Friendship Without Romance
Alicia decided, quietly, deliberately, that she and Nate were friends. The conclusion settled with the same calm certainty she applied to every other classification in her life. Friends were safe. Friends had boundaries. Friends operated within known parameters and did not ask questions that required excavation. Friendship, she told herself, was sustainable. They did not mark the shift with conversation. There was no acknowledgement, no naming of the thing as it settled into place. It emerged instead through rhythm, through ease that no longer carried friction, through conversations that moved without hesitation and stopped without tension. Nate no longer circled. Alicia no longer retreated. They met in meetings and aligned without choreography. He anticipated questions she hadn’t ye
- Writer
