"I'll be back in an hour."
I escape to the terrace before she can say anything else, my heart pounding and my face burning. That was not smooth. That was the opposite of smooth. That was the behavior of a person who is absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent not fine.
I call Nadia.
"It's two AM here," she says instead of hello. "This better be an emergency."
"I think I'm having a crisis."
"What kind of crisis? Work crisis? Family crisis? French-grandmother's-inheritance crisis?"
"The other kind."
"There's an other kind?" I hear rustling as she sits up. "Okay, I'm awake. Talk to me."
I open my mouth to tell her everything—the lavender field, the whole ridiculous evening, the 3 AM spiral—and what comes out instead is: "I'm finding it hard to sleep here. The time zone is difficult."
Silence.
"Iris," Nadia says slowly. "You called me at two to tell me about jet lag? You've been there for a month."
"Three weeks."
"You know what I mean."
I close my eyes, pressing my hand to my forehead. "I don't know how to say it."
"So just say it badly. That's what I'm here for."
The words stick in my throat. I've never said them out loud before—not to anyone, not even to myself outside my own head. Saying them makes them real. Saying them means I can't take them back.
"Something happened," I manage. "With Cat."
Another silence, this one weighted differently.
"Something like what?"
"Nothing happened. That's the maddening part—nothing actually happened. We were out in the lavender at sunset, and she was being ridiculous and sweet, and I wanted her so badly I could hardly breathe, and I did nothing about it, and now I can't stop thinking about it, and I don't know what this means about me, and—"
"Breathe," Nadia says firmly. "Iris. Breathe."
I realize I've been talking without breathing. I take a gulp of air, then another.
"Okay," Nadia says. "So you spent a romantic evening with your very attractive roommate, didn't lay a finger on her, and now you're freaking out about how much you wanted to. Is that the summary?"
"That's—yes. That's the summary."
"And the freaking out is about...?"
"Everything? Whether I'm gay, whether she's interested, whether this is real or just proximity-induced insanity, whether—"
"Stop." Nadia's voice is gentle but firm. "You're doing that thing you do where you try to solve the whole equation before you have all the variables. You can't logic your way through feelings, babe. That's not how they work."
"But I need to know—"
"You need to feel. That's it. That's the whole thing." She pauses. "Do you want her?"
The question drops straight through me.
