Page 32 of Swiped

The woman blinked clear brown eyes at Nat and then swept them over her from head to toe. “Oh, I’m not gonna buy these.” She smacked her gum. “But I bet they’ll be cute on you!”

Now, Nat simply had to know what was going on. “So, either you enjoy waiting in long and chaotic lines, or you have maybe cracked some kind of code to this place?”

The woman’s face broke into a broad smile.

“Oh yeah, you just gotta get the Milieu gals to shop for you,” she said.

She held up her white pants. “I grab something, anything, just to get in line for the dressing rooms. Then, once you’re in there, you tell them your sizes and they’ll pull stuff for you.

” Her Texan drawl made this foreign concept feel folksy and natural to Nat.

She gestured downstairs. “I don’t have time to sort through all that crap. ”

Gratitude flooded Nat. Maybe angels were real?

An attendant in an oversized floral blouse, neon blue overalls, and patent leather Mary Janes buzzed up to Nat.

“What’s your name, hon, and are you shopping for anything special?”

The runner winked at Nat.

Nat smiled at the attendant. “Hey, I’m Nat, and yes, I’m shopping for a date!”

* * *

That night, Nat bumped open the door to her and Sara’s apartment with her hip as she wrangled the large Milieu shopping bag inside.

She’d ended up going for a V-neck midi dress with a line of tortoise shell buttons along the side.

It was the kind of carefree but curve-hugging shape she’d never even thought to attempt before, and in a soft coral color that was, apparently, in her “seasonal palette.” She had to admit that she’d savored the warm glow of excitement as she’d watched the sales attendant stuff reams of tissue paper around the single item, swaddling it like a three-hundred-dollar organic cotton baby before gingerly slipping it into a bag at least two sizes too big.

Nat had carried it home like a trophy.

For the first time in maybe ever, Sara had beaten her home and sat cross-legged on the couch, eating from a takeout box as she scrolled on her phone. She shot Nat a guilty glance over her raised chopsticks. Nat wasn’t sure what the look was for, but Sara never did have much of a poker face.

Then Nat saw the reason — leaned up along the walls were stacks of unassembled boxes, towers of packing tape, and a package of fresh markers. Moving supplies. Her shopping- induced euphoria popped like so much bubble wrap. She guessed that now she had Sara’s official answer to her offer.

Nat set her shopping bag on the floor. “Wow, look at all this,” she said, pointedly.

Sara cleared her throat. “It’s a crime what they charge you for stuff that’s going to be literal garbage after one use,” she said, forcing a smile.

“Uh huh.” Nat bit the inside of her lip as a cold surge of panic splashed into her stomach.

This was it. Sara was leaving. The realization screamed into her mind, and all she wanted to do was scream right back for it not to be true.

“Well, if money is what you’re worried about, then I don’t see why you don’t just stay here. ”

Sara sighed and put down her chopsticks. “Because I can’t afford this place anymore. I told you that.”

“And I told you that I would pay for you, so you don’t have to move into some weird commune!

” Nat stomped her foot. She knew she was turning the volume up on this argument right away, but something deep and dark within her was forcing her hand.

Logically, she knew she was talking to Sara, her best friend of many years, but shadowing Sara’s shape on the couch was a rogue’s gallery of all the other so-called friends and outright bullies who had suddenly stopped including her in lunches and parties, or left her to sit alone on the school bus every day like she was radioactive, or burst into laughter whenever she walked by — all for reasons she never knew and so always wondered about.

Of course, she did know now that she was an adult woman with a successful career who had every reason to embrace herself as a #badassbitch.

And yet, she’d also thought she’d been pretty good, or at least OK, when she’d also been the kid getting pelted with wadded up paper in the cafeteria, or called gross and weird to her face, or left alone weekend after weekend because hanging out with her just wasn’t a desirable option for anyone.

So how could she trust her own judgment?

She had a lifetime of evidence that there was something deeply wrong with her — something that everyone else could see except her.

With Sara, she’d thought that maybe she’d shaken it, or Sara hadn’t seen it, but now her so-called bestie would rather leave her than accept free rent, so clearly, Nat’s truth had finally caught up with her.

Sara’s eyes were stony as she stood up from the couch. “It’s not a commune,” she said flatly. “And I can’t let you pay for me to live here, Nat. That actually would feel like a commune and that doesn’t feel good to me.”

“Right, because living with me is so awful that I literally couldn’t pay you to do it?”

Frustration made Sara’s light olive skin blotchy as she turned to Nat.

“It has nothing to do with you! It’s a rent problem in San Francisco, for fuck’s sake!

” She gritted her teeth. “And thanks for being sensitive to how it might embarrass me to admit that I can’t afford this place anymore, by the way. ”

Nat waved her hand in dismissal. “Now you’re the one taking it personally. This city is unaffordable to everyone who lives here, Sara!”

Sara rolled her eyes. “Not for you, it isn’t!”

Nat staggered back with a laugh. “Is that what this is about? I’m being punished for my success now?”

“That’s what you don’t get!” Sara said, pointing a finger at Nat with every word. “Your roommate moving out because everything in this city costs a million dollars is not your punishment! It has nothing to do with you, at all!”

Nat scoffed and rolled her eyes, but Sara kept talking.

“It’s not like I wanted to leave. I had no choice!

” Sara shook her head and took a deep breath.

“But now that you’re acting like this, I actually don’t want to live here anymore.

Now I don’t want to tell you about my day, or what my new roommates are like — even though you also haven’t even asked me anything about it — and that sucks, because I thought you were my best friend. ”

“I know the feeling.” Nat swallowed hard against the tears forming in her throat.

The truth was, she did want to hear about the new roommates, and she deeply missed the constant back-and-forth updates on each other’s lives that sweetened the air when you were living with someone you loved.

No matter what happened in her day, good or bad, it didn’t quite feel real until she had told Sara about it.

But now it was going to take a series of texts, planning some future date and time, and an equidistant cocktail-or-brunch spot before Nat could tell her anything, when it used to be as easy as just walking into the living room.

Now, who would be her confidant, her cheerleader, her co-pilot, and quite simply, who would care about what happened to her?

On some level, she knew that Sara was leaving the apartment, not leaving her life, but as she faced her sudden future of hundreds of silent hours alone and no one to share them with, it didn’t feel like there was much of a difference.

And yet, here she was, pushing Sara away instead of taking advantage of one of their last few nights together as roommates.

Nat hadn’t even told her about Thom, and she had no idea what had happened, or not, with Sara’s new résumé and job search.

That was definitely something an unlikeable monster who couldn’t keep friends would do.

Nat took a deep breath and tried to focus on Sara, not the shadows in the room.

“Listen, it’s been a long day,” she said, letting her voice soften.

“Why don’t I open a bottle of wine and we can put everything on pause and just chill? ”

But Sara shook her head with a frown. “I’m sorry, but no.” She gathered her dinner and gave Nat a teary-eyed look. “I need some space.”

Nat’s heart clutched in her chest as she watched her friend pad down the hallway away from her and close her bedroom door. She was shut out. She was alone. And it seemed like she would have to get used to it.