Priya and Zara
Watching someone you love be loved is one of the most complex and beautiful feelings a person can have.
Priya || Zara || Love || Friendship
Priya introduced me to Zara on a Saturday in late January, at a brunch that Priya had organized with the specific logistical thoroughness she brought to everything she cared about. Zara Osei was everything Priya had described and also entirely herself — small, round-faced, with natural hair that was impressive in scale and a laugh that arrived before any warning and was completely genuine. She studied theater and was in Priya’s AP Literature class and had, apparently, been watching Priya for most of the first semester before asking about the study session that had turned into a first date. She was, I could see within twenty minutes, very good for Priya — not in the sense of improving her but in the sense of meeting her, which was what Priya needed most. She met Priya’s intelligence without being intimidated by it. She met Priya’s organizational impulses without being frustrated by them. She looked at Priya across the brunch table with the expression of someone who found the person they were looking at genuinely interesting, which was the most important expression one person could have for another.
At some point during the brunch — we were at a place on Northeast Alberta that had good biscuits and the easy atmosphere of a Saturday morning — Zara asked about debate. I explained the season, the topic, the regional qualifier. She was interested in the specific way of someone who thought about language and argument in their own field. “Does authenticity require courage?” she repeated. “That’s a good question.” “It’s the question,” Priya said. “Alex has opinions.” “I’ve argued affirmative all semester,” I said. “Do you believe it?” Zara said — and I almost laughed, because it was the question, again, from a new direction. “Yes,” I said, without hesitation. “I’ve been working my whole argument from the inside of that belief.” Zara looked at me with an assessment that reminded me slightly of Jamie. “Something happened,” she said. “This year. Something made you believe it.” “A few things,” I said. Priya was looking at me with the expression of someone who knew exactly what those things were. “Priya was one of them,” I said. Priya looked at me. “Really?” “You said it out loud in the cafeteria at normal speaking volume,” I said. “That was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. It made me think about what I was afraid of.” Priya’s face did the unguarded thing. “You never told me that,” she said. “I’m telling you now,” I said. Zara looked between us with the pleased expression of someone who had just understood something about the two people across from her. “You’re a good friend,” she said to me. “He’s the best,” Priya said, with the simple certainty of a fact. I drank my orange juice and felt the warmth of being in a room with people who knew the true things about you and thought the true things were worth knowing. The coat was off. The river was running. And it was, as Jamie had said, manageable. It was also, and this was something I hadn’t anticipated fully, genuinely nice.