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Are you and Fitz dating? Has Fitzphie happened yet? Have you finally kissed him? Questions along these lines are, unfortunately, quite common for Sophie to receive. Every time, she clenches her fists until her fingernails dig into her palms, and says “We’re not dating, we’re Cognates.”
The response is usually a knowing smile. Sophie wants to scream.
She loves Fitz, she does. She just doesn’t love him like… like that. The way everyone expects her to. She doesn’t love him in the way that Edaline assumes she does when she leaves them alone with a wink, she doesn’t love him in the way that Dex assumes when he scowls and mutters about Wonderboy, she doesn’t love him in the way that Tiergan assumes when one of their friends jokes about Fitzphie and he looks like he wants the floor to swallow him.
She loves him, but she doesn’t love him like a boyfriend. Sophie loves Fitz like a cognate.
According to Mr. Forkle, the cognate bond is similar to marriage in many ways. She’s alright with that, but she doesn’t want a bond with Fitz that’s similar to marriage in all the other ways. She doesn’t want an actual marriage with him, a matchmaking list and a wedding and a house together and waking up beside him every morning. She likes their cognate rings, but exchanging wedding rings with him would make her sick.
She wants to hold his hands and do cognate training with him, but she doesn’t want to kiss him or share a life with him.
“Is this a date?” Grady asks, when Sophie mentions her plans to get ice cream in Atlantis with Fitz. His eyes narrow with suspicion. “Is Fitz your boyfriend?”
Sophie rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “He’s not my boyfriend! He’s my cognate .”
They’re cognates. They don’t have to be boyfriend and girlfriend to love and trust each other.
She wishes more people could understand that.