"I thought we were on the same page, Caleb," Maya began, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
Caleb sighed, the sound lost in the breeze. "I’m scared, Maya. Making it official makes it real. And real things can break."
Maya looked at him, really looked at him—the boy she’d shared her deepest secrets with under the Georgia stars. "And not making it real is breaking it anyway."
They had been "something" since the tenth-grade formal—that blurry middle ground where you text every night but act like strangers in the hallway. Tonight was supposed to be the night they finally made it official before the summer ended.
"Wait," he whispered. "I don’t want to be scared anymore."
"I did," she replied, her gaze dropping to his hand. He pulled it away quickly, but the damage was done. "Can we talk?"