Nate & Sara Are Dating

I remember when Nate and Sara started dating. Nate and Sara. They had told me earlier that same week. It had probably been going on for a while, but I wasn’t sure how long. They didn’t tell me. The whole conversation had been pretty awkward, as far as such things go. We have to tell you something Leia, Nate had started out. I remember a sense of foreboding, a drop in my stomach. Like a hole in the ground I was standing on. Like that moment the cartoon character realizes they’re up in the air, and can’t actually fly. Obviously nothing good happens after someone says “I have to tell you something”. It’s what parents say to their children when they’re getting divorced. Nate and Sara weren’t getting divorced. Nate and Sara were dating. 

The three of us hadn't really hung out since that conversation. Sara and I had carried on as usual, but with careful casualness. It was hard to avoid each other, given that we lived together. And, you know, were best friends. Except that Nate had been my best friend, too. We had all been best friends. Now we were Nate and Sara, who were dating, and also Leia. Which was fine. I just wasn’t used to it yet.

I was going out to have coffee with Murphy. I think Murphy already knew that Nate and Sara were together. I hadn’t told him, but I was sure they had. I was standing in front of my closet, figuring out what to wear. The dress I had my eye on felt too girly. Like I was going on a date. T-shirt and jeans felt like I wasn’t even trying. I hadn’t dated in a while. There just hadn’t been anyone who made me feel like dating. I wondered how and when Nate and Sara started feeling that way about each other. Which parts of it I was around for. Which parts I wasn’t. 

I showed up to the coffee shop a few minutes late, wearing jeans, a tank top and eye makeup. A compromise. Murphy had already ordered coffee for both of us. I guess he knew how I liked my coffee then. Lots of milk, and vanilla syrup. It felt good to be outside. Like a little bit of the pressure evaporated the moment I walked through the door of the shared apartment. Away from the furniture Sara and I had picked out together, the careful decorations we had crafted. Away from the fridge full of food we had cooked or bought together. I’ve always been struck by the way physical space affects me. Like it holds part of my reality for me. Like it holds my reality in place. Literally. Physically. This space, the little cafe down the street, held an intersection between my friend group bubble and the rest of Berkeley. The people at the table next to us were a reminder that there were lots of people here. Lots of people who weren’t Nate and Sara.

Murphy’s presence was helping as well. There was always something grounding about being with him, related to his ability to see through my normal social persona. Maybe it was his grumpiness. The fact that he didn’t feel like he needed to make people like him made me feel like I didn’t either. Which was nice. He was wearing a pastel rainbow striped hoodie that shouldn’t have worked on a guy. It should have looked girly, but it didn’t. He looked good in it. Manly. I caught myself wondering if he had been working out. I know he’d been going rock climbing with friends since last Burning man. It suited him somehow, created a pleasing juxtaposition with his grumpy programmer nature. I felt at ease. 

We talked about statistics for a while. I’d been taking an extra statistics course to help with the experiment design for my research project. Murphy talked statistics fluently and was one of the few people who actually liked the subject. I liked statistics too. Something about the worldview fascinated me. Like it provided a way to look at the messiness of humans as if it was a messiness of  simple particles. A way to loosen my emotional attachments and turn the world into a game of perception, a dance of pattern recognition. I liked that Murphy thought well of me for liking statistics. He, too, seemed to prefer the dance of patterns over the messiness of emotional attachments. It was part of our rhythm, the way we got along. 

Abruptly, the topic shifted to Nate and Sara. Or maybe I simply wasn’t tracking the logic of the conversation well enough for the shift to make sense. It must have been Murphy who brought it up. Or maybe I had, lured out of my temporary avoidance by the safety and comfort of the interaction. I tried to feign nonchalance. To signpost okayness. It wasn’t a big deal that they were dating, I said. It was just weird to find out. Weird that things were changing. Or maybe changing. Weird to feel uncertain. Weird that we had all been friends and now they were together. I remember Murphy taking in my rant silently, nodding patiently, until I was finished. I always thought it was going to be you and Nate, he said, a little bit too gently. I didn’t say know what to say in response. So I stayed silent and felt my heart hurting.