Natalia
911
Isabelle
Where?
Lana
Come here. I’m bored and Christian is at the gym for the next few hours
Isabelle
On my way
Natalia
On my way
The best thing about a 911text to a group chat with your best friends is the fast replies. You don’t hold off on a reply when you get a 911 text—it’s a law. And I don’t make the law, I’m just glad for it these days—superblygrateful for that rule now that I’m pacing the space of Lana’s living room.
I nibble around my thumbnail, trying my hardest to not ruin the lavender gel polish coatingthe nail.
“Natalia,” Isabelle says and I pause.
I turn toward the girls waiting patiently, confused, on the couch watching me. “Huh?”
“You’ve been pacing for the past…” Lana checks her phone. “Two minutes. What’s going on?”
I exhale and shake my hands out at my sides. “I think I need to talk some things out, you know? Like how some people need to see things in writing or have something demonstrated for them? That’s me.”
“Okay,” Isabelle says, encouragingly. “Go ahead. We’ll map it out together.”
“Rowan…” I take a breath. “I think maybe we aren’t just friends anymore.”
Lana and Isabelle share a silent look.
“I also think I have real feelings for him but I’m not sure if I can, you know?” I continue my tangent without any breaths. “Like what if it’s just the dopamine or whatever from the orgasms making me think that I can love him? Or what if that’s what’s happening to him? Can someone bethatgood in bed? MaybeIcan be that good in bed, but still?—”
“Natalia, breathe,” Lana says.
I swallow the lump in my dry throat, feeling it burn and the pressure behind my eyes intensify. “It isn’t that, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so,” Lana whispers.
“It isn’t the dopamine.”
“I mean, it could be?” Isabelle offers a half-shrug. “I’ve seen you two outside of, you know,that.He’s happy when you’re around. So yes, you trigger the dopamine and everything else, Nat, but it isn’t just the sex.”
I nod. And nod and nod and nod, the corners of my vision clouding. “He makes me feel like—” My breathshudders. “He makes me feel like I can breathe. Like I can rest…”
“Oh, honey,” Lana coos. “That’s part of what love is.”
She might be right.
I nod, hearing the words I’ll repeat to myself later in bed when I continue to overthink our entire situation.
That is part of what love is…
