Occam and His Stupid Razor

“Do you think the reason you fall for every girl who shows you an inkling of kindness is because you didn’t receive proper love from your parents and you inflate feelings of gratitude into infatuation?”

Jay reels back from the audacity, almost falling off his swing. “Dude, why would you hit me with that at eleven in the morning?” 

Alex shrugs, keeping a nonchalant grip on her own swing. “I’m just saying, it’s something worth thinking about.” She taps a finger against her temple. “You’ve got issues, man.” 

“Yeah, we all have issues, but I don’t need mine broadcasted for the whole world to hear!” Jay argues, his voice fading into the empty park. 

With great sympathy, Alex rolls her eyes. “I’m right, though. Right?” 

Thoughts of past crushes impede Jay’s peace of mind and the pitiful pattern they follow: fall quick, fall hard, rinse and repeat. “I’ve…that thought has crossed my mind a few times,” he says, absently kicking his foot to nudge his swing forward. “But I like to think I’ve gotten pickier every time it's happened."

“Ah.” Alex nods, kicking her feet to swing a little bit higher than her best friend. “So asking Laura out after she helped you find that library book was you being picky, then?” 

Jay frowns as she brings up his shame from a week ago. “We had a few conversations before then. That counts for something.” 

She gives him a look of disbelief. “She has a boyfriend, my guy. Those conversations meant nothing. In Chemistry, we’d call that a ‘zero net gain’.” 

“Let’s talk about something easier,” he blurts out. “Or at least something other than my pathetic love life.” 

“Okay. Do you want to talk about your mom coming back home?” 

There’s a long pause as Jay looks at her and the swing slows to a halt. “Laura was flirting with me and you know it.” 

Alex frowns at the expected response but doesn’t push any further. Maybe one of these days, but not today. Instead, she shrugs and remarks, “You call it flirting, I call it asking about a book series you both happen to like. Face it, Jay: you’re whipped.” 

“You're whipped.” He turns back to the quiet cul-de-sac and turns the spotlight away from him. “How are things with you and Donny? You don’t talk about him much anymore.” 

“Cause we broke up.”

Jay digs his feet into the wood chips and looks back at his strangely stoic best friend. “What?! Since when?” 

“Since, like, a month ago.” Alex sees his wary concern and hesitates before letting out a breath and continuing. “Your parents just had that big fight, I didn’t want to drop that kind of thing on you when you were already miserable.” 

The world’s worst best friend’s eyes widen. “Alex, you have to tell me this kinda stuff! I said all that stuff about relationships never lasting and there you were all…ugh, I feel like a piece of shit now.” 

“Jay, it’s fine. Really. Besides, I was– we were never going to work out anyway. He and I wanted different things.” Her voice is quieter as she says that last statement, as if she’s said it a hundred times before to herself and still hasn’t found a way to mean it.

There’s more he wants to ask, but if a month has passed, then he doubts she wants to talk any more about it. He sighs, “Maybe we’re both cursed. I’m cursed to put my heart out at the smallest of kindnesses.” 

“And I’m cursed to never have a relationship last longer than three months? Thanks.” 

“You said it, not me.” 

“We should just date each other.” 

“Ha!” When Jay doesn’t hear Alex say ‘psych’, he looks and sees her face scrunched into a deeply offended pout. “O–Oh, you…weren’t joking?” 

“Yeah!” she exclaims. “Or maybe I am. I don’t know, but you shouldn’t have laughed. Dick.” 

“Sorry, it caught me off guard. You said it so suddenly.” 

Alex huffs and kicks her swing back so hard that wood chips scatter onto the grass ahead of them. “I mean it makes sense, doesn’t it?” she says amidst the rusty squeaking and creaking. “We’ve been best friends for years, people probably already think we’re dating, and if we’re both hopeless, we might as well be hopeless together.” 

Squeaks and creaks pass as Jay takes in her words. “Compelling arguments. Can I make a counterargument?” 

“Of course.” 

“Have you gone insane?” 

“Still waiting on a counterargument.” 

A rush of air hits Jay as she swings past him. Squeak creak. Squeak creak. “Alright, fine. Shouldn’t we have feelings for each other if we were going to date?”

“You’re telling me you’ve never had feelings for me, Mr. Nice-Girls-Drive-Me-Crazy?”

“You’ve literally never been nice to me.”

“Doesn’t answer my question,” she says with a chuckle.

“I didn’t– That’s not–” Jay stands up and steps away from the swings, his feet crunching the wood chips Alex kicked over. “There’s no good way for me to answer that question.” 

There’s a difference in Alex’s teasing that he’s not used to; the difference is she doesn’t seem to be teasing. They’ve breached the topic of dating each other two times. The first time was Valentine’s Day in sixth grade when some guys in their class dared him to ask her out at recess. The second time was fifteen minutes later, when Alex was helping him with the bloody nose she caused while explaining why they were never going to ever date. Ever. 

