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I tug on the blanket, and she joins me beneath it. With the blanket draping over her shoulders like a cape, she lowers her head to kiss me, but I hold her there for a moment.

“I hated last night,” I whisper, locking eyes with her, my expression serious.

“Really?” Maya asks, her expression unreadable.

Something shifts. I couldn’t say what, or why, exactly, but something does. Whether it’s chemical, or spiritual, or something else entirely. The spark of bravery I couldn’t ignite earlier today is back. And with a word, it becomes a fireball.

“I’ve changed my mind,” I say.

“About what—” Maya asks, then I pull her the rest of the way down and kiss her.

Her hands find their way beneath my shirt, her long nails dragging lightly against my skin, leaving an invisible tattoo to mark where she’s been. She pulls me in with a sort of desperation, pressing us together until it almost hurts.

I kiss her with a ferocity, tasting her tongue, biting thecushion of her lip. She’s shivering above me, even though it’s a thousand degrees beneath this blanket with our body heat and our sweat and our breaths coming hotter and faster and more urgent by the second.

I’ve never wanted anything like I want her. Nothing could be enough. I could touch every inch of her, taste every surface, and I’d need to start it all over again. An unexpected noise escapes my throat, and she clasps a hand over my mouth. “Someone could hear us,” she whispers, which makes me feel like I might pass out from wanting.

She releases me, and replaces her hand with her mouth, and I change angles so I can press harder against her. Then her hand slides between us, and I think my brain short-circuits for a second.

“Can I?” she asks, and I respond by taking her hand and guiding it down, and nothing matters but this.

Nothing.

Afterward, while we lie awkwardly layered on a bed that wasnotdesigned for two, Maya plays with a longer strand of my hair between her fingertips. “Changed your mind, huh?” she whispers.

“Yes.”

“You gonna elaborate, there, Skye?”

Oh. I’d been hopeful that the last half hour would’ve been self-explanatory. “Sure. I… Hmm.”

“Hmm?”

“Sorry, it’s difficult.”

“No, take your time.”

“I—I mean, you—and… when I…”

“This isn’t casual, is it?” Maya asks for me, and I breathe out a whoosh of air.

“No. I don’t think it is.”

“Oh.” She thinks on this for a while, too long, and I feel a rush of panic. She’s going to say—I don’t even know what I’m afraid she’ll say. Something that will break me somewhere she never would’ve been able to touch if I’d simply kept her at bay. Why couldn’t I keep her at bay?

“Awesome,” she says finally, and I have to replay her word in my mind to understand it properly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Hey, Skye?”

“Yes?”

“Why does your voice sound like that? Is this a bad thing?”

I burrow into her neck, like I can hide from the world there. “It’s not a bad thing. It’s just a little bit earth-shatteringly terrifying.”

“What is?” she asks, her cheek pressing against my hair. “You mean, because the world will find out? Are you worried about hate, or homophobia, or…?”