Tara is auditioning for some chorus part in an atrocious opera or musical—which one exactly, Nick can’t remember. She’s wearing black slacks and a cream-colored blouse, and ballet flats because she tells him she can never audition in heels (to this, he raises an eyebrow in sardonic fashion, makes a joke at her expense). A binder full of music sits in her lap and she’s folding her hands together, a sign of her nerves. He’s tempted to reach out his hand and grab her palms but instead, he picks at his cuticles while they wait. The audition room is being held in a dreary theater somewhere far away from the actual Broadway. Nick looks around at his environment and tries to remember why exactly he’s there. All he can recall is that Tara had pleaded and cajoled him into coming with her to keep her company. I promise it will take absolutely no longer than thirty minutes, she had said. He checks his watch: it’s been close to an hour.

They are both twenty-one and in college, albeit a few hours apart from each other, but every so often one or the other makes the trip via train to meet. This time it was Nick’s turn to arrive in Manhattan for the weekend. After arriving at Penn Station, Tara had met him at the platform and then he watched as she navigated the train to the Upper West Side, fascinated by how calmly she seemed to understand the underground. They talked endlessly and by the time they arrived at her apartment it was time for dinner. Once they had finished eating, they spent the next few hours with a bottle of wine and were sitting on a green couch in Tara’s small living room. It was probably the lighting or the wine or the fact that it was three in the morning, but he was thinking about kissing her more than he should have been. Then—

“Can you come with me to an audition tomorrow?”

“What sort of audition?”

“You know, like a job. It’s one for a show.”

“A show? You’re just telling me this now?” The corners of his mouth turn up. To him, all this auditioning and singing and prancing around a stage in front of a tired audience is a prolonged version of childhood fantasy. Nick thinks of a play she once forced him to see and how the whole time, her face glowed with happiness, and she laughed at the parts people are supposed to laugh at and cried at the parts where everyone else also reached for tissues. But the whole time, he couldn’t stop thinking how ridiculous the whole thing was. Of course, he won’t say this to Tara. But she’s already quite aware of his opinion, just indifferent to it.

“Yes, and it’s last minute. I can’t really help it when I have to go.”

“Hm, define what the word ‘show’ entails.” His hands clasp together in mock enthusiasm. “Just for fun.”

“You know exactly what it means. Don’t play dumb. Will you please just come?”

“Well, I was considering it but I’m not sure I will if you falsely accuse me of being dumb.” To make sure she knows he’s joking, he gives a lopsided smile, then brushes his hand against hers.

“I promise it will take absolutely no longer than thirty minutes. These things always go quickly. I’ll buy dinner if I’m wrong.”

“Famous last words.” She sighs and turns, laying her head in his lap.

“Will you just go? You know I get nervous at these things.”

“I guess so,” he says nonchalantly, shrugging and setting his fingers in her hair. What he really means to say is, Of course I will go. Anything you want.

They have known each other since high school and although they tell everyone they are friends, this is in fact a lie. It’s more of a shared understanding the two have between one another, mostly reinforced by Nick. For one reason or another, he’s impossible with love, unsure of what’s real and what’s not, afraid to commit to something and question its purity, its truthfulness. He’s never been sure where the line between friendship and romance is, whatever that means. Once, he went out for frozen yogurt with a classmate of his and didn’t even realize it was a date until days later, when a friend of a friend of the girl had texted to let him know. By the way, the text read. Ella thinks ur really cute!! When r u gonna date?! His only response had been “Oh” because he’d never felt anything for her anyways and even less now that there was some sort of correct response expected of him.

But even when he does feel something, it’s hard to express. These complications have always applied to Tara, no matter how many years pass. “Teenage feelings never last. This is just high school and teenage angst and all these weird emotions we’re probably programmed to feel,” he had told her once when they were seventeen and lying on his bed. Outside it was cold and raining but Tara’s face turned hot as she felt a sliver of sweat running down her back. She had sat still, calculating how she could respond. He continued to ramble on, changing the subject every so often, jumping from something he’d read recently to a history class they were taking and then nervously back to the idea of love. As he prattled, she simply nodded, deciding not to say anything. Once she left, he had wondered if he was the only sensible one or if he was just broken, defective.

Now, nearly four years later, Tara’s never quite sure if it’s loneliness or the same old feelings playing tricks on her, but some days in the moments before she falls asleep, she’ll think of Nick, whether it means replaying memories, quips of conversations, or the glaring realities of their fundamental differences. When she was trying to convince herself there wasn’t anything left between them, she would often think about fights they had, like the time he hung up on her or when she poked at his insecurities or when she burst into tears after he criticized her. Are you supposed to be so dependent on a friend? Even when she sees him, she wants to believe that there is nothing between them.

At the audition, Nick calmly scribbles something into a book. She looks over his shoulder to see the title and it’s ineffectually called Philosophy. He is a philosophy major and to her, all this reading and studying of facts of life that can hardly be changed is an exhausting way to spend your day.

“Wow, that’s a creative title for a book. I would study philosophy too with that sort of innovation in book titles.” Nick scowls at her.

