"what did you do today?" like the island itself was asking, and the words that came out… strangers even to me. marine biology stuff, yeah, but also… i helped a little girl find her seashell collection after the tide came in, the one she’d been working on all , and the way she said thank you felt like something that had been missing got put back. it's weird, right, how the smallest things can sometimes feel like the whole damn point, like that’s what i was supposed to be doing all along.