Sync, Part 4

A short story, continued

"I guess the party wasn't your thing, hmm?" Nicole asked.

We were at the Keurig machine in the break room. I had just made my cup and was now pouring the half-and-half in at a steady rate, using the 1/4 cup measure I kept for that purpose. I enjoyed watching the cream mix, little currents of white against the black until it all collapsed into one solid brown.

"I did come," I said, "You invited me and I did come."

The Keurig machine was buzzing as it made Nicole's coffee. I felt proud of myself, to be able to listen and talk with her while making my own coffee. Before I was diagnosed, before my sessions with Dr. Schlumberger, I'd have had to either make the coffee, or listen to her and do nothing else, but there I was doing both.

"Whats funny?" Nicole asked.

"I was just thinking that I feel like a real grownup because I can mix my coffee and talk with you at the same time." I looked up at her and smiled. Look, I wanted my smile to shout, I'm having a good day!

"Um," Nicole said, "okay." She smiled back, but only a little twitch of the muscles in her cheeks. I recognized that - first year dorm. Back when we were getting to know each other, back when I was still figuring out how to be a young woman in college.

"I saw a magpie on my walk to the party from my condo. Then I sat watching people talk for a bit. Then I drank a beer."

"Oh, alright." Nicole said. "I didn't see you, is all." She had finished making her coffee and was removing her red mug from the machine. I reached past her and plucked the Keurig pod from the machine and tossed it into the bin.

"Thanks," Nicole said. I smiled again: I was being helpful again, and people were liking that. This was in some ways better than SynthesisBio. The problems there had been much more interesting, but I didn't have pleasant chats with people like I did here. And I didn't feel like I was being helpful in the same direct way. I knew the drug we'd developed was treating lots of people, and that was good, but there was something you couldn't replace about actually being with people and having them be visibly glad you helped them. Like reading about a place wasn't the same as being there. And thinking about sex wasn't the same as having it. I felt my cheeks glow a little bit at the memory.

"You were talking with Annabelle and I figured you didn't want an interruption. So I went around and talked with other people."

"Oh, good for you!" Nicole said. Her smile was bigger now. She led the way, and we went and sat down at one of the round tables in the break room, the ones that had the black neoprene cushions that were more comfortable on my back than the hard plastic chairs in the other break room. "I had been worrying about you there for a bit. Like when we were first years. You seemed like you were having a hard time. And then when I arrived at the party, I saw you weren't there and texted you."

"No need to worry," I said. Monica and Annabelle came into the room and waved. I waved back.

“Did you have fun?" I asked. That was the thing you asked to be polite, to tell people you cared about how they felt.

"Someone had fun last night," Monica said, interrupting Nicole's response. Annabelle snorted, a weird sound like a horse. I've never been able to do it. A laugh. She had laughed. But I hadn't heard a joke. It was okay, I didn't need to get everything that was going on around me, didn’t need to be anxious 14-year old Susan concerned everyone knew something she didn’t. But there was something in Monica's voice I couldn't place. Nicole just glanced at Monica, then turned back to me.

"It was alright," she said, "but I really wanted to talk to Javier. I had thought we would get a chance to talk, celebrate together."

"Oh, I guess Javier stayed in his hotel room then." That made sense. I had not gone back to the party either.

"No," Nicole said, "I know he was there. I saw him. I didn't see him leave though. I thought he'd come and talk to me at least. I kind of went there mostly to see him."

"Oh, you wouldn't have been able to do that," I said, sipping my coffee. The light roast was nice, just the slightest bit bitter which made the sweetness better. Like my vulva was a bit sensitive this morning, but it was a good feeling because I remembered what caused it.

I smiled at Nicole. "Because Javier and I went to his hotel room and had intercourse."

There was a pause. A stillness. Just one second where Nicole didn't respond as fast as she had been. I looked up at her, my coffee still in my hand as I lowered it towards the table.

Nicole blinked.

Then the sound hit me like a crack - sharp and echoing, her voice suddenly too loud for the soft-walled lunchroom.

“What… the fuck?”

I jerked. My hand spasmed, coffee sloshing over the lip of the mug and scalding my skin. Not enough to burn. Enough to sting. Enough to snap me out of the pleasant buzz that had filled my brain.

Nicole's chair scraped back across the floor. Her face was—Was that rage? Pain? Disgust?

I couldn’t parse it fast enough. Her whole expression folded into itself. She stood up. Her hands were fists. Her mouth was open. And everyone in the room was looking at us.

I sat frozen, hand burning, mind confused.

What did I say wrong?

My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

My heart was thumping now. Audibly in my ears. I felt sure Nicole and others in the room could hear it. I looked at Nicole’s face and couldn’t parse it. Her expression kept shifting: eyebrows high, then furrowed, mouth tight then open, voice rising in weird peaks and valleys.

“I—” I began, then stalled. My fingers were sticky with cooling coffee. The pain in my hand was still sharp, but oddly distant, like it was happening in another room. My brain had gone slippery. But then I grasped it - this was about Javier. Something about Javier and I being together.