“It’s for class. And shouldn’t you be auditioning? Twirling around on a stage or something?”

“Ouch! Someone’s in a bad—” but before she can say more, the monitor emerges for the room. They call out her name and in a blur she’s standing, smoothing her shirt, tucking her binder under her left arm. She looks at Nick and he’s struck by her sudden vulnerability, the trust in her eyes.

“Break a leg, I guess?” Then she’s gone. As he waits, he thumbs at a particular sentence, over and over again. And love, in all its forms, continues to change and adapt, even despite absurdity. Is human connection, then, the source of meaning or value? 

 

Afterwards, they’re eating lunch at some Greek place they had seen on the way to the theater. In between drinks and their food arriving, they begin ice skating around the topic of their relationship. They enjoy doing this, broaching the what-ifs and why-notes with a nerve-wracking sense of giddiness that Tara perceives as her own self-inflicted masochism.

“You know, it’s funny. When I met you, I don’t think I would’ve talked to you had you not initiated it,” he says. The first time they met was at some club activity in high school and Tara’s heard this story inside and out, but she relishes the idea that Nick feels comfortable enough to reveal himself to her, to reveal some new thought or discovery.

“Charming, I’m glad to hear it.”

“Okay, that was poorly said but I just mean in the sense of making friends and talking to people… well, you know I’m not the best at that.”

“Oh, I know. You and your mood swings and your… aversion to socialization.” He’s not sure whether he loves or detests the way she reads him so easily and ponders if this is what makes them friends – this capability to form friendship through shapeshifting where she makes herself alike to him, both in virtue and by understanding the things about himself he never believed could be understood.

“That… feels like an attack. I guess I can’t really deny it. I know it’s true. I just, never quite feel like I say the right thing or do the right thing, when it comes to people.”

“Isn’t that because you think feelings are just programming rather than instinct? Feelings don’t last, it’s just temporary?”

“Well, I guess so. I think you’re using what I’ve said against me though. And anyhow, people tell me otherwise. You, for instance.”

“Well yes, I disagree. You know that. But I know you’re more of a physicalist on those things because what’s love anyways, right? It’s all neurons and wires, right? Widespread and computable, love and consciousness.”

“I don’t know if I’d adapt physicalism to that extent, although I am certainly interested in it. Sure, consciousness seems highly computable, but I feel like you might be poking fun at me here… I can’t tell if I’m meant to answer seriously or if you’re getting at something else.” It’s too much to think about and it hurts his head. How is it that they go from teasing to discussions on the human mind? He imagines all of the thoughts swirling around in his brain and if only he could take a net and catch them, stow them away. If thoughts are computable, he thinks, where is the delete button or the password protected files he can’t access?

“Well it’s up to interpretation, I suppose.”

“I just think, it’s nice being friends. It’s nice to not overcomplicate everything.”

“Overcomplicate?”

“You know what I mean.” A patch of sunlight falls on her cheekbone.

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”

“I just think that we’re not very similar people. But we change ourselves in a way when we’re together. And that makes us work. I mean, I have some friends, I guess, but it’s more superficial, more surface level. We talk about the weather and class and things like that.”

“I have those friends too. But that’s very normal.”

“I mean, you and I do those very same things, but we also have a deeper appreciation.”

“Deeper appreciation?”

“Like, we fight and disagree. But it feels safe to do that. Because there’s something more solid beneath that. I worry if that sort of thing is sustainable beyond a friendship.”

“I’m not sure I get that. Sustainable beyond friendship?”

“You know what I mean.” Silence for a moment.

“Explain it to me again.”

“Is this about us not being together? You want me to say it, right?”

“Say what? That we could’ve been together, but you couldn’t do it. And apparently it’s because of some fear of sustainability beyond friendship?”

“It’s more than that. I just don’t find the idea that promising. We are together.”

“Only in the way that you want.”

“And you don’t want us to be friends? I’m here now, in New York. To be with you!” Their waiter asks if they need anything else and Tara gives him a weak smile, shaking her head.

“What’s not promising?”

“Just surrendering yourself under the promise of total fulfillment through love.”

“That doesn’t make sense. You’re not ‘surrendering’ yourself. No one is making a promise. I mean, what the hell does ‘total fulfillment’ even mean?”

“Well, if it’s not any of those things then why is it—I mean ‘love’—so important?”

“This isn’t philosophy class, there’s no ‘if-A-then-B’ formula that we’re talking about.”

“You’re the one bringing up philosophy. What does ‘being together’ even mean to you? Why is this not enough? You tell me.”

She thinks of an idea he had told her about a year ago, something he had learned in one of his philosophy classes. It was about love transcending and binding two souls. Nick had laughed at it, wanted to prove it wrong to her. He told her it was ridiculous. How did people just say things to each other about love like it was normal? Like they weren’t opening a giant gaping wound in themselves for someone else to kick apart even further? What did any of it mean anyways? What made people loveable and normal—two things he never equated himself with? Back then, she had told him, “You just say that because you’re afraid. Why are you so afraid?” He said nothing because he knew it was true, told her he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She had rolled her eyes, stopped texting him for a few days but caved in because what else could she do? There was that wound.

