The final painting becomes a massive whirlpool engulfing everything in its path. At the end of the day, Montoya is pleased with our efforts, and we do the same thing tomorrow. Eris and I sit in the art room for hours, toiling away at the canvas. The air is still thick since we last talked, increasingly heavier as we work in silence, absorbed in geometry and shadows and color schemes.

With the painting to ground our focus, we can pause to breathe without fighting, arguments, or anguished confessions. The time is passing by so much faster than the long days in which I didn't see her at all. But why? Why does my body feel lighter once she steps into the room? She's screwed me over more than anyone else ever could. She's abrasive, unlikable, and impolite, but maybe so am I. She makes me feel free to be as much of a bitch as I want, and it's comforting in that fucked up way I've now accepted is inevitable when it comes to us.

The painting comes to life. Nana Buluku glows in the cosmos, and her moon's light is so realistic it takes on a presence beyond the careful streaks of paint. On the bottom, Chalchiuhtlicue emerges from the waves in all her bronze glory, turquoise jewels embellishing her body. Eris spends a long time working on the sea foam, adding the finest details not even I would have the patience for.

Our flight is on Saturday. Eris and I will be taking, yes, a private plane—courtesy of Iker's jet club. We'll be in Mexico City Saturday evening, Sunday, and Monday—the actual day of the final showcase. At least it's a good excuse to miss school.

"Your godfather Alfonso who's coming with us," I say, pausing to mix the dark brown, almost navy tone of Nana Buluku's skin, using a method Eris taught me which requires only the primary colors. "What cartel is he part of?"

"The Tijuana OG's," she says. "But I do have a Sinaloa godfather, too. One Sinaloa, one Tijuana, one Guerrero. Collecting them like souvenirs."

"You must need to get baptized every few years to cleanse all the sins you rack up," I mutter.

"Exactly."

I roll my eyes. "Jesus would be appalled."

She pauses to look at me but doesn't argue. If there is a hell, she'll likely burn in it, and not for being a lesbian.

Her phone buzzes, and she pulls it out and stares at the screen with a small frown. "Wait. Iker's here to pick me up early. I forgot Daniel's soccer game is today."

She is the reason the police have my painting in their custody. The reason there exists a minuscule chance I'll get in trouble for the scheme she pulled. Sure, I haven't been pestered since my initial interview, and the lawyer William found me is confident nothing will come of their investigation, but I shouldn't be feeling this hollow at the idea of finishing today's painting session alone.

It must be plastered all over my face, because she nudges my arm and says, "Don't look so sad. I'll be back at two. Promise."

I hate how good she's become at reading my expressions.

"Wow, even giving me an exact time?" I say. "I'm surprised, Eris."

She stands up, paint streaked over her pants and white shirt like a true artist. "Shut up."

"I think I'm rubbing off on you."

"You fucking wish."

As promised, she shows up at two. We're both exhausted, but the painting consumes us, like we are these ancient goddesses' young prophets. In the first round, I overthought everything, but now I see the final product in my mind before it materializes, channeling some multi-dimensional scene.

The days pass. Tuesday becomes Wednesday becomes Thursday, and we're still not done.

"You know, you could just come to my house and we could finish it there," Eris suggests carefully. "We, uh, still have those silk pillow-cases, and the other day I got some fluoride-free toothpaste."

"You got me toothpaste?" I ask, incredulous.

"Just wanted to make it comfortable for you. So you can sleep over and we can, uh, finish the painting."

Refusing to sleep over was the same dilemma that got us in this mess. But I can't deny her now. Not when we have a competition to win. Not when I'm restless and anxious whenever we part ways at the end of each day.

So I accompany her to her car. She goes through the trouble of driving me home first so I can pack an overnight bag, because this is going to be more than a one-time ordeal. For two days, I'm moving into the Lugo residence.

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It's strange to be in her house again. Even stranger how I no longer feel like the intruder here. This is the studio where she perfected the forgery of my painting, and I can't sustain my anger toward her. Not when she goes out of her way to please me—bringing me coffee, snacks, and even half a dozen flowing, beautiful but casual dresses in my size to make up for when she ripped mine.

