The worst part is that she was tempted. Sorely tempted. For a few seconds anyway, before the ever-present anger seeped back in.

“I’m not going to make you wander through a bunch of creepy worlds by yourself,” Ava said grumpily. “You can’t even follow foolproof diagrams.”

“That’s why there are instructions.”

“It’s supposed to be intuitive!”

“It’s not intuitive for me!” Jules said. They always lost their patience with Ava eventually, because she could never keep herself from pushing them past their limit. “My brain isn’t wired like that, and I don’t want it to be!”

Why couldn’t Ava keep herself—keep both of them—from getting stuck in these same stupid arguments? “That’s why I’m not going to make you explore some weird alternate universe all alone. I don’t want you running into whatever the hell those things were in that video,” she said, crossing her arms.

“I’d rather face down a whatever-the-hell than constantly hear I’m a screw-up who can’t do obvious, simple tasks,” Jules said. Their tone was quiet but vehement, full of a subdued anger that cut through Ava’s defenses.

“That’s not what I think.” Had she ever said that? She and Jules had said a lot—a lot—of things to each other when they’d broken up, but she’d never …

“It’s what everyone thinks,” Jules said. Their face—normally open, armed with joy and humor—was stony and closed off. “Like doing things my own way is the most ridiculous shit they’ve ever heard of, even though it’s the only way I’ve ever been happy. Nobody says it to my face, but everyone here treats me like it’s a miracle I’ve gotten this far on my own. I’m on my last warning before I get fired. Tricia would probably be thrilled if I didn’t come back.”

Ava wanted to deny it, but remembered how often she’d told Jules this is why we can’t have nice things, in every tone from accusatory to laughing, but most often with that underlying frustration. Jules was so unpredictable, so messy, forever losing or misplacing things, seeming to move in a personal chaos field. It had been thrilling, until it wasn’t, until it felt like an extra weight on her own shaky mental health. But she’d never meant to make it seem like Jules should change for her, or for anyone. Especially this stupid job.

“Tricia is garbage anyway,” Ava said. “So it’s not like her opinion counts for shit.”

Jules looked askance at her. “Let’s just figure out how this thing works.”