A/N: I don't own Degrassi or get paid to write fanfiction. I'm not sure how far I'm going to take this fic, but it came to me just now. Here goes.

It had been three weeks since Miles and I made round two of our relationship official. So far, not many people even knew we were together. It was summer after all, and seeing as how most of the school appeared to be mad at both of us, we were each other's only options. It was clear going in that my billionaire ex and I were hardly the new Triles in terms of romance or passion. Our "what should we call what we're doing?" conversation didn't happen in the middle of a hurricane after a horribly messed up teacher/student affair (or molestation experience, if you'd rather be honest with how you read it) or contain some life-affirming moment where all of my bottled up self-doubt and shame was erased by a single kiss. I wondered, seriously, if Tristan and Miles's first kiss was really that epic, as I knew Tristan could be overly dramatic at times. Still, it was clear that I wasn't coming between whatever they had, at least not for a long time.

"Listen," Miles said after we watched the last of the seniors cross the graduation stage. "I know you've been taken advantage of before, and the last thing I want to do is be one more loser in your life."

"So don't be," I said firmly. "Tell me what you want this to be, straight-up, and we'll roll with it."

He nodded, offering a half-smile. "I can't really do serious right now," he said. "Maybe in a few months when things look better for me and I've had some time to process what happened with Tris, but…" he paused. "People say I'm a terrible person. My own brother thinks it."

I interrupted with a laugh. "Now I see why you and Tristan were so perfect for each other. The two of you are both so…maudlin."

"Hey, come on now," Miles said with that cocky half-smile. "I'm baring my soul here!"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, I'm Miles Hollingsworth," I said, adjusting my posture to imitate the tall, sometimes overconfident boy. "I am on a mission to prove that I am the worst person ever. I'll start by pleading my case to Zoë motherfucking Rivas who put two of the actual worst people ever in jail where they belong last year."

"Good point," he said. "I can't compare myself to creeps like those guys or Yates. Still, I have no idea what I want, and I have no idea how not to fuck up."

"Sounds like we're meant to be," I told him.

Three weeks later, we were still spending almost all of our free time together. Miles had his family therapy and I had my legal counsel and volunteer work, but in the time we actually did have, we were pretty inseparable. His mom wanted him close to home after some of the gang activity rumors started circulating about various Degrassi boys. It was a bummer, but it eventually worked out okay for the two of us seeing as how his family has a giant, uncrowded pool in their back yard. Since Frankie was doing some kind of summer class with Winston, we usually had the space all to ourselves. We swam, we splashed, we dunked each other, we kissed, and most importantly, we talked. It almost felt like having a best girlfriend who was also something else entirely.

One night, as the sun was setting, I finally asked the question. "What was it like, dating Tristan?"

With a pained smile, he lifted himself out of the pool and said, "Intense. What do you want to know?"

"Well…I don't need details or anything," I said, shuddering at the mental image of my current sort-of boyfriend and my best friend together. "What I mean is…did you ever think about being bisexual before you kissed him, or was it just a sudden thing?"

He shrugged. "Well, you know me. I always have a plan."

"I'm serious," I told him.

"Fine," he sighed. "Well…there was this day in Paris when everyone was guessing if I was gay or not. It was weird, because I sort of always thought that if I liked girls, that was just it, you know?"

I nodded. "Of course. I get that."

"Then, I started wondering like…what if I didn't put limits on it? Could I have as much fun with Tristan as I had with a girl? I told myself 'no way' for a long time, but then one night the timing just made sense, and there it was."

"Wow," I said with a laugh. "You really don't put much thought into things."

He shook his head. "Relationships never work if you overthink things. Ever since I found out my dad was cheating, I've had to watch my mom actively overthinking everything he did. Was he really a cheating loser, or was he deprived of some need to play the field as a young boy because his dad was too strict to let him? Was he really hitting his own son, or was there some context for it that I was just omitting when I told her about it?"

"Wow," I shuddered, feeling the evening breeze against my wet skin. "That's awful. I didn't know how bad it was. I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "It's fine. It's over now. My point is, things either make sense or they don't. They're either working or they're not. If you have to spend tons of time figuring out what people's motives are, something's probably wrong."

I nodded. "I've felt that way before," I said, thinking of the way my mother used to excuse rude directors and sexist casting agents with complicated theories about 'industry standards' and things just not being what they used to be.

"Exactly," he said. "So…come on. Why are you asking me these questions?"

I shrugged. "There's not anyone right now, but would you completely hate me if I told you that after you kissed Tristan, I thought about it a little?"

He looked taken aback. "Kissing Tristan? I'm pretty sure he's gay, Zoë."

"No," I said. "Not that." I lowered my voice. "Girls."

"OH!" he said. "OH! Girls!"

"Can you be a little louder?" I asked. "I'm not sure you've alerted the entire neighborhood yet."

"If you're anything like me, this didn't just happen randomly," he said. "Who have you been checking out?"

"No one!" I said. "It's not important."

"Come on," he said. "You can tell me. Or…do I have to guess? Don't make me guess or it'll get super weird!"

"Knock it off," I said, only half-teasingly.

"Let me see," he said. "It's not Jack, is it?"

"Why would it be Jack?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know. You two had power cheer squad together. I thought maybe it was something like how Tristan and I got to be better friends while we were on the basketball team."

This time, my laughter was self-derisive. "Are you kidding? Everyone on the power cheer squad hates me now, remember? Why would I waste a crush on any of them."

"Hey," he said. "My sister was on that squad."

"So you want me to get a crush on her?" I asked.

"Point," he said. "Okay, who's not on power cheer squad. There's Imogen, but she was in grade 12 last year."

"She's…not my kind of weird," I told him.

"Noted," he said. "Okay, so not a cheerleader and probably not a senior. That leaves…oh God. Is it Maya?"

"No!" I said, reaching into the pool just for the chance to splash him.

"Hey!" he said. "It's getting cold outside. Not cool, Zoë. Not cool."

He got up and moved toward the actual towel dispenser his family had outside, grabbing one to dry himself off with. Realizing how cold I was getting, I followed him.

"You're not going to get it right," I taunted. "Give up now, Hollingsworth."

He shook his head. "No, I got it now. I so got it. It's Grace."

If I could have seen my face in that moment, I'm sure it would have been beet red with shock and embarrassment. "Tell anyone, and you're dead."