"I didn't know which one you would like the most, and I sorta wanted it to be a surprise, so I got all of them," she explains.

You went overboard, I should say. This is too much. But even though I'm no cartel princess, I know I deserve to be spoiled like one.

"Thank you," I say. "Too bad we're so constrained by the time—I'm sure you would love it if I tried them on for you."

She goes red in the face but quickly recovers. "Bring them to Mexico. I'll pick the one you wear to the finale."

"Deal."

Several hours later, we have a ring of empty coffee mugs surrounding us, four different palettes with nearly-identical shades of paint, but the faster we see the progress, the easier it gets. I go from painting like my life depends on it to taking a more relaxed approach, letting Eris fill in the gaps.

Despite his ever-looming authority, Iker is nowhere to be found. Maybe he has nothing to say to me. Maybe he assumes I've been sufficiently humbled and dealt with.

It gets late. Eris and I are teeming with divinity, but not even we can sustain the streak. I go to sleep in the guest room, eerie and untouched, and her absence engulfs me again as if I haven't seen her for days. But we've spent the entire day together, she's literally in the same house—what's wrong with me?

I attempt sleep, but she clouds my thoughts. She and my memorized figures of her anatomy. I put on a guided meditation on my phone, but I'm annoyed listening to any voice that isn't hers. At some point, I must fall asleep, because I open my eyes to dawn streaming through the blinds, and it's suddenly the last day before our trip to Mexico.

When I head downstairs for a cup of the delicious coffee I've become spoiled with, I'm greeted with loud chatter from the kitchen. Eris' tween brother Daniel is grinning and sharing the story about how he scored the winning goal for his last game. Nico looks even more tired than me. Daphne is in a rush to finish her food, and Maria reminds her to eat slowly. Neither Axel or Iker are here. None of the food looks vegetarian in the slightest, but then I see Eris wearing a cooking apron and mixing something up on the frypan.

"That must mean you two are really serious," Daniel tells me, laughing. "Eris never cooks for anyone."

My cheeks warm. Eris is really, really going out of her way to flatter me, which means she must feel guilty about what she did. And I hate how well it's working.

After breakfast and more pleasantries with the Lugo family, Eris takes me to school, where we paint all day. We take a break during lunch, and Eris' bag of hot Cheetos proves to be insufficient for her, so she orders lunch to be delivered.

"I'll pay for mine," I offer.

"Like hell you are," she says in that snappy, very Eris way. "Lunch is on me."

"Why? I'm not your girlfriend."

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, tell that to my entire family."

I physically cringe. "That's so embarrassing."

"Eh, could be worse."

I should be grateful for the colder weather, which means Eris is back to wearing hoodies, but even with the oversized fabric hiding her figure, she's not any less of a distraction. She moves like she's in control of whatever ground she steps on. Her father is descended from Spaniards, her mother from Aztecs, so of course she's a born colonizer, and I should be ashamed of myself.

Several hours later, the goddesses are in the backseat of Eris' car like it's a road trip, music blasting from the speakers, the windows open all the way down, and I feel myself tense up, my mouth filling with the memory of blood.

"You okay?" Eris asks me.

I open my eyes. Look at her.

She turns down the music. "Sorry. Forgot you hated cars."

"I also hated you. But here we are."

It's the same routine. We paint, and it's beautiful. And like clockwork, it gets late, the deadline approaching all too fast, but we're still not done. Yesterday we made some real progress, but finalizing the details took so long. Merging our different styles required long discussions, ideas thrown out and discarded, scraps of canvas lined around us from testing our techniques side-by-side.

My arms are cramping. No amount of coffee will erase the dire need for sleep. Eris' presence beside me is usually more than enough to keep me alert and on edge, but I've gotten a little too comfortable, because I want to lay my head on her shoulder and sleep right there.

"Tired?" she asks.

"That guest room is haunted," I mutter, even though I do not believe in ghosts. "It took forever to fall asleep yesterday."

"Me and Josefina played the Ouija board in there one time, so that may be it," she says. "But where else do you wanna go? There's a couch over there, but it's not comfortable."

