Ava ducked back under the water, ignoring the sting in her eyes as she looked for Jules. But there was nothing in the murk, just the distant, barely visible light of the FINNA. She called out again, remembering distantly that sound carried better in water, “Jules!”

Water splashed into her throat and sinuses, and she pulled herself back above the surface, coughing it out. Why had she yelled at them? Why had she made them think they needed to save her? That it was Jules’s fault they were both in this predicament? Why couldn’t either of them move beyond the same, stupid patterns of behavior? She was so—

A splash behind her interrupted her spiral, followed by a wild, retching cough. Ava swam as hard as she could toward the sound, to find Jules paddling weakly, still coughing out water. They looked like they might slip back below the surface again at any moment. She reached them just as their head went under and wrapped her arm around Jules’s chest, pulling them back up. Jules coughed out an apology.

“Couldn’t— Sorry, I—”

“It’s okay,” Ava said. “Shh, it’s alright, just try to breathe.”

Jules shook their head. Salt water was dripping out of their hair, down their face, into their tightly shut eyes. “I tried. I swam as far as I could, but I wasn’t—I couldn’t.”

They coughed out a sob. It was an awful sound, lonely and wretched. Ava squeezed her arm tighter around Jules, even though it made it harder to keep them afloat.

“It’s okay,” Ava said.

“We’re going to die out here and it’s my fault,” Jules wailed, their voice breaking in the middle under the salt water’s assault.

Ava shook her head. “It’s not.”

“It is! I always do this, I try and fix things and I make them even worse—”

“Listen to me!” she shouted. “This is not your fault. It’s Tricia’s for sending us. And corporate’s, they’re the ones that cut the FINNA teams in the first place.”

A moment of quiet. Jules’s breathing was beginning to even out. “I guess that’s true,” they said shakily.

“Capitalism,” said Ava.

Jules huffed a laugh. “Yep.”

They were both quiet for a moment. Now that she was no longer alone, Ava felt the panic ebbing out of her. It was an odd feeling. She’d lived with fear and anxiety for so long, and fell into fits of dread and despair over the smallest things. Going to work. Making a dentist appointment. Grocery shopping. The light right after the sun went down, when she realized she’d accomplished almost nothing that day. All normal things that normal people could deal with, and she was never equal to the challenge of them. Catastrophe seemed to lurk around every corner, and she felt constantly out of control.