After two weeks. No way. No fucking way.

And yet, by the time Eve finished in the office, carried herself back to her bedroom, and put on the aforementioned fluffy pajamas, that soft-but-strong emotion hadn’t gone away.

It wasn’t that the idea of loving Jacob bothered her. Actually, when she thought about it, she caught herself grinning so hard her cheeks ached and her eyes squinted and her ears sort of popped, and she felt a bit loopy, like she could fall back against the bed with a film-worthy sigh and do nothing but moon over his very excellent qualities for the next nine hundred hours.

But there was also a part of her, small but loud and rather fierce, that insisted she be reasonable. Rational. Adult. She couldn’t possibly be in love with Jacob already. It was silly. It was reckless. It was the very definition of immature, absolute evidence that she was making bad choices yet again—only, when she tried to think of Jacob as a mistake, she came up against an impenetrable wall in her mind that cut off such a sacrilegious path completely.

In the end, she decided to do as Gigi had advised. Because when attempting to adult, there was no harm in requesting a little assistance.

Eve strained to listen for the sound of the shower running down the hall, and then—satisfied Jacob was still occupied—she adjusted the silk scarf holding back her braids, picked up her phone, and opened the sisterly group chat. After misspelling her request three times in a row, she decided her mind was frazzled enough without bringing typing into the equation, and hit Record on a voice note instead.

“Hello. I have a question that requires only answers; no nosy questions in return, thank you. How does one know when one is really in love? For example, in Beauty and the Beast, how did Belle know she was in love with the Beast and not just Stockholm syndromed? Or, Chloe, how did you know you were in love with Red and not just his excellent hair? Oh, or Dani, how did you know you were in love with Zaf and not just his excellent hair? Yes. That question. That’s my question. Danika, please respond.” Satisfied, she sent the message.

It took a moment for blue ticks and jumping dots to appear, but once they did, responses were fired in quick succession.

DANI: I didn’t know I was in love with Zaf, remember? You told me.

CHLOE: I find this question infinitely suspicious.

CHLOE: Who is Stockholm syndroming you?

Eve rolled her eyes and sent back, “No one. It was a theoretical comparison.”

DANI: Okay, but who are you in love with?

Eve hit Record, opened her mouth, then stopped when she realized she’d been about to say it. She’d been about to say, out loud, I’m in love with Jacob, and she would’ve meant it, too.

Which didn’t entirely obliterate Eve’s doubts—not when those doubts revolved around herself, around who she was and who she wanted to become, and how wide the gulf was between each state. But it certainly helped.