"I'm not used to sleeping alone," I admit. "I've shared a room with Fitz for years, and then in Germany we had cats."

A devious, self-satisfied smirk graces her heart-shaped face, but she purses her lips to hide it, putting on a casual, nonchalant expression. "Stay in my room. It doesn't need to be weird."

I'm grateful she doesn't make fun of me. It's the most pathetic thing imaginable, wanting to sleep in the same room as her and hear her breaths and know she's okay. But actually, it will only help our painting prowess. If we're around one another, we stay connected, which means better artwork.

"What about the painting?" I ask.

"Guess we'll have to take it to Mexico and finish up before the showcase. We procrastinated way too much."

"I tried to tell you, but you were bent on throwing your little tantrums and ignoring me."

I should be far more upset about our failure to finish on time. Two months ago, it would be the kind of thing to make me have a meltdown. But for some reason, I trust Eris' judgment. I trust the goddesses. We will finish in Mexico in the nick of time, and we will win.

For now, we get ready for bed. Eris' room comes with its own bathroom, and we brush our teeth and floss and wash our faces in unison, though my nightly routine takes twice as long as hers.

She doesn't pull out a mattress for one of us to sleep on the floor. No, she sits on her bed and obediently waits for me to finish, putting one of the new silk pillowcases over the pillow for me.

She's wearing the skimpiest pajama set imaginable: a thin, almost see-through tank top covered in little cartoon pandas—I suppose they're her favorite animals—and tiny shorts to match. I have to wonder if this is just her usual sleep attire, or if she's purposely trying to tempt me, especially given that she's not wearing a bra, and I will die before I let her catch me staring.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about what happened with Axel," I say, carefully sitting on the bed. I already feel Santa Muerte's judgment from the closet altar, watching me from behind the door.

"It's fine," Eris says. Her Guerrera de Dios thigh tattoo is on full display, her scars circling it like a crown of thorns. "I know you didn't do anything wrong, but I just... I really didn't think you were straight."

"Right," I say.

She rubs her eyes, leftover black eyeshadow smudging onto her hand since she didn't remove it properly. "Are you?"

"Um. Yeah."

"Really. Have you ever even liked a guy?"

I rack my memory for any moderately attractive male throughout the years, but there's nothing. Most girls have their little crushes, and even some lesbians get involved with men before realizing, but other than Axel, I have nothing.

"No," I say. "I believe there is a very positive correlation between high IQ and being a virgin for life."

She laughs. "And you really think one day some magical dude will show up and change your mind." She wraps her finger around one of my braids—which I recently got done courtesy of her little friend—and tugs lightly. "Straight girls don't act the way you do."

"Because you've kissed so many straight girls before."

She lets her hand trail to my knee, making little cross shapes as if she's some priest trying to bless me. "Tell me you're 100% straight."

I grit my teeth. It's the first time she's touched me this week, and it feels like the jagged needles of a tattoo gun. I'm about to grab her hand, preventing her from moving it higher up my thigh, but she takes it away before I do.

Inhale. Exhale. Control.

I raise my chin. "I said what I said."

She looks me up and down. This time, it's so different. Shameless and with none of the hate. I'm literally in her bed, watched by all her saints.

Then she leans in close. Pauses for a second, filling me with both dread and anticipation at the prospect of crossing the boundaries we desperately need in order to not ruin each other again. She settles for a kiss on my cheek, but it's no less intense. Then she lowers her head, biting my neck in the same spot I bit hers but not enough to bruise, and I tense all over.

And then she pushes me onto the bed, crawls on top of me like a sleep paralysis demon, and continues down my neck with the softest little bites, and I feel like Chalchiuhtlicue in the edges of earth and space, too curious to make her stop.

"You really do have a crush on me," I say. I give into the fantasy of her spine, tracing her back underneath her tank top, something within me reacting far too much at how easily she shivers.

"And you're almost as much of a lesbian as I am."

Kissing her again would be so effortless. Memorizing the shape of her curves and skin instead of just her bones. But I won't give in. I won't prove her right. I won't let her control me after everything she's done. So I let her hover and stare down at me, waiting for me to submit.

"Does it count if the only girl I find attractive is you?" I ask.

"Yeah, because I feel the same about you, pendeja."

"Wait, what?"

She rolls off of me and hides her face in a pillow, mumbling, "I really don't like this talking things out thing, Ef."

"I don't care. Explain what you just said."

"This is so fucking embarrassing," she groans, holding the pillow to her chest now. "I grew up with my parents always warning me about boys. Especially narco boys. Didn't really care. I always paid attention to girls, yeah, but it wasn't like this crazy thing. But then when I saw you... bruh. I already told you the story. I'm not going to repeat it."

"So you've had a thing for me since we were fourteen?"

"For ten minutes! Ten minutes total. And I'm not counting me reading all those articles about you before the Olympiad. The second you opened your mouth I was already thinking of tying you up and showing you who really runs the show. But, uh, before then, you kind of made me realize that I..."

"Aww," I say, laughing. "I was your gay awakening!"

She throws her pillow at me. "Shut the fuck up."

"That's immensely flattering."

"As if your narcissistic ego needed another boost."

But I'm beaming from ear to ear, and despite everything, there's something oddly cute about it all.

"So if it was only ten minutes, why did it make an impression?" I ask. "You're telling me that was enough to prevent you from liking anyone else?"

"I tried," she says, exasperated. "I really did. But it's like you took me the moment you saw me. Like you were Hades and me Persephone. Like you cut some wires in my brain and directed all the voltage to you."

"Wow, that's really gay, Eris."

She glares at me, and I'm still laughing.

"Now," she says, rolling over on her stomach, "you think I'm attractive? Damn, I was just teasing you earlier, but I didn't think you'd actually admit it, Ms. I'm 100% Straight."

Now it's my turn to writhe in embarrassment.

"But it's a fair question," I say. "How can I be a lesbian, which implies attraction to females, if you're the only one?"

"Maybe there will be another short ass chicana to win your heart."

"Absolutely not."

"But look at it logically here. I'm still a girl. So you're a lesbian."

"And what if I wasn't a girl?"

"Maybe it would be different," she says, shrugging and giving it no further thought.

But something is grating on me, bringing up insecurities I've never had to think about in this context. If I was born a male... things could be different.

"Have you ever heard of the word intersex?" I ask.

She raises an eyebrow. "Like the baby comes out a mix of both male and female?"

"Somewhat."

"What are you trying to say?"

I don't want to admit it. But this will be the final test. Test for what, I have no idea.

"I have androgen insensitivity syndrome," I say. "So I was born with XY chromosomes. I was supposed to be a male, but my body doesn't process testosterone at all, so the male parts didn't develop."

Her eyes widen. "Woah, really?"

I nod.

"No testosterone? Ever?"

"No."

"That's crazy. You're such an angry bitch, I figured you'd have loads of it."

I almost push her off the bed.

She re-adjusts herself, sitting cross-legged, the cut of her tank top low and showing the faint lines of her sternum. "So you have female genitals? Like even a clit and everything?"

"Yes," I say, embarrassed. "I believe the only issue is that people with this condition have a shallow, um, opening. So penetrative intercourse is usually painful, and sometimes they need to get surgery. Which is obviously not a concern at all for me."

"So... that means no strap-on for our honeymoon in Monaco, then."

I scream. I push her off the bed for real this time, and she's laughing like a maniac.

"Eris!" I shriek.

"It was a joke!" she cackles, getting up from the carpeted floor. "Relax. I'm not into that anyway."

"You liar," I say, seething. "You're appalling."

But then I'm laughing, too. When we finally calm down, I continue.

"Anyway, I don't have ovaries," I say. "Or a uterus. I used to think I would just be one of those girls to get their period late, but after the car crash they were doing some X-rays and noticed something wrong. So that's when I found out."

"That's rough, bro."

I roll my eyes. "It makes me feel incomplete. Not because I want to have a child or anything, but because I feel... there's something really important about the womb. It's the vessel of all creation. I like that idea, especially after reading about the divine mothers. But I have nothing. Just deflated little testicles on the inside, which never developed and are useless, and I had a surgery to get them removed. Because it poses a risk for cancer, I suppose."

