Marley supplied both possible answers to Claudia’s inquiry about her relationship with Teal, which was the only circumstance under which Claudia would welcome further details; Marley proceeded to elaborate. There had only been one date after all, which was a relief, and writing over the summer was not a damning action, made yet more innocent by the lack of meeting in person. Claudia was feeling cautiously optimistic, and she even let the comment about Connor pass, despite Marley’s derogatory tone, because really Marley had every reason to be as resentful toward Connor as she chose.

Tentatively starting to hope that her friendship with Marley might be salvageable, Claudia listened apprehensively to ascertain Holland’s contribution. She knew Marley and Holland were familiar because their living quarters were proximate, but Dardanius had facilitated Claudia and Holland’s awareness of each other years prior to them even meeting. Holland did not share Claudia’s opinions on the now-fourth year girls’ interactions, but she would feel aggrieved if they had encouraged Marley towards Teal, considering their knowledge of how this would necessarily impact Claudia. Luckily that transpired to not be the case.

Marley went on to declare that dating was confusing; it was one of those rare occasions on which the two girls shared an opinion on a topic. Claudia did think that Marley might be overcomplicating things for herself, but even when a person dated someone of the correct gender, there were still all sorts of confusing feelings and misinterpretable signals, and then you had the potential to upset people around you who weren’t involved anyway, and then sometimes the person you were dating did or said something ridiculous and you maybe wished you hadn’t bothered with it at all except that it had been nice, sometimes.

“No, I’m not dating anyone,” Claudia answered, her own response so succinct she almost hoped Marley would notice how easy it was not to give a convoluted non-answer to a very simple question and follow her example, but she had no real faith in this unprecedented alteration of behaviour becoming a reality. She might have controverted the implication that she had been dating Connor, as the term oversimplified and degraded their friendship agreement, but firstly it nullified the concise simplicity of her initial reply, secondly it may be too subtle a concept for Marley to genuinely grasp, and thirdly because the question had not been about Connor, anyway (and fourthly because while it had started off within reasonably rigidly defined boundaries, by the time it had ended their exclusive friendship had, in fact, been rather more like dating than Claudia was prepared to admit).

Regardless, that was all irrelevant because the matter under scrutiny was Marley’s dating habits, not Claudia’s. “I confess to being confused,” she said, aiming only to redirect the conversation back to where it ought to be, but then realising that in doing so she had brought forth the very topic she had been so reluctant to debate since its inception. It seemed that now was the time to overcome her reluctance to engage with subject material that had no right existing in the first place, and do as Holland suggested: talk to Marley about what was bothering her.

With determination she placed one palm flat on the table in front of her, preventing her from further abusing sore skin now pressed against a smooth, grained surface, and spoke to her fingers rather than to Marley. “I know you like boys, because you’ve made that clear to me,” Claudia said quietly, because they were still in the library, and because she would very much like to not be overhard ever discussing topics such as this. Bolstered by the knowledge that only one date had taken place, and that had been many weeks ago, Claudia managed to express, “I don’t understand why you think Teal might be a suitable alternative. It doesn’t make sense, and it -” she looked at Marley, her expression reflecting her confusion, “It makes me feel uncomfortable.”