I considered calling Rachel.
Not for help.
Just so she could hear the exact sound of consequences arriving.
Eventually, I emerged victorious, though not dignified.
Ellie was adjusting a regulator on the counter.
She looked up.
Her face did something quick before she controlled it.
Not recognition.
Not awe.
Just appreciation.
Simple. Warm. Entirely inconvenient.
“Look at you,” she said.
“As a diver?”
“As someone who entered a wetsuit and survived.”
“I had doubts.”
“Everyone does.”
Her eyes moved over me once more, slower this time.
The wetsuit suddenly seemed much tighter.
Hank cleared his throat from behind the counter.
Ellie turned away.
“Come here,” she said. “Let’s get you suited up.”
I crossed the shop.
She picked up a buoyancy vest and held it open.
“Arms through.”
I obeyed.
Ellie stepped behind me and pulled the vest into place. Her fingers brushed my shoulders, brisk and careful, then moved to the straps at my sides.
This was normal.
Equipment.
Safety.
An entirely professional situation that did not require my pulse to behave like I had just walked onstage before twenty thousand people.
