“I’m not a shaper.”

“Yeah, all right. Take your word for it. You’d know better than I.”

“Sorcha, I have to go.”

“Go where?”

“Go home.”

“You are home.”

“No, I have to go back.”

He stared at me in disbelief. I don’t think it was clear to me until that moment that the depth of our friendship was shared. I had thought his interest in me was a thing of circumstance, a passing fancy. “What, cause of that? Look, I’ll keep my hands to myself. I’ll not ever charm you again. Word of honor. You can’t just run off.”

“It might happen again.”

He glanced away. He tried to stifle a smile and couldn’t. “Ah, that would be so bad, eh?”

“It would, yeah. Sorcha, it would. I can’t…I’m not…I’m Semadran. Semadran, Sorcha.”

“So’s Da.”

“No, he isn’t. I am.”

Sorcha’s jaw twitched. “Look, can’t we talk this through? Let’s go in, yeah?”

“I can’t go in there with you!”

“You want to have this out on the street?” he asked.

“It might happen again.”

He threw his hands up. “Ariah, fuck, give a man some credit, would you? I am not so hard up that I’m about to try and trap you. I have my dignity. Trees and streams. You’re not the only one in this, you selfish ass.”

He was right to call me out. I nodded and followed him into the squat house. We went up to his room, which had been our room. He sat on the bed, and I sat against the opposite wall. I refused to make eye contact with him. “I guess you’ve not been with a fella, then?” he asked.

“No. Mercy, no. Of course not,” I said quickly, the words falling out over each other. “Sorcha, I’m Semadran, and I’m not married. I’ve not been with anyone.”

“Come off it. Just be straight with me,” he said.

“I am! This is not me! I don’t do things like this!”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

He was quiet for a long time. “Shit. Ah, shit. I thought…ah, shit, this is a mess. I mean, I knew you were tink. I did. So I just thought you needed time to ease into it. I mean, you knew, right? I been all over you for weeks.”

I had known. I had known right from the start. “I thought you knew I couldn’t.”

“You could. You were about to. I didn’t know you wouldn’t.”

I burned a deep red. I hid my face in my hands. It was true. It was horribly, inescapably true.