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“No. No, I want the world to know, if anything. I’d tell them today if I could. It’s just that I’m not used to this.”

“Because I’m a girl?”

“No.Because you’re you. I don’t…dothis. I don’t let things get this far. I didn’t even mean to this time. You’re just different, and I don’t know how to navigate that, and I’m scared of what it might mean.”

When I peek up at her, she’s staring at me with an intense, searching expression. “What could it mean?”

My heart rate speeds up uncomfortably at this. “I don’t know.”

She considers this, and drops her hand to run a finger down the back of my neck, sending me into a full-body shiver. “Do you trust me?”

How to answer a question like that? “More than I want to. More than I usually trust people.”

“But not totally?”

“Well… I wouldn’t say it like that.”

“What would you say?”

“I would say that we’re in an extremely strange situation, and things are complicated. And we don’t have a clue what’s going to happen in the finale, or when we have to say goodbye, or what life is going to look like after that. I suppose I’m in an in-between place. I don’t want us to be nothing, because you’re not nothing. You’re a lot. You’re a surprisingly large fraction of everything.”

“But?”

“But,I don’t know how to begin defining us.”

“Can I kick us off? We’re Maya and Skye. We fit together like we were made that way on purpose. How’s that for a definition?”

“It’s not a definition at all, it’s more of a description.”

“How is that different?”

“Besides,” I press on, “I just don’t feel comfortable defining us until we have all the variables. Everything’s too vague right now.”

“I care about you. You care about me. What else do you need to know?”

“A lot.”

Maya pauses. “Okay. Is this your way of saying you don’t want things to ever be official?”

“No. It’s my way of saying I have very, very strong feelings for you, and I’d like to discuss what we are once we know who’s going to be where, and when, and what the fallout of the finale is. That’s it. Don’t read into it, please?”

Maya’s laugh comes out as more of a snuffle against myhead. “Fine. So, we hold off on the definitions for a week, until you have all the variables? Does that mean we can still see each other?”

“Of course.”

“Does it mean we can still talk about our feelings?”

“I have no issue with that.”

“Then it’s great by me. No one’s anyone’s girlfriend, for now. We are just us. Hanging out, being awesome, planning Jordy’s downfall. Hot girl shit.”

I snort against her neck, and she shrieks with laughter, squirming in place.

“I can’t wait until we never have to talk about Jordy again,” I say.

“Ha,” Maya says. “A life without Jordy. Sounds like paradise. I can’t even imagine it.”

Yes. Well.