“I care!” She wanted to scream it at them, but all she could get out was a hoarse, broken whisper. “Jules, I—”

The truth was she cared too much, about everything, but Jules most of all. She couldn’t stop caring, she felt like she was choking on how much everything mattered so much. It froze her, or burned her up inside, or sometimes both at the same time in an impossibly cruel alchemy. She’d been diagnosed with depression and anxiety, but really, all it seemed to come down to was this: she cared too much, too often, and it left her oversensitized and insufferable. Jules, when they’d first started dating, had distracted her from how dire everything felt all the time. The sex had distracted her, the dates and the cuddling and the romance. For a while, it had distracted her so completely that she’d believed she was cured. Why hadn’t she tried treating her mental health by falling in love with a cute, quirky stranger?

Then she’d started caring about Jules. Jules had been absorbed into the cacophony of competing worries and anxieties. She could see that the way she cared about Jules was making them miserable, and her too, but she’d never been able to just disentangle the different kinds of caring. Especially not with Jules.

Damn it, she was crying. She grabbed tissues out of Ursula’s purse, hoping they weren’t already used as she wiped her face. When her voice was steady enough to speak, she said, “I care. No matter how shit I am at showing it.”

“You’re definitely shit at that,” Jules said bitterly. After a long moment, though, the stiff, angry line of their back relaxed. “But you might be right about some of the other stuff.”

They scrubbed a hand over their face. Ava looked away; she knew Jules hated to cry, hated anyone seeing it even more. When Ava cried, her entire face crumpled, her sobs loud brays that broke through her clenched teeth, but at least she felt better afterward. Jules kept their face as still as a statue, and it never seemed to be the same kind of release for them.

They’d given Ava time to calm down, so it was only fair to return the favor. When Jules looked like they were ready, Ava put the purse over her shoulder. “We should go before we’re stalked and eaten by a sofa or something. Hopefully the next universe won’t try to kill us.”

After a brief hesitation, Jules stood up as well. “You’ve cursed us now.”

“Probably,” she agreed glumly. The FINNA beeped, directing them toward a dirt path that wound its way through the trees.

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR