"David...well, he was an uncle, wasn't he?" Dangerous, yes, of course; Zoe had been terrified of him. But paternal towards Eileen. "And Ethan, I'd imagine, is more like a brother. Victor is more like a friend." A friend of Eileen's father, specifically.

She brushes her hair back, and finally decides to stop circling the subject. "But you're very close to Julien, and he's not a parent, and he's not a brother, and he's not a more casual friend. He's a very close friend, and you're thirteen.

"And...that's about the age when close friendships with men can become something more than that, you know? That's when admiring a man can turn into something romantic."

And truthfully, she can't blame Argine and Elisha for being worried about that.