Now, she thinks of that moment again and wonders if there was always the underlying hope that they could transcend all of their issues. “Don’t you think we’re running in circles? That you might be happier if you stopped doubting everything constantly. Doubting yourself. Doubting me? I’m not trying to stop anything.”

“Oh, I definitely still think I’m running in circles. But I’m also not entirely convinced there’s a reason I shouldn’t be. The validity hasn’t changed to me. I can’t imagine it being harder or easier for me to wrestle with these things if my circumstances changed.”

“Nick, what are you saying? I don’t know what that means. I don’t understand. Are you happy with how things are?”

“You mean happy with life?”

“No. With this,” she waves her hand around. “Seeing each other every so often, pretending like we’re still the same kid versions of ourselves.”

“I guess I’m not unhappy enough. I mean, I try not to think of it as pretending.”

“Ah. Unhappy enough for what?”

“To really change things. I just think, nothing becomes resolved from jumping tracks.”

“I don’t think we’d really be jumping tracks so much as finally not running away from each other.” Her eyes are stinging. Why did they bring this up again? Who started it—was it her?

“I don’t know.”

“Why is it so hard to love?”

“Lack of intimacy maybe.”

“I don’t understand. Love is intimacy.”

“But that’s the thing—you’re not afraid of it. I am.”

“Why?” He looks at her, really looks at her and wonders if his freedom to mock other people, to mock their very dreams and wishes, is just how he hides his deepest flaws.

“Love is…” He wonders how she is so capable of existing and feeling comfortable in her own words and emotions, so comfortable to express love. “It’s… I don’t even know what it means.”

“Well, I know what I mean when I say I love you. You don’t have to find the truth of it in a textbook. There’s no definition waiting to spell things out or guarantee a certain ending or an outcome because that’s the point.”

“I just feel uncomfortable with that. I love you. It just makes me feel pushed. And what point anyways? What does that mean?”

“The point of loving someone? And you feel pushed? Because people want to tell you that they love you?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t know why. I don’t think I can. It’s too much.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes are filled with tears, but she won’t let them spill here in this small restaurant where there are so many people around them. Despite her freedom in dictating her emotions, she is still afraid to cry in front of strangers. She knows Nick would never try to comfort her and she would have to stop herself.

The truth is that Nick believes he must be in love with her. He doesn’t know what else he could describe the feeling as. But he doesn’t know how to accept it, how to move against his own crippling fear. He had always thought he was too afraid to make the first move but now, he realizes he is paralyzed from making any move at all. Even if it was a step towards happiness.

They don’t know it yet but in twenty-four hours, after Nick has ridden the train that brings him to his dorm room and Tara receives an email where her names appears on a callback sheet, they will end this friendship-more-than-a-friendship. She will call him, tell him she can’t do it anymore, that it is not enough and will never be enough. There should be a line between friendship and romance, and they’ve crossed the boundary between those two too many times. The border is nonexistent and it’s too foggy for her to cross back and forth over and over, to live with the disappointment and balance it with hope. She will never be able to fall in love again as long as he lingers in the background, hiding in the shadows.

And he will nod and say he understands, tell her not to apologize, wish he was there to hand her a tissue. He’ll say that he’s sorry for being there, for being a part of her life, for being there to fall in love with. She will ask if he’s sure about how things will end and he will say yes although inside him, words tumble and he wants to tell her he doesn’t know how he feels but whatever it is he, he feels it deeply. Tara will hang up the phone in tears, an acute pain burrows itself into her chest, a product of the acceptance that they will probably never speak to one another again.

Texts and emails will fade and slowly, so will their memories of one another. Memories of dialogue will become muddled with blurred emotion and the passage of time. Tara’s cream-colored blouse will remind her of him, and every time Nick looks at his shelf to see that Philosophy book, it will scream her name so much to him that he’ll have to flip it horizontally, hide it deep within the confines of his soul shelf. Manhattan restaurants will remind her of him every so often, until it won’t anymore.

But for him, he will always think about what this ending means, deciding if it’s a matter of not being good enough because she was always so much better than he was. If he was happy in the first place in himself, comfortable in his own skin and his mind more like a sieve—forgetting every grievance, concern, and flaw that could be found—could he have captured his happiness with her?

Was there ever really anything to mark the passage of time, to outline the partition that always stood between them, to mark that they existed?

After they had left the restaurant, they spent the day walking around the city, taking the train from Midtown to Williamsburg, back and forth and back and forth. Then, when it was nearly eleven and time for Nick to catch his late train, they ambled towards the station.

The temperature had begun to drop so every once in a while Tara would shiver. Whenever Nick looked at her, he would catch glimpses of the girl he met years ago and the silence filling every moment was unbearable. He had wished he could stop time right then, push past the barrier and risk everything for something he doesn’t even know how to express. It’s too terrifying to let go of the fear.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just realizing it’s late.”