A test.
Or a challenge.
Perhaps both.
I looked into the tank, watching the moray’s slow passage through stone and shadow.
“Underwater, the body cannot pretend it does not require limits,” I said. “There is no illusion of infinite choice. Breath becomes measurable. Movement has a cost. Panic is punished immediately, and calm becomes necessary rather than ornamental. That seems honest to me.”
Cove glanced at me. “Yeah,” he said, so quietly I nearly missed it. “That’s… actually kind of exactly it.”
The words entered me with disproportionate force.
I had gotten something right.
Not by manipulation. Not by force. Not by arranging the environment until the desired response became inevitable.
I had understood him, and he had admitted it.
“I learned to swim late,” I said quickly, making his head turn back toward me, a look of surprise on his face.
“You?”
“Yes, me.”
“You live in an aquarium mansion on a cliff overlooking the ocean.”
“Well, that came later.”
“Still. I would’ve thought you were one of those rich kids who got thrown into private swim lessons at age three.”
“I was offered lessons,” I said. “I refused them.”
“Why?”
I considered the question.
There were several answers, each true in a different way.
Because I disliked being instructed by strangers. Because the instructors were loud and imprecise. Because my parents believed competence was a public performance, and I resented giving them another one to display. Because I did not trust water then, not when it touched without permission and wound around the body in ways that could not be negotiated with.
“Because I disliked being watched while learning,” I said finally.
“Oh. So when did you learn?” he asked curiously.
“When I was fourteen. Alone, mostly.”
“That sounds unsafe.”
“It was.”
He gave me a look.
A real one—annoyed, disapproving, and familiar.
“Tobias,” he admonished.
My name in his mouth did something to me I did not understand how to contain.
