Erin Gilbert is not the first straight girl Jillian Holtzmann has ever fallen for. Here’s the thing: she’s good at patterns. She’s good at identifying patterns. Holtzmann isn't a mathematician but that doesn't mean she's not great at numbers and evaluating data and drawing a conclusion. She's a goddamn genius. This shit is easy in the way that people are difficult. Erin Gilbert is not the second or even the fifth straight girl Jillian’s ever fallen for, and it’s kind of getting to be a problem, except when she sees Dr Erin Gilbert, she thinks, maybe, this woman might be a statistical outlier. Nobody can wear that much tweed and be straight, surely. And she keeps trying, hopefully, to believe that, until the Kevin Crush makes it pretty fucking clear that it’s a losing bet. No big. Jillian is used to this, after all, and it’s totally definitely not going to be a problem at all.

For Jillian, looking directly at Erin felt like staring into the sun, something that had left her with a pretty heavy prescription for color corrective lenses as a kid. It was dangerous, and it hurt, but it was just so beautiful it made everything worth it.

"I used to lie under my bed and wonder what it was like to be dead," Erin says, lying in the back of the hearse. Even with the rails taken out, it isn't very comfortable. The clattering stops. Holtzmann leans back, still halfway out the window with one socked foot hooked under the steering wheel, to look at her. "How did you die?"