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“Yes, but we are living infinity as we speak. Today, we are revisiting where our infinities began.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Francesca says. “That literally means nothing. You’re making it up.”

“The beginning of the ouroboros,” Gwendolyn says over her, “in your case, was the day you and Jordy met.”

“It’s like the universe,” Francesca whispers fiercely to me, Kim, and Lauren. “Like time itself. It never had a beginning; it couldn’t have.”

“The beginning was the big bang,” Lauren whispers back.

“But what caused the big bang?” Francesca presses. “If there were particles to collide, there wassomething.So, time existed already.”

Lauren and Kim look distinctly green at the thought. In their defense, it’s quite early in the day to be pondering the sweeping vastness of the universe against the insignificant speck of our existence, nestled somewhere between never and forever, to be ultimately forgotten in the whisper of time. We’ve onlyjustfinished lunch.

“You’re recounting how you met,” Gwendolyn almost shouts. “We can’t wait to hear all your marvelous fables.”

“You want us to lie?” Maya asks from her spot a few feet away, where she’s lounging on her own blanket with Perrie. Francesca breaks into a sudden coughing fit that sounds suspiciously like laughter.

Gwendolyn looks confused. “What? No. Fables. Like your stories. Your tales.”

“I don’t think—” Maya starts, but Gwendolyn cuts her off.

“And let’s get started!” She claps, and the crew springs into motion.

Immediately, Isaac heads to Maya. “You two are up first,” he says, looking between her and me.

He leads us to a tree with a stone bench beneath it. The camera crew is finishing their setup, surrounding the bench with softboxes, reflectors, and microphones.

It looks as though Maya’s recovered from her hangover, more or less. She’s perky, vibrant, and studying me venomously with renewed vigor. It’s quite amazing what some water and food can do for a girl’s constitution.

“Okay, Skye, let’s film you first,” Isaac says. Several crew members rush in to help me sit on the bench—because apparently that’s less intuitive than you’d think—and, when I’m perfectly lit and sitting at an angle that twists my back but makes my nose look “much straighter” (according to Isaac, anyway), Jordy locks eyes with me and approaches to sit by my side.

“Hey,” he whispers. “You look great.”

I’m wearing a faded flannel shirt that seemed much nicer two months ago when I packed it, over a cropped cami. I’m fairly sure it wasnotwhat Gwendolyn had in mind when she asked us to dress “casually gorgeous” today, but that’s on her for giving us such a subjective direction, as far as I’m concerned. But still, the compliment makes me relax into a grudging smile.

“Okay,” Isaac says, stepping forward. “Jordy, you know the drill. Skye, what we’re gonna do is, I’m gonna ask you some questions, and you just answer them by including the question in your answer. So, if I say what’s your favorite color, you say, ‘My favorite color is blue.’ Got it?”

“Got it,” I say. “Although, does it matter that my favorite color is peach?”

“Not as much as you’d hope,” Isaac says with a sweet smile, before he straightens and steps back behind the camera’s line of sight, beside Gwendolyn. “Okay, here we go. So, Skye, when did Jordy and you meet?”

“I met Jordy October twenty-ninth, the year before last.”

Isaac starts, then laughs. “But who’s counting?”

Jordy bumps his shoulder against mine, giving me a fond smile. I fumble, my cheeks heating. “I’m not… it’s not like that. It’s easy to remember because it was right before Halloween. It was a Halloween party.”

“So, you met at a Halloween party? Tell us about that.”

I clear my throat. Wait, what if I cough on camera, and they keep it in, and I end up immortalized forever, red-faced and spluttering?Don’t cough, don’t cough, don’t—“Jordy had just come to town, and he didn’t know an awful lot of people, but he knew a friend of mine. So, during the party, this guy I’ve never seen before suddenly starts standing with our group, and he’s dressed like a celebrity’s corpse.”

“I was a zombie Nicholas Thibault!” Jordy says indignantly. “Because he was in all those horror movies when he was alive? It was ironic.”

“No, trust me, I get the joke, Jordy. It was justsuchpoor taste, and he’djustpassed away. Anyway, I was absolutely not going to speak to him because of the costume, but our mutual friend disappeared, and Jordy was all alone. I felt bad for him, so I let him talk to me—”

“Very generous,” Jordy adds.

“You were areal person’s corpse,Jordy. And I told him I hated his costume, so he found someone with a mad scientist coat, andpaid himto take it so he could put it over the outfit, then he wiped off all the makeup, and I realized he was actually good-looking. I have a weakness for uniforms, though, so that could’ve come into play.”