“Comfortable?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Good. You’re learning.”
Kev walks past and gives the cylinder an approving nod. “There you go, babyface. Now you look like a proper recruit.”
“Babyface?”
“It’s that or chinny.”
“Babyface is fine.”
Pippa looks at Kev. “Enough.”
Not sharp. Not angry. Just a line drawn because she has work to do and I have been publicly infantilised enough for one morning.
Kev lifts a hand. “Done.”
He is not done, judging by his face, but he is done for now.
Pippa picks up the mask. “We’ll check the fit. You’re not going under air today, but I want you to understand the process.”
“Right.”
“Mask on. I’ll talk you through it.”
The mask presses against my newly vulnerable face, cool and rubber-edged, and for one brief, unpleasant second I understand why she asked about panic. The world narrows. The air feels different even before anything is attached. Not worse exactly. Just less casual. Less mine.
“Breathe normally,” Pippa says.
“I am.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m attempting normality.”
Her voice stays calm. No teasing now. No audience in it. Just instruction, steady and level.
“Slow in. Slow out. Don’t fight the mask. Let it sit.”
I do.
Not immediately.
She watches me for a few seconds, eyes on my face, not my face in the way I might have liked under almost any other circumstances, but my breathing. My focus. Whether I am about to be stupid.
I am not.
Mostly because she is standing there making stupidity feel both unnecessary and a bit embarrassing.
“Better,” she says.
I nod.
“Good. Mask off.”
I take it off carefully and resist the urge to inhale like I’ve just come up from a deep dive.
