This isn't weird.

Everything Is Weird

"Oh my god!" Tess gasped as Millie opened the front door. "You finally found a surgeon skilled enough to remove Ben from your hip!"

"Ha, ha. Very funny," Millie replied without inflection as she closed the door behind her.

"Does your insurance even cover a Ben-ectomy?" Tess prodded, but didn't receive a laugh. Her tone changed quickly from teasing to concerned. "Millie, are you okay?"

For a long moment, Millie just stood there, her face blank. When she finally opened her mouth to reply, only a strangled sob came out. Tess was by her side in an instant..

"What happened, Millie?"

Millie blinked hard, trying to force back the tears prickling in her eyes. "He kissed me," she said.

"What, you mean—Ben? Ben kissed you?" Tess led Millie to the couch and sat with her, an arm wrapped around her shoulder.

"I mean, I guess technically, I kissed him first, kind of, barely, last week, right after I got home—after I had just told him I couldn't be with anyone, I don't know why, it was a fucked up thing to do, but I did it anyway—" Her shoulders shook as she spoke; her words were gaining speed. "—and he was so understanding and he stayed and didn't make it weird and everything was amazing and he was amazing and it was such a good week and I was so sad it was almost over and we played Battleship and I flipped the table and it was a big mess and he—and he kissed me. A lot." She let out another sob.

Tess did her best to follow along. "And did you... not want him to?" she asked.

"No!" Millie exclaimed. "I mean—yes—I don't know—I mean, I did, yes, I did, but I knew I shouldn't, but then all the sudden he was just kissing me, and I was kissing him, and everything was moving so fast, I think we almost—we definitely almost—but we didn't, but I wanted to, I wanted to so fucking bad, but then he stopped, because he knew I knew we shouldn't, and he was so sorry, and I was sorry, and, and—and now it's weird."

"Honey, come on, calm down," Tess cooed, stroking Millie's hair. "You wanted to kiss each other, so you did. Why is that weird?"

"I just... I just... can't right now!" Millie cried. "Everything is so complicated. I just barely broke up with Genevieve, and I thought I was past all the shit with Noah, but then I got one look at him and had a fucking nervous breakdown, and now that I have to do all this therapy, and it's bringing up so much crap I thought I could just forget about. I feel like this... this... stupid, pathetic, fragile, fucked up mess of a human being all the time now. I can't bring that into a relationship with anyone, especially not him. I can't. Why couldn't he have kissed me before I got so fucked up? I wanted him to, I wanted him to so many times, I was just waiting and waiting for some sign that he wanted to!"

Tess felt a wave of nausea, remembering all the times she had told Ben, explicitly, how much Millie would hate him if he ever expressed any sort of romantic interest. At the time, she was so convinced that she was somehow doing Millie a favor. Now, she couldn't even remember why.

The last of her doubts about him had been obliterated on the night of the birthday party. As she hid away with Indigo in his room, he pulled up the camera footage following Millie throughout her night, to relieve Tess of any misgivings she might have had about Millie's safety in Ben's care. They watched her talking with Ben in the kitchen, then doing their cringey best to invent a secret handshake—so obviously just an excuse to touch each other—and from there, Millie had become downright shameless in her flirtation. It shocked Tess to see Ben's firm resolve in refusing her advances, holding her back even as she tried to kiss him outright.