"Maya."

"Yeah?"

"Stop talking."

She stopped.

They lay there in the grass, breathing together, the forest filtering afternoon light around them in shifting patterns of gold and green.

Somewhere far away, a bell rang—probably signaling the end of some period neither of them cared about.

Maya slowly, carefully, rolled off him. But she didn't go far. She curled onto her side in the grass, close enough that as Phei stretched his arm out, she could—

She did.

Pillowed her head on his bicep like it was the most natural thing in the world. Snuggled closer. Let out a small sigh of contentment that did something dangerous to his chest.

And then—so subtle he almost missed it—she turned her face slightly into his arm and inhaled.

Was she smelling him?

She was. She was absolutely smelling him, her eyes half-closed, her expression soft and dreamy, breathing in his scent like it was oxygen she needed to survive.

It should have been weird.

It wasn't.

"You smell good," she murmured, and then immediately tensed. "Oh god, I said that out loud, didn't I? I said that out loud. I'm smelling you and commenting on it. Like a creep. I'm a creep. This is how I die—of embarrassment, in a forest, after sniffing a boy I barely know—"

"You know me." He suddenly said

She paused. "What?"

"You know me." Phei stared up at the canopy of leaves, watching light filter through. "You notice things. Like the Pinterest picture. Like when I haven't eaten. Like when I go somewhere in my head and don't come back for a while."

Maya was quiet. Listening.

"Most people don't notice," he continued. "Most people don't care enough to notice. But you do. You see things. Remember things. Care about things that don't benefit you."

"That's just basic human decency."

"No. It's not. Trust me." A bitter edge crept into his voice. "In my experience, nothing is basic and nothing is decent. Everyone wants something. Everyone has an angle."

"I don't have an angle."

"I know."

"I just like you."

"I know."

"Like, really like you. Not because of the eyes or the voice or the—" she gestured vaguely, "—whole thing you have going on. I liked you before all that. When you were just the quiet guy in AP Lit who always looked tired and never talked to anyone."

Phei turned his head. She was looking at him—really looking, no games, no calculation, just raw earnest feeling written across her features.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you like me? Before." He genuinely wanted to know. "I was nothing. Invisible. The charity case everyone either ignored or tormented."

Maya was quiet for a long moment. Her hand came up, hesitated, then settled on his chest—light, barely there, like she was afraid of spooking him.

"Do you remember last spring? There was this freshman girl crying in the hallway. I think someone had said something mean about her clothes, or her hair, or—I don't even remember what it was. But she was crying, and everyone was just walking past her like she didn't exist."

Phei remembered. Vaguely. A blur of a moment in a thousand bad days.

"You stopped," Maya said. "You didn't say anything—I don't think you even knew what to say—but you stopped and handed her a tissue. Just silently held one out. And when she took it, you nodded once and walked away. Like it was nothing."

He didn't remember giving anyone a tissue.

"I was watching from the end of the hall." Maya's voice had gone soft. "And I thought... here's this guy everyone treats like garbage, who has every reason to be cruel, who probably has more pain than anyone in this school... and he stopped for her. When no one else did."

Her fingers curled slightly into his shirt, and she came closer and inhaled again.

"That's when I started noticing you. And once I started, I couldn't stop. The way you'd share your notes with the kid who sat behind you in History. How you always let other people go through doors first. The little things you did when you thought no one was watching."

"I didn't know anyone was watching."

"I know. That's why it mattered."

They lay there in silence. The forest breathed around them. Somewhere, another bell rang—another class neither of them were attending.

"What time is it?" Maya asked eventually, making no move to check.

Phei didn't reach for his phone either. "Don't know."

"We're probably missing class."

"Probably."

"Multiple classes."

"Probably."

"We should go back."

"Probably."

Neither of them moved.

Maya laughed—that light, wind-chime sound he was starting to crave—and burrowed closer into his side.

"Five more minutes," she said.

"Okay."

"Maybe ten."

"Okay."

"Possibly thirty."

"Maya."

"What? I'm negotiating with myself, not you. You're just here as a witness."

Phei smiled. Actually smiled, the expression feeling strange on his face, muscles that had forgotten how to do this remembering slowly.

"You can have as many minutes as you want."

She tilted her head up to look at him, silver hair spread across the grass like a river of moonlight, eyes soft and warm and so full of something that looked terrifyingly like love.

"Be careful saying things like that," she whispered. "I might hold you to it."

"Maybe I want you to."

Her breath caught. She opened her mouth—probably to launch into another rambling spiral—but seemed to think better of it.

Instead, she just smiled. Small and secret and meant only for him.

She closed her eyes along with him and silence reigned.

****

Phei realized, with a distant kind of wonder, that he'd been lying in this forest for what had to be hours. That afternoon had shifted toward evening, the light going golden and then amber. That he'd missed every single class since lunch and hadn't thought about it once.

When was the last time he'd lost track of time?

When was the last time he'd wanted to?

"Phei?" Maya's voice was sleepy now. Content. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For staying. For this." She gestured weakly at the forest, the sky, the space between them that had somehow become no space at all. "For letting me be weird without making me feel weird about it."

"You're not weird."

"I'm extremely weird."

"Fine. You're weird." He pressed his lips to her hair—a soft kiss, barely there. "I like your weird."

The sound she made was somewhere between a happy sigh and a dying whale.

They stayed there until the light turned purple and the first stars appeared through the canopy.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, Phei knew that his phone had probably been buzzing for hours. That Sierra was waiting. That missions and conquests and the whole bloody system was demanding his attention.

But for now—just for now—he let himself have this.

Something soft.

Something gentle.

Something that felt dangerously close to the thing he'd sworn he'd never let himself feel again.

Don't get attached, the cold voice in his head warned. Remember what happened last time. Remember how it ended.

He remembered.

He let himself stay anyway.

Just a little longer.

Just until the stars came out.

*****

A/N: Be honest and tell me how these last three chapters were... I intended them to be soft, just him and Maya as she reminds him the last piece of humanity he still had in him. Her love...

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