What are We?

Riley bolts upright on the couch, leaving Mindi blinking at the sudden movement. She drops some half-baked line about life not making sense, then spells it out: they have been fucking, nothing labeled, and she needs to know where they stand. Mindi stumbles through an answer that lands nowhere. Riley’s face tightens. She admits she has real feelings, then stalks out before any reply arrives. Mindi spends the afternoon dusting furniture that does not need dusting. She mutters her own responses in different pitches, tries them out loud in the empty kitchen. When the phrase “I love you” slips past her tongue, everything lines up. No more rehearsing. Later she finds Riley back on the couch, thumb on the remote. Mindi sits beside her, kills the screen, and says the silence earlier was wrong. The nights they have stolen together sit at the top of her life. She meets Riley’s stare, holds it, and says the words clean. Riley pauses—then lunges forward, mouth open, answering with tongue and breath. She pulls back only far enough to whisper it back: she loves her too.