The Science of Growing Apart

5- Natalie

"Maybe I'm too close to the story to even be reporting on it," I said aloud to Natalie as she stuffed half a samosa in her mouth. "It feels weird to be writing about Eleanor's family when we have such a personal relationship, you know?"

"It'll be hard to get over your bias, but you just have to do it. Can you even imagine how a story like this would elevate your career? Don't be ridiculous."

I fell back into the depths of my couch and said, "Yeah, I know you're right."

"It's a lot of pressure, and I know it's intimidating, but don't start self sabotaging now," she said to me.

Sometimes, it felt like Natalie knew me better than I knew myself. It was intimidating to write a story that would be dropping such a large bomb, that would garner so much attention nationwide. My bias was a bit of a concern, but I could work through it and my self doubt was starting to use that as an excuse to want to back out. Also the fact that I was dreading the possibility of seeing Casey again was making it difficult to want to continue.

Seeing Eleanor earlier in the day had made all of this seem so much more real and my feet were starting to feel cold. Was I really cut out for such a cut throat type of journalism? It was starting to feel like I wouldn't be able to hack it.

"Just don't give up," she urged me when I didn't say anything. "Eat your naan before I do, and let's talk about something else. Let's look at your Tinder, we can find you a distraction."

She held her hand out, expecting my phone. I just laughed and began nibbling on the edge of the piece of naan bread on my plate. One of the major perks about being friends with Natalie is that her parents were born in India and now owned an Indian restaurant in town. Their homemade Indian food is the best I'd ever had and she would frequently bring me to-go containers of food to feast off of for a couple of days.

"I deleted Tinder again," I admitted to her. "That date last week was a great reminder as to why I don't need dating apps right now."

"That was just one dumb guy, there are better ones out there," she complained to me.

"Then you go find them," I retorted with another laugh. Like most people, Natalie was great at giving advice and terrible at taking it. She was always giving me dating advice, encouraging me to go on dates, all the while remaining the most single person I've ever met.

"Maybe if I lose like twenty pounds," she said with a timid shrug and then finished off her steaming samosa.

"If there's a guy out there that won't date you now, but will date you when you're twenty pounds lighter, then he's not the guy for you anyway," I reminded her, even though we'd had this conversation so many times before. Despite me thinking that Natalie was gorgeous with warm, dark skin and smooth features, mysterious black eyes, she only saw the pillow of skin on her tummy and round hips. I thought she was curvy and beautiful as a midsize girl, but Natalie was not so kind to herself.

"What if I turn into one of those girls that ditches all her friends for a guy when I start dating?" Natalie raised her black eyebrows at me. "I'm not ready to find that out about myself."

"What friends?" I said teasingly, and she laughed knowing that I was her only friend and it was fun to joke about, because she was my only friend too. "You think you can get rid of me just by getting a boyfriend? I'm latched on, I'm not going anywhere."

As Tulip began investigating my now-empty plate for any scraps to steal, my phone started ringing on the corner of the wooden coffee table. I immediately jumped to my feet when I saw Eleanor's name on the caller ID and said, "It's Eleanor, I gotta take it."

Natalie quickly paused the rom com we were watching and I went into the bedroom to talk. "Hey, Eleanor," I answered the phone.

"Hey, long time, no see, huh?" she said with a lighthearted laugh that actually seemed sort of tense.

"Yeah," I agreed with her slowly. "What's up?"

"So I talked to Casey today and we agreed that we'd like to meet this girl," she said. "And get a DNA test, just to be sure. I know that won't be useful for your report, but it'll give us some peace of mind."

"Okay," I responded, feeling taken by surprise at this development. I had expected her to take much longer to think this over with her brother and make a decision. "Are you sure?"

"We're sure," she confirmed with a big sigh.

"I'll set something up," I said. "Maybe sometime this week?"

"The sooner the better, before one of us chickens out," she joked. "Thank you for doing all of this, Josie."

"Of course, I'm happy to do it."

"Casey is excited to see you again," she added, but then there was some rustling on the other end and Eleanor began laughing before she said, "Shut up, yes you are."

When I realized that she was talking to Casey right there in the room with her, my throat went dry. He was excited to see me? I wasn't excited to see him at all. It was going to be awkward and weird. He deserved answers to his family tree just as much as Eleanor though, so of course he was welcome to come. But why was he excited to see me? Or at least, why did Eleanor think that he'd be excited to see me?

"Well..." I stuttered nervously. "Um, just let me know what days work best for you and I'll talk to Shiloh on Monday."

I ended the call pretty quickly after that, wondering what this meet up would be like. Maybe I could just go to introduce everybody and then leave as to not be a part of the conversation. It might be insightful for the article, but not necessary. This was a more intimate meeting of long lost siblings rather than filler for an investigative article.

"How'd it go?" Natalie asked me when I reentered the living room, falling back onto the couch beside her.

I didn't know how to answer her. I thought it was a good thing that they were willing to meet Shiloh and get a DNA test, but I wasn't sure how she'd react to learning about Eleanor and Casey. Not only that, but I obviously had my own hangups about seeing Casey again after all this time. We had a really magical friendship, in my opinion, but that was six years ago and a lot has changed. For both of us.

"Why is this my life," I complained dramatically as I pushed play on the remote and the movie continued playing.

"Is it Casey?" she wondered curiously and I wondered how her intuition was that good. We had been friends since the beginning of college when we were randomly assigned as roommates on campus, so she did know me very well. It was still spooky. "I haven't seen that mopey look on your face since we were nineteen."

"I'm going to have to see him," I confirmed.

"Oh, that's balls," she stated.

I didn't really know what that meant, but she said it a lot, and in this context, I couldn't help but agree with her. This was, indeed, very balls.

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Song: Growing Paints - Maria Mena

Ok so I didn't have to work today and my brain thought it was Saturday so here's an extra update because I'm dumb :)