Eris pulls me into a hug, which should be a sweet moment, but all my depraved brain fixates on is the imprint of her A-cup breasts against mine. Not my fault she's barely clothed.

"Ef, you don't need to have a womb to be the source of creation," she reassures. "It all comes from your brain, anyway."

I sigh.

"And no one knows about this?" she asks.

"Only my family. And I told Axel."

She pulls away, making a face. "And what did he say?"

"He asked me if I had a dick. And I told him he would not be allowed anywhere near my dick even if I had one. But otherwise, he took it well. I thought telling him would get him to leave me alone, but he didn't care."

What can only be jealousy flashes in Eris' eyes again. Not only did I kiss Axel before her, but I told him my biggest secret.

"Us Lugos aren't really the judgmental type," she says. "My older sister Josefina is trans. I know that's a different thing, but yeah. So was Iker's aunt. Though it didn't stop her from getting slaughtered like all the other narco royalty." She pauses. "I can't believe you told Axel and not me."

"You would've told your friends," I say. "I didn't need the entire school knowing. And word has it you've always loved talking shit about me."

Eventually, we're laying beside one another under her covers, a safe distance apart in the dark but still surrounded in her vanilla perfume. Since when did it not make me recoil? I'm wired from the way she touched me, but the exhaustion wins over, and we sleep.

I dream of a goddess. A goddess who wasn't known for a virgin birth or being the mother of all things. A goddess not a mother, father, or anything else. She was pure, concentrated femininity before it had form. A destructive darkness of the void.

But there wasn't just one goddess in the birth of the universe.

There was two.

I wake in a start, tears in my eyes from some ancient, unknown grief. It's as if I grabbed a piece of that death gallery from my near-death hallucination all those years ago, piercing through the fabric of reality.

I sit up. In the dark, Eris' saints look sinister while she sleeps. I try not to think about how there's likely a loaded gun under the bed.

Dazed, I unload all my ideas out into the Notes app on my phone.

"Ef?" Eris asks quietly. "What are you doing?"

"I figured out our essay. I believe I just had my first prophetic dream."

"Huh?"

"A story about both goddesses. It's beyond even Buluku. Far more ancient. It's not tied to any place, not even Earth."

Sleepy and with limited inhibitions, she scoots closer to me and wraps her arms around my waist.

"I was dreaming, too," she says.

"About what?"

"We were in the middle of the ocean. There were sparkly fish. You had chopsticks and were trying to pick them out of the water. Seagulls were picking holes in our little sail I was trying to patch up. Then, later, we were on Mars. Just us and the little rovers. And you were painting there, trying to make paint with the different types of clay and sand. And I told you to stop wasting all our water to make paint. And you said you needed to win the competition. And I was like, Ef, there's no competition, we're on fucking Mars."

I smile. "Do you always dream about me?"

"Sometimes," she says, pulling me closer against her chest. "The first time I had a sex dream about you, I couldn't face you for weeks."

"When was that?"

"Maybe a year after we met."

"You're cute."

She kisses my shoulder—God, how the hell did we escalate to this? It's very strange, being held. And the way she does it so protectively, like she's just as afraid for my safety as I am for hers.

"I'm sorry," she mutters. Sorry for betraying me, I'm guessing. Sorry for getting me involved and the million other things she's done over the years. For the first time, it feels genuine and serious and honest. She repeats it under her breath, over and over again until sleep finds us both. 

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a/n: it is here! at last! at 4.2k words with an overload of sapphic moments, i hope this was worth it! my schedule has gotten awfully busy, but i'm happy i made the time to finish writing this today. what did you think of eris trying to spoil ef? of their sudden affection? and the fact she was eris' "gay awakening" 😹

given eris' dirty strap-on joke, the song for this chapter is MONACO by bad bunny :P

also, persephone being intersex wasn't something i wanted to focus on in this version of the story, but it wouldn't feel right to leave it out completely. i hope it was adequately explained, though you should be able to look up the syndrome easily to find out more. 

thank you for reading <33