Noelle flinched like she had been physically punched in the face. “I hate that too. I don’t want you to feel that way. But this is something I won’t talk to you about.”

“Why?” I whispered. “Why won’t you let me in?”

“Because it fucking hurts,” she said. Her voice cracked halfway through. “It’s not . . . I can barely think about it. I wish I could be like you and face it, but I can’t. I know that’s cowardly and not fair to you, but I—” She broke off, drawing in a shaky breath. “I’ve always been better at running away, I think.”

All the frustration seeped out of me at once when I saw that her eyes were glistening with tears and when a particularly strong gust of wind made her tremble even more, I couldn’t help but scoot closer to her. She melted into me the moment I wrapped my arms around her, her hands clutching at my sweater.

“I’m sorry if I made it sound like you have to tell me everything,” I murmured into her hair after a few heartbeats. “You don’t, especially not when it’s something triggering. That was stupid of me to say.”

Noelle’s voice was small and slightly muffled. “It’s okay. I’m sorry for getting so angry.”

I closed my eyes for a moment and simply breathed in her familiar scent—night air and smoke and the coconut shampoo she used—and I was glad I hadn’t stayed in our room with a book.

“Hey, Evelyn?”

“Yeah?”

She lifted her head from my shoulder but didn’t look at me, her eyes trained on where her fingers were interlaced with mine in her lap. “I want to get better at this whole opening up thing.

I promise I’ll try. Because I . . . I want this to be something serious.”

My breath caught in my throat. “Like, girlfriends?”

“Yeah.” She finally met my gaze, lips curved into a small smile.

This close, I could see the lighter dots in her warm brown iris, little specks of gold that looked like the stars she loved looking at so much. I was sure that if I stared long enough, I could find an entire galaxy in her eyes. “Like girlfriends.”

“Okay,” I breathed.

I had no idea who leaned in first, but only a heartbeat later, her mouth was on mine. At that moment, it didn’t matter that she tasted like smoke or that I could feel the tracks of dried tears when I cupped her face. All that mattered was that she was okay and I was holding her and—oh my God, I had a girlfriend.

“So, what do we do now?” Noelle asked, leaning her forehead against mine. “Are you okay with making this public or . . . ?”

“Maybe not right away?” I quietly said. “It’s just . . . after everything that happened at my last school, I would prefer to keep this to ourselves. Just until I’ve gotten a bit more used to it.”