Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating

, and just staring thoughtfully up at the sky.

“Don’t ask me what I’m thinking,” he says, grinning over at me when he sees me looking

I’m Josh’s girlfriend, whether he wants me or not.

“You sure you’re ready for another one?”

“No turning back now. Almost three down,” she says, “fourteen to go.”

“Keep dreaming, Bradford.”

But does it? Does it make sense that I put my vases in the oven when it’s not in use, so that my parrot doesn’t knock them over? These are the things other people might question—but not Josh.

He has never, not once, asked me to be someone I’m not.

“But I love who she is,” I say simply.

I’m at the dead end of this alley. I’m in love, and there is absolutely no going back.

It could be different than it was before. We’re different now. She’s not just a new friend, she’s my best friend. The woman I love. We could have lingering talks over coffee or on a shared pillow, long into the night. She could bring her entire farm of animals, and I would be fine, I think. We could make a home of it.

My house is clean, my furniture is nice, but the space is like an echo chamber lately. It’s so quiet. I never expected to think this, but I miss having Winnie there, watching her odd twilight mania around five every night when she sprinted through the house excitedly for ten minutes before flopping at my feet.

I miss tripping over shoes every time I walk in the door.

I miss Hazel. I’d buy a lifetime supply of fire extinguishers and eat bad pancakes every day to have her around again.

It’s only been six months since we started hanging out, but already it feels like he’s this redwood in the forest of my life, and so starting at the beginning is bewildering.

She screws up her nose, and then looks at me, gauging my reaction. The realization that she always looks to me, for solidarity, for my opinion, for reassurance, lights a fuse in me, and it’s honestly all I can do to keep from leaning forward and kissing her in front of him.

“But if you changed your mind about something like that,” Emily says, “I think that’s the one thing that could dim her light. We both know Hazel is a butterfly. I think you have the power to take the dust from her wings.”