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"Finally," Maia says, flopping down onto her stripped bed. "Finished at last."
"Yeah," Clary says, in that weird tone of voice she's been using more often lately. "We're done."
Maia laughs.
"You make it sound so final," she says. "We're just moving out of the dorms. We'll still see each other."
"Yeah," Clary says again. She's sitting on her own bed, picking at something on the bare mattress. Her hair's down, pulled forward over her shoulder and hiding her face. Maia's fingers itch to tuck some of it behind her ear, but she won't let herself get up and do it. Not this time. They're not like that, and Maia is done hoping otherwise.
It's fine, she tells herself as she's looking away. It isn't, but…
"Hey, you forgot something," she says, pushing herself up.
"I did?" Clary's sitting up straighter. "Where?"
"Under your bed," Maia says, getting to her feet and crossing the room. She drops down onto her knees, reaching under Clary's bed and pulling out...a book with a homemade brown paper cover and Maia's name several times over in loopy cursive.
"What's this?" Maia asks.
"Oh you...should open it and see."
Maia does, and…
"Flowers?" she asks. The book is full of flowers of all shapes, all colors, all carefully pressed into the pages and labeled with a date.
"Flowers from you," Clary says, and Maia remembers. These are all the flowers she would pick and stick in Clary's hair. Every time she found a new one or an especially pretty one, she'd get it and give it to Clary.
"You kept all of them?" Clary's nodding when she looks up at her. "Why?"
"Because they were from you, silly," Clary says, smiling.
"But why?" Maia asks. "Why would you keep them if we're just-"
"Maybe we're not just," Clary says. "Or maybe we shouldn't be just. Maybe we should be more."
Maia shakes her head.
"Why couldn't you say that at, I don't know, literally any point before now?"
"I wanted to but," Clary says, quietly, "but after Jordan, I thought you'd need a friend more than-"
"Jordan was a year ago," Maia says. "I'm way over him."
"I know," Clary says. "I believe you, but I also didn't-" She takes a deep breath and starts picking at the mattress again, but she stops when Maia puts a hand on her wrist. "I didn't want to make things weird if you didn't feel the same," she says, and then she laughs, humorlessly. "Guess I already did that, didn't I?"
"You did," Maia says. She gets up on the bed, studying Clary's face for a long time before reaching out and tucking her hair behind her ear. She lets her finger trail along Clary's jawline, enjoying the flush on Clary's cheeks. "But I think I know a way of fixing it."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," Maia says, leaning in closer. Clary's eyes drop down to her lips, and that's the last confirmation Maia needs before kissing her.