As far as he knows, nothing's changed in the past five years.

He hears more crunching of wood and the dull clink of chains. Alex comes back into view, still showing no sign of a gotcha coming. She crosses her arms, looks up at him with determination, and says, “Fine, maybe you’re right. If we’re going to date–” 

Jay’s eyebrows raise. “Going to?” 

She rolls her eyes again. “If we’re hypothetically going to date, I guess it would help to see if there was some kind of spark or connection or whatever between us. Lucky for you, I’ve thought of an easy way to figure that out.” 

“How?” 

“Kiss me.” 

Jay’s jaw drops to the floor as he squints at the alien that’s taken over Alex’s body. “Are…did you hit your head or something? Do you have a fever?” he asks, placing the back of his hand against her forehead. It is noticeably warm.

Alex swats the hand away, keeping eye contact with him. “You brought up a problem, I came up with a solution.” 

“Stop it. Stop treating this like some kind of math problem; I can’t just kiss you and get data from that.”

“I’m not treating this like math, there’s nothing quantifiable about feelings,” Alex reasons. “But sometimes the simplest solution to a complicated problem is the best one.” 

Jay groans, "Oh my god, I thought we were done with Occam and his stupid razor."

Alex's knowing grin reaches her warm, red-tinged ears. "Do you really think I'd ever let you live down that last-minute presentation you bullshitted through?"

"God, I hate you."

"Sure you do. Now are you gonna kiss me or not?"

"You're not going to get off this are you?"

"Depends on your answer."

Jay looks at Alex, her unwavering confidence permeating the lack of space between them. He rubs a hand across his face and blows out a breath. "Alright, let's do it."

“Thank you!” Alex throws her hands in the air, exasperated. “You’re making this so much more difficult than it has to be.”

“Yeah, well you're a difficult person, so…shut up.” Jay straightens his posture as Alex echoes the same words she said to him when they snuck into their neighbor’s backyard to swim in their pool. He finds himself heading into uncharted waters again as he places his hands on Alex’s arms. 

A shakiness racks his entire body that he can’t steady without squeezing her biceps too hard. Alex looking at him expectantly isn’t making this any easier. It’s just a kiss, he tells himself to keep from losing a nerve. It’s two seconds of lip pressing and decades of taking this secret to the grave. 

The last thing he sees before he closes his eyes is Alex’s eyes fluttering closed as well. 

Her lips are soft and gentle, a hard contrast to everything about her. He decided that this would be a simple peck, the way Europeans do it when they’re greeting each other. But the shock that crackles down his spine makes him want to dive in– to sink even deeper. His breath escapes him as he begins to lose himself in this feeling. It’s warm, it’s inviting, it’s…

Dangerous. 

Rational thought comes flooding back, pushing Jay away from his best friend's lips. A thousand words run through his mind as Alex blinks back into existence, but none of them are the right thing to say. He’s thankful that she breaks the silence. 

“See? That wasn’t so bad.” She crosses her arms in almost a hugging posture and wipes her lips with her thumb. “Right?” 

“Uh–” Jay clears his throat and places his hands on his hips, looking at everything but the girl in front of him. “Yeah. No, yeah. Uh…yeah. No. Not bad.” 

“And now we know.” 

“Now we know.” 

Alex goes quiet when Jay’s expecting a response. He cautions a glance her way and sees a frown that’s hard to read. Is it impatience? Annoyance? Timid? No, this is Alex, timid isn’t even in her vocabulary. She must know her answer and she’s waiting for him to say it. 

With all the crushes he’s had before, a warmth would overtake him and his heart would punch against his chest. But as he looks at Alex, that warmth isn’t there. Instead of feeling like his heart is being pulled out, it’s like something is holding it in place– holding it back? This is too different to be one of his pathetic little crushes, which can only mean one thing.

Jay takes a steadying breath and adds, “Dating isn’t a good idea.”

Alex opens her mouth to say something, but him giving the right answer for once must take her by surprise. “That’s…” she nods, rubbing a sore spot on the back of her neck. “Yeah, you got it right.” 

“We should–” 

“Hmm?” Alex interrupts, her eyes widening. 

“I was gonna say we should probably get out of here. My parents–” 

“You should talk to your parents.” 

“I should…talk to my parents.” Jay runs his hands through his hair, stopping at the crown of his head. “Thank you for being here.” 

“Any time.” Alex nods. “You know me.” 

They walk back to their cars in a familiar silence as Jay tries to deny the continuous clenching of his heart. Alex might as well be made of stone with how solid her expression is every time he glances her way. When they get to their cars, he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and rests his head on the steering wheel until he hears Alex drive away. 

Alex was right, he needed to be pickier with who he fell for, and that would start now. If he said what he was really thinking when she looked at him after the kiss, he knew they’d be in trouble.

But his best friend looked unfazed. So as long as she feels like everything is fine, Jay would learn to feel the same way too.