CHAPTER 10
Tell Them We Do Not Know
The first argument Rhyven and Olyss had as girlfriends happened in front of thirty-seven strangers and one route board.
It began with a question that sounded simple.
“Do we leave the cars or not?”
The man asking it stood at the edge of the high-shoulder staging area with mud on both knees and a key ring wrapped around his fist. His sedan remained on the low side below the orchard rise, one of eleven vehicles still technically reachable from the narrowing dry segment. Water had not reached it yet.
That distinction was becoming dangerous.
Rhyven looked at the weather update again.
Lowest section potentially lost before midnight.
No exact time.
No guarantee of retrieval.
No clean rule.
People were gathering around the board because everyone wanted one anyway.
“If your vehicle is below the high shoulder and you can leave it without losing essential mobility or medical support,” Rhyven began, “prepare to leave it.”
The man frowned. “Prepare?”
“Yes.”
“So leave it?”
“If we cannot move it before the low section closes.”
“And will you move it?”
Rhyven heard the trap in the sequence. Not manipulation. Human logic under stress. Each conditional answer created another question until uncertainty felt like refusal.
She wanted to end the chain.
“We are prioritizing people over vehicles,” she said. “If your car cannot be moved without delaying people transfer, you leave it.”
The sentence worked.
For six seconds.
Then Olyss said, “That is not the same answer for everyone.”
Rhyven looked at her.
Olyss stood beside the medical table, arms folded against the cold. Her tone was not confrontational. The content was enough.
A woman in the crowd asked, “What does that mean?”
Olyss answered before Rhyven could.
“Some people are using their vehicles as mobility support. Some have medical equipment they cannot carry safely on foot. Some vehicles are already on high ground and do not create the same risk. The decision depends on where you are and what you need.”
The crowd immediately became louder.
“Then who decides?”
“What counts as medical equipment?”
“My husband cannot walk the orchard.”
“Our van has all our clothes.”
“You just said leave the cars.”
Rhyven felt the whole structure loosen.
Not because Olyss was wrong.
Because thirty-seven people had just heard that a simple directive contained exceptions, and exceptions under pressure multiplied faster than explanations.
“One at a time,” Rhyven said.
Nobody became one at a time.
A driver pushed forward with a clipboard. “Route said vehicles below the shoulder are being abandoned.”
“I did not say abandoned.”
“You said leave them.”
“If necessary.”
“Doctor says some don’t have to.”
There it was.
Route says.
Doctor says.
Two authorities where Rhyven had been trying to create one public message.
She turned to Olyss.
“Can we talk privately?”
Olyss looked at the crowd.
“After they know what they are supposed to do.”
The answer hit Rhyven harder than it should have.
“They need one current instruction.”
“They need an honest one.”
Silence spread unevenly through the closest listeners.
Rhyven’s chest tightened.
The disagreement had stopped being about cars.
“I am giving them an honest instruction.”
Olyss’s face changed.
Not anger yet.
Recognition.
“You’re giving them one rule because one rule is easier to communicate.”
“Because one rule is easier to follow before dark.”
“Those are not the same reason.”
The sentence was quiet.
It felt public anyway.
Rhyven saw three residents look between them.
She felt undermined in the old, primitive way: as if authority were a structure and Olyss had removed a support in front of everyone.
Worse, Olyss was touching the exact weakness the floodplain had already exposed.
Rhyven wanted certainty because certainty moved people.
Sometimes she wanted it badly enough to compress difference into rules that looked fair from above.
Knowing that did not make being corrected in public easier.
“We are not doing this here,” Rhyven said.
Olyss went still.
“Doing what?”
“Debating the message in front of the people who need it.”
Olyss’s eyes sharpened. “If the message changes what choices they believe they have, then yes, we are.”
The crowd was fully quiet now.
Rhyven hated that most.
She lowered her voice.
“You could have brought the concern to me first.”
“And while I did that, people would be acting on a rule I thought was too broad.”
“For five minutes.”
“Five minutes can be a long time when someone thinks ’leave your car’ means they are supposed to separate from the equipment that lets them move.”
The words were clinically reasonable.
Rhyven heard accusation anyway.
“I know what mobility dependency means.”
Olyss flinched.
Barely.
Rhyven regretted the sentence before it finished existing.
It sounded like rank.
Not partnership.
Not even useful disagreement.
Olyss’s voice cooled.
“Then say the exceptions out loud.”
Rhyven looked at the crowd.
People were waiting.
