She could not tell her mother about him. Not because she was ashamed, exactly, but because there was nothing to tell. They had been seeing each other for eight months. They talked every day. They slept together regularly. He had a toothbrush at her apartment. He had met her closest friends, and they had all formed opinions. But when she tried to explain what they were to someone outside the bubble, the words crumbled in her mouth. We are seeing each other. We are hanging out. We are figuring it out. She was a woman with a full life, a sharp mind, and a low tolerance for nonsense. And yet, somehow, she had landed in a situationship. She did not know how it had started, and she did not know how to end it without losing him entirely. So she stayed, suspended in the gray area, hoping it would eventually turn into something real. It never did.