Did Nancy and Jonathan Get Engaged? Show Creators Reveal What Happened (Exclusive)

Warning: This story contains spoilers for Stranger Things season 5, Volume 2.

Are wedding bells ringing for Nancy and Jonathan?

In Volume 2 of Stranger Things season 5, Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton’s characters (who have been dating since season 2) make some major confessions to each other while on the brink of death.

The two become trapped in inside the Upside Down’s Hawkins lab as a melting, paint-like substance fills the room. Just when they’re convinced they’re going to die, the truth comes out. Nancy tells him that she hates The Clash, Jonathan admits that he hates reading Nancy’s articles, and he finally confesses that he never applied to Emerson — which, of course, Nancy knew all along.

He then pulls out the engagement ring he’d been carrying around for days, and says, “I figure that I have screwed up enough with you that it’d be nice to get something right for once, in the end. Nancy Wheeler, will you not marry me?”

He calls it an “un-proposal,” and she accepts it, telling him she loves him as they share one last kiss. Then, they realize that the liquid has hardened around them, so they’re saved after all.

So where does this actually leave the longtime couple? The show co-creators, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, confirm to PEOPLE they are not actually engaged.

“That’s a breakup,” Matt Duffer tells PEOPLE. “They are broken up.”

Matt says he and Ross, both of whom serve as writers, executive producers and directors, have known for “a while” that a breakup was looming for one of the show’s longest-running couples.

“It’s hard to recall when exactly that idea came, but I think us — and the writers — all felt that Nancy needed to end up on her own and be independent and have an opportunity to find herself,” Matt explains.

“I mean, how many people wind up with their girlfriend or boyfriend that they met in high school?” Matt continues, though he acknowledges that Nancy and Jonathan “have a little bit more of a complicated relationship than normal high schoolers.”

It’s a “trauma bond,” as Ross puts it.

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Despite their onscreen breakup, the actors remain in a long-term relationship with each other off-screen. They’ve been dating publicly since 2017 after meeting on the show, and in a recent interview with Wonderland magazine, Heaton, 31, made some rare comments about living and working with Dyer, 30.

“It’s been a gift to work with my best friend,” he said. “To be able to have a shared experience with your partner about the anxiety when you don’t get a job – I know what that feels like, she knows what that feels like.”

“You can be there to talk about it, or when you have a s— day at work, or come away from a scene and you didn’t think it worked,” he continued of their “precious” bond on-camera and off. “To be able to both understand each other on that level is great.”

Volumes 1 and 2 of Stranger Things season 5 are streaming now on Netflix. The finale drops Dec. 31 at 8 p.m. ET.