The worst possible response now would be to prove who was right.
She forced herself back to the actual problem.
“All right,” she said, louder. “Updated instruction. If your vehicle is below the high shoulder, do not stay with it merely to protect property. If the vehicle is necessary for mobility, carries equipment you need to remain medically or functionally safe, or is already positioned on confirmed high ground, speak with the local lead before leaving it. Everyone else prepares to move as a person, not as a vehicle.”
A resident raised a hand. “What about pets?”
“Animal coordinators handle those links separately. Do not return to a low vehicle for an animal if the animal is already with the support team.”
“Work tools?”
Rhyven hesitated.
“Record them if you cannot carry them. We cannot promise retrieval.”
“Family papers?”
“If they are physically accessible without delaying movement, take them now. If not, record where they are.”
A woman said, “So there is no one answer.”
Rhyven looked at Olyss.
Then back at the woman.
“Correct.”
The word tasted like loss and relief.
The crowd began dividing by actual circumstance.
Not calmly.
But usefully.
Local leads took the mobility cases. Volunteers brought property record cards. Animal coordinators checked names. People with vehicles already on the western side stopped crowding the low-side discussion. The group became smaller because the rule became more specific.
Rhyven should have felt vindicated by the improvement.
She felt angry.
At herself.
At Olyss.
At the fact that both emotions could be true at once.
She waited until the crowd dispersed before saying, “Now can we talk?”
Olyss looked toward Corra.
“I have six minutes.”
“Enough.”
They walked behind the packing shed.
The same place Olyss had kissed her less than an hour earlier.
Rhyven noticed and resented the symbolism.
“You were right about the exception,” she said before Olyss could speak.
Olyss’s jaw tightened. “That is not the whole problem.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Rhyven stared at her.
“You corrected me in front of a crowd after we had already agreed on the principle.”
“We had not agreed on that instruction.”
“Because I was answering a live question.”
“And I heard an answer that would have made at least four people think they were supposed to leave mobility support behind.”
“Then say, ’Rhyven, we need a mobility exception.’”
“In front of them?”
“Yes. Without turning it into a second authority channel.”
Olyss laughed once, sharp.
“You heard second authority because I disagreed with you.”
“I heard second authority because people immediately started saying route says and doctor says.”
“That is a communication problem.”
“Exactly.”
“Not a reason for me to stay silent until you approve the wording.”
Rhyven’s anger flared.
“I did not ask you to stay silent.”
“You asked me to bring concerns privately first. During an active decision.”
“Because public contradiction creates confusion.”
“And public certainty that hides real differences creates harm.”
There.
The argument finally showed its true shape.
Truth versus coherence.
Not honesty versus dishonesty.
Neither woman was defending something foolish.
That made it harder.
Rhyven crossed her arms.
“I am not trying to hide differences.”
“You are trying to compress them until people can move.”
“Yes. That is literally part of my job.”
“And part of mine is noticing who gets crushed by the compression.”
The sentence landed like a slap because it was close enough to truth to wound and broad enough to feel unfair.
Rhyven stepped back.
Olyss saw it immediately.
“That came out wrong.”
“Did it?”
“Yes.”
“You think my planning crushes people?”
“No. I think every general rule has edge cases, and medical work trains me to notice them.”
“Then say that.”
“I just did.”
“After the dramatic version.”
Olyss looked away.
For the first time since they had become girlfriends, affection did not make the disagreement feel safer.
It made the stakes higher.
Rhyven could survive a professional conflict with a colleague.
She did not yet know how to be angry at someone she planned to kiss later without turning the anger into a threat against later.
Olyss seemed to be wrestling with the same unfamiliarity.
“I am angry with you,” she said.
Rhyven’s body tightened.
Olyss saw that too.
“And I am still your girlfriend.”
The sentence was so direct that Rhyven almost laughed.
She did not.
“I am angry with you too,” she said.
“Still your girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
They stood in the wet lane behind the packing shed, angry and committed and unable to fix the work problem by becoming tender.
Rhyven understood suddenly why Olyss had insisted they name anger separately from leaving.
This was the moment the rule was for.
A radio called Olyss.
Corra needed her at the clinic shelter.
Olyss touched the radio but did not answer yet.
“We are not resolved.”
“I know.”
“I need to work.”
“I know.”
“That is not me withdrawing.”
Rhyven swallowed.
“I know.”
Olyss waited until the answer sounded believable.
“Same pace?”
Rhyven almost said no out of anger.
The ritual deserved more respect than that.