like this, is nearly to my waist. He nudges his nose forward, right at me, his black whiskers twitch, and—

Oh, I can’t help it. I break down and reach over the wall to give the top of his head a caress. He presses it into my hand.

“Holy schnikeys, you’re soft,” I muse. It’s the first time I’ve touched one of the animals, and while I was aware that they used to be hunted for their fur and turned into luxurious coats, I hadn’t understood why until now. Who wouldn’t want to be wrapped up in something so silky soft? Of course, the thought makes me feel a little bit like Cruella de Vil, but I shrug it off. “Don’t worry. I won’t turn you into a jacket. It never gets cold enough around here anyway.”

Lennon ducks back and, to my amazement, lifts one flipper and gives it a rapid shake.

“No way,” I breathe. “Did you just wave at me?”

He sticks his nose at me again. Laughing, I pet him, with no reservation this time. I’m startled to find my eyes steaming with emotion. “I’m happy to see you, too. You seem to be doing a lot better than you were yesterday.”

My heart feels like a balloon, expanding and swelling until my whole chest is full.

I’ve never really loved an animal. Not even that gerbil.

But wow. I am suddenly, inexplicably smitten with this little big pinniped.

I study him, which I didn’t have the time to do on the beach. His front side has an almost golden hue, while his head and back are darker, like aged bronze. His whiskers are shorter than most of the others I’ve seen, and there’s a collection of white freckles between his eyes. Like the others, he also now sports symbols shaved into his fur—two dashes and an upward pointing arrow. I don’t know what number that is.

The wounds on his body don’t look so bad now that they’ve been cleaned. He might be injured, but he looks worlds better than some of the animals I’ve seen in Quint’s photos.

Plus, he’s gorgeous. The best-looking sea lion I have ever, ever seen.

I make a show of glancing over at the harbor seal in the next enclosure, before leaning down toward Lennon and whispering, “Don’t tell anyone, but you’re my favorite.”

His head bobs up and down a few times, as if this comes as no surprise. Then he starts to flipper his way around his little cubicle, inspecting the blanket in the corner, the drain, the small tub of water. He strikes me as extra precocious and I know he won’t be in here for long. In no time, he’ll be out in the yard, making friends with the other animals.

I sigh.

During my first days at the center, I was sure that the hardest part of working here would be dealing with the reek of dead fish that permeated the air, the walls, and—by the end of the day—my clothes and hair. But that’s not the worst part at all.

Trying not to form bonds with the animals is far, far more difficult. At least, it is now. Funny how it didn’t really strike me as anything too terrible when they were just a bunch of strangers from the ocean. It was kind of like going to the zoo every day. You might stop and watch your favorite animal for a few minutes, but pretty soon you get bored and head off to find a pretzel.

But this isn’t like that at all. With Lennon, I’m attached.

Don’t talk to the animals, they tell us. Don’t play with them. Try to avoid even making eye contact with them if you can. They can’t become reliant on people. They can’t become dependent.

But despite knowing this, despite the importance that everyone puts on this rule, I feel a spark of defiance behind my sternum.

Stepping back from the wall, I glance up and down the corridor. It’s lunchtime. Most of the volunteers have gone on their break. Rosa and Shauna are around somewhere, and probably Dr. Jindal, too, but I haven’t seen any of them all day.

Sure that the floor is empty—of humans, at least—I reach down and unhook the latch on the gate. It squeaks a little as I pull it open.

Lennon barks excitedly when I step inside.

I shush him, holding my hands in what I hope might be a calming motion. He immediately waddles forward and tries to nip at one of my fingers.

“Hey, none of that,” I say, pulling my hands away. “I don’t have any fish for you.”

Although he no doubt can smell it on my fingers.

“I’m sorry. I should have brought you a snack. Next time, okay?”

I close the gate behind me and latch it. The tiled floor has small puddles of water from Lennon’s earlier washing, but I ignore them. Planting my back against the wall, I slide down to sit beside him.

He mimics me, turning so that his back end is against the wall. I laugh again. This guy could be in a circus. Maybe I should break him out of here and we could become a famous performance duo. I’ll karaoke Beatles songs and teach him tricks. We’d be a hit!

“If only you were a walrus,” I say, stroking the back of his neck. Then, amused with my own wit, I whisper, “Coo-coo-ca-choo.”

With my hand resting on his back, I lean my head against the wall. Immediately my thoughts return to the two topics that have occupied my thoughts all day.

The earring.

And Quint.

I don’t want to think of either of them.

“So, I’m meeting my friend Ari down at our favorite restaurant tomorrow night,” I say. “Jude might join us, too. That’s my brother. You met them both, remember? Anyway, we’re going to this place we like called Encanto. They make a killer seafood stew. You’d dig it. Hey, I wonder if that karaoke lady will be there again?”