“Nicole,” I said, trying to stabilize my voice. “I didn’t know you liked him that way. You said you respected him. That was the word you used. You said you wanted him to be in the next campaign. You just said that you wanted him to notice you more. So I thought—”

Nicole recoiled like she'd been slapped. Her eyes widened.

“I told you I liked him! I told you I hoped he liked me back!” She was screaming this. It hurt my ears. But I resisted the urge to cover them.

“You said—” I started, but I couldn’t find the right quote. Not word-for-word. And suddenly it felt dangerous to get it wrong. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Nicole shook her head and backed away a step. Her arms crossed like she was physically keeping my words from touching her.

“I thought -” my voice cracked. “I thought it was just sex. Not - not about anyone else. I didn't even think he liked me that much. He just - it was an offer. I figured it out. You know I'm not good at figuring out things with people. And I wanted to. And I said yes. And I thought you’d want to know.”

“Want to know? Jesus Christ, Susan. You can't figure out not to play fucking Minecraft during a work meeting but you could figure out when the man I liked made a pass at you? And then not care? And think I’d want to hear about you fucking him?”

The room was too bright. Someone opened the fridge, and the light hit the metal table, glinting hard into my eyes. The neoprene of the seat cushion seemed to stick to the back of my thighs. I smelled coffee and the whiff of decay from the garbage can. My brain wanted to shut down all at once, like a system overheating—shut down input, shut down output, power off.

Nicole's face blurred. Not from tears (I wasn’t crying) but because my vision was stuttering. I couldn’t track movement properly. My hands were shaking.

“Maybe you’re right,” I whispered. “Maybe I can’t … I can’t understand these things. But I didn’t … mean to break anything. I thought… I thought I was doing something normal.”

Nicole laughed once, a sharp exhale, then turned away. At first I was confused: laughing - something funny?

“Normal people ask before they fuck the guy their friend likes!” she spat. “Normal people see what’s in front of them! But I was the one who was wrong.”

Monica and Annabelle weren't the only people in the room now. Several other staffers were there as well. And around the corner of the door came Javier. His eyes were wide.

Nicole took a deep, shuddering breath. “It was my mistake to think you could understand anything, that you could care.”

Then she was gone. She walked out fast, shoes clicking on the kitchen tiles. People tried to make way for her, but she shouldered past them so fast she stumbled. Javier took a step back, but she did not seem to see him. She must have walked right around him and down the hall, then around a corner. Then I heard a door slam, and she was gone.

No one said anything. The coffee mug sat cooling on the table, a ring of liquid slowly expanding outward like the epicenter of a blast.

I stared at it.

Then, as the silence reassembled itself around me, I whispered, “I thought I was getting better.”

一

Notes: PRIVATE

Title: Hookup Optimization Framework v1.2

Timestamp: 9:46am (after meeting with Nicole)

Location: 2nd Floor Supply Closet

Status: Provisional. Broken.

I. NEW VARIABLES (UNANTICIPATED)

Friendship Entanglement Index (FEI): previously unquantified. Critical oversight.

Nicole → Category: Primary Friend Unit

Javier → Category: Shared Emotional Proximity Node

→ Resulting Triangulation Instability = catastrophic social rupture.

Post-event Social Optics (PSO): misjudged.

Leaving party together = not stealthy.

Eyewitness accounts = 6+ (estimate based on group chat activity).

Assumption Flaw: “Casual sex is socially neutral if both parties are consenting.”

→ This may be true in abstract, but not within political environments modeled after high school cafeterias.

II. DOWNSTREAM EFFECTS

Nicole screamed at me.

She cried.

I think she might have slapped me if there weren’t witnesses.

She said things that didn’t make sense at first. Now they do.

(I’m slow. I always am.)

Attempted repair conversation unsuccessful.

“I didn’t know you liked him that way” was apparently the wrong thing to say.

“I thought you’d want to know” was definitely the wrong thing to say.

III. INTERPERSONAL COLLISION REPORT

Primary Failure Point:

Misclassification of Nicole’s feelings as “light interest” rather than “active hope.”

Misapplication of literal communication model (“if she wanted him, she would have said so”).

Secondary Failure Point:

Assumed emotional neutrality where emotional investment was present.

Treated friend like a lab variable.

IV. RECOMMENDATIONS (RETIRED)

Model invalidated by reality.

Ethical Subroutines insufficient.

Keep interactions with Javier professional, do not acknowledge that night unless he brings it up. If he does: defer, deflect, leave the room with an excuse (note: brainstorm excuse to have ready)

Affective forecasting system not calibrated for guilt, shame, or betrayal.

V. ADDENDUM: PSYCHOLOGICAL STATUS

I am—

Actually, no. Let's do this properly.

So this is what being ashamed feels like.

There. I named another emotion.

Dr. Schlumberger would be proud.

I don’t want to write the next version. I don’t want to optimize anything right now.

I want to go back and be quiet with her again, like when we walked to that food truck, when I didn’t say anything clever and she said I was a robot. I smiled. I didn’t even understand why.

I think I hurt her. Not just because of him, but because she trusted me to not be the kind of person who wouldn’t notice.

What now?