Lulu walks them down the hill to the orange grove. Deirdre had some gleaning organization come through last week, and the branches have been stripped of their fruit, but you can still smell the scent of them, soft sweet and sharp citrus, in the air.

“Here,” Lulu says.

Cass sits on one of the benches. “I remember you telling me about this place,” she says. “It surprised me then, and it’s surprising me now.”

“Why? What did you expect?”

“I don’t think of you as an outdoors girl.”

Lulu laughs. She sits next to Cass on the bench, and Cass lets her.

“I’m not,” she says. “But like, my backyard is hardly the outdoors, you know?”

“What do you like about it?”

Lulu closes her eyes. She feels her answers well up in her—a mass of feeling so tangled and private she barely has words for it. “Do you remember the night we met?”

“Um,” Cass says. “It was like two months ago. So yes.”

“I said something stupid to you about walls.”

“I don’t remember that, I have to admit.”

“About how I have a bad sense of direction, but I know how to navigate houses because they have walls.”

“That sounds . . . vaguely familiar. And only kind of dumb.”

Lulu shoves Cass with her shoulder. Cass presses back against her. Lulu doesn’t move away. Neither does Cass.

“I like things I can understand, most of the time,” Lulu says. “Borders. Boundaries. Rules. How to behave myself for everyone else.”

“I get that.”

“I like it out here too, though.”

“Limited wilderness.”

Lulu laughs. “Limited wilderness.” She leans a little more heavily against Cass’s side. “I don’t know. It’s not that deep, probably. Just like, it’s pretty out here. And quiet. My dad doesn’t hang out here. Neither does Deirdre. It’s just my spot. It kind of always has been. Where I can be actually all the way alone.”

“What am I doing here, then?”

“Why did you bring me to The Hotel?”

“I wanted to be alone with you,” Cass says.

“Yeah. Well. Same.” Lulu leans away from Cass. She wants to give her space if she needs it. “Do you still want that? Do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

Lulu nods. She’s not sure Cass can really see her in the darkness.

Cass says, “I just. Yeah. I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I still like you,” Cass says. “I just— It’s been a lot.”

“It’s been really a lot.”

Silence falls between them. Lulu sits in it for a little while. It feels okay, being here with Cass, she thinks, not looking at her, not listening for her. Just sitting still together. Knowing that she’s there.

“The thing is,” Cass says at last, “I’m here. And I don’t think I’m going anywhere.”

“Me neither, then.”