Eternal Ephemerals

Lumping

The café was buzzing with life. Clinking cups, soft laughter, the occasional hiss of the espresso machine. She sat with her three closest friends at their usual corner table, where sunlight poured through the windows and glinted off the edge of her cappuccino cup. The air smelled like roasted coffee beans and sugar, grounding her in the familiarity of their little rituals. She loved this, these moments with her friends, the way their energy flowed so easily, like a conversation that never quite ran out of words.

"I swear, if I text him first, I'm just handing over all my power," Priya was saying, clutching her phone like it might betray her at any second. "Tell me the truth—does it make me look desperate?"

"It depends," Maya said, licking a bit of cheesecake from her fork. "What's the text? If it's casual, it's fine. If it's, like, a paragraph about how much you miss him, then yeah. Maybe don't."

"Casual doesn't mean cryptic, though," Anya chimed in, waving her spoon for emphasis. "You don't want to come off clingy, but you don't want to sound like you're texting in Morse code either."

They all laughed, voices blending together in an effortless rhythm. She laughed too, her mouth curving upward almost instinctively. But her fingers, tracing the rim of her cup, told another story. The ache was back—the quiet, restless feeling that always seemed to creep in during moments like these.

She shifted in her chair, glancing at her friends. They were her people, and she loved them. She loved how easy it was with them, how they could spend hours talking about nothing and still leave her feeling lighter. But she also wanted more. She wanted a conversation that stretched beyond crushes and text etiquette, something that made her brain spark and her pulse quicken.

"Did you guys hear about the state elections?" she asked suddenly, her voice casual but hopeful. "That win—it's not just big for now. It's huge for the future too. It feels like the first time they actually—"

"God, please," Priya groaned, waving her hand dismissively. "Not politics. It's all the same nonsense. Everyone's corrupt, nothing changes. I'd rather not waste my energy thinking about it."

Her voice faltered. "But this isn't the same. They actually—"

"I just don't get into that stuff," Maya cut in, