🌟

You smirk. "Easy. I'm not dangerous."

She laughs, and it's an awkward, half-unsure thing. You think you like how Max tries to play it cool. It's always validating when a pretty girl loses her shit over you. Endearing too. You think it makes Max cuter, somehow. Paisley shoots you an inquisitive look, but you just shrug. No need to embarrass the poor girl.

Take a breath in, hold, and let it out. You can't help but tease Max a little though, blowing out in a way that tickles her face. She shivers and her eyes flicker up and meet yours.

It's obvious. You're her first 'girl crush', even if the term leaves a bad taste in your mouth from some past experiences. Her eyes are all big and moony, and you watch a realisation come over her. A panic.

You've experienced it all. The freak out and storm out of your life, vehemently ignoring feelings for you and pretending you don't exist. The 'this is just an experiment', making out in the dead of night in random places so no one will catch you, the rush of exploration but the crash of eventual rejection. The definitely-straight girls who just want to brag about having had a girlfriend in college. Some jaded part of you wants to pull away. Says that it can't be worth the risk, the heartbreak, when she eventually decides that liking boys is easier. Better. But you look into her eyes and know, deep down, it would be worth it to have a shot at loving Max.

--

Paisley was actually the first person you told that you liked girls. You were both 12. You were chilling in Paisley's living room, watching a movie because your moms wanted to catch up. Paisley had been going on about her crushes, raving about the latest nice thing that he had done for her. Never one to leave you out, she'd asked if you liked anyone. It just slipped out.

"I know you're all... cool and pretend you don't have feelings," she had said, and you rolled your eyes, crossing your arms over your chest. Paisley was always good at calling you out. "But you can't tell me you've never had a crush."

You had shrugged. "Emma C's kinda cute."

You can't even remember if you had been worried about her reaction. Maybe a part of you was. You'd never told anyone before, never mentioned how your eyes always seemed to gravitate to the pretty girls, how you liked nothing more than making them smile. What you do remember is how Paisley never let you think, even for a second, that what you had said was weird.

"Oh yeah? She's super nice!" Paisley had beamed. 

From then on, your dear cousin would pester you into joining her silly conversations about crushes, asking about the girls you liked and if anything had happened between you two. She never reacted weirdly, which was everything you needed to be confident in this part of yourself.

The day you and Max met, Paisley ditched you two after a while. She's got some boy she's been talking to waiting outside. Plus she knows you're good for covering for her with her parents. You two used to do that for each other a lot when you were younger. When there was a girl you wanted to sneak out and hook up with, Paisley would say you were hanging with her. If there was a guy she wanted to go out with, you'd do the same. What else are cousins for, right?

"You've got the pics right?" Paisley says, fixing her hair and grabbing her purse.

"Yep. If your mom asks, we're totally just watching a movie." You show your phone screen to her, having taken some innocuous snaps of Max and Paisley eating popcorn and watching the start of Godzilla x Kong. You think you'll keep the picture anyway. Max's smile in it is kind of... sweet. It's the kind of smile where she totally thinks she's being candid, but you can tell it's put on since it's a bit wide and wonky. The smile she gives you when you make a stupid joke is smaller, softer, like it's just between the two of you.

"You're awesome. Alright, love you, girls!" Paisley says, giving Max a sidehug and heads out.

A beat passes. You've already seen the movie so you're not really watching the shot of Kong stumbling around Hollow Earth, more focused on Max in your peripheral vision.

"It's weird," Max says. She crosses her legs, uncrosses them. "Paisley never mentioned you, I think. But you seem close."

You shrug. You don't exactly begrudge Paisley for that. "I moved farther away sophomore year," you explain. "Besides. She never told me her best friend was such a cutie." And you mean that. You were shocked when the bestie that Paisley was talking about had opened the door and you saw her. Max. Beautiful didn't begin to capture it, but it would do for now. She looked up at you with those big brown eyes and you knew you were a goner.

"Well, I--" Max flushes. "Th-thanks."

She tucks a strand of her wavy hair behind her ear and, when it comes loose again, you shift forward and tuck it for her. She flushes and turns away with a shaky breath. Which isn't how Paisley described her. The two, if your cousin was to be believed, were like peas in a pod. Max was confident, brash at times, stubborn, and tended to do whatever the hell she wanted. In your weekly catch-ups, you'd be treated to stories about the latest wild thing they got up to, a party they snuck in, a club where the bouncers knew their IDs were fake and let them in anyway. Not this shy little thing, rendered to single syllable words after you touched her.

You realise quickly that Max isn't like the girls back home who try too hard to be edgy or the ones who crumble the second you push back. There’s a specific kind of gravity to her. She's a bundle of almosts, all the hobbies she's had but dropped when they got too much, all the dreams she's excited to accomplish, every album and movie and book and experience that's shaped her in some way. You think she's the most interesting person you've met in forever.

--

"How about this? You can ask me anything you like. 20 questions."

Chilling on her couch and smoking weed, Max asks you a million questions and you ask them back. You note what topics make Max smile, what she's passionate about. You file away the little tidbits she shares, her favourite colour, her vibe in music, the snacks she goes for. You watch her eyes light up and crinkle up at the sides when you tell her stories about your childhood with Paisley, brain whirring with memories you could tell her just to see her reactions. 

"Are you going to leave again?" she asks, after a while. 

"I... don't know," you admit. You shift a little closer to her, until your thigh grazes against hers. You shoot your shot, because it's just easier that way. Cleaner. "Do you like girls?"

A beat. "I don't know."

"Sure." You tilt your head, looking her over. "You ever wanted to figure it out?"

Her eyes are wide, but they're sure. It makes you swallow, actually, the determination you see in her eyes that are usually so big and eager when she's looking at you now dark with something new. When she leans in, your hands go to her shoulders, holding her back. Max is confused, hurt clear as she knits her brows together.

"You're high," you whisper, because you're so close you don't need to be much louder. "I don't want you to regret anything."

Max doesn’t pull away. Instead, she sags into your touch, her forehead coming to rest against yours as the smell of weed and her floral shampoo mingle in the small space between you. She’s breathing hard, the kind of shaky exhales that make you want her, need her, more than air.

You keep your grip firm on her shoulders, a physical anchor while her brain tries to catch up to her heart. You’ve been the "experiment" too many times to count, and even though every instinct in your body is screaming at you to just close the fucking gap, kiss her, you idiot, kiss her, you stay still. You'd do anything to be hers, but it'd kill you to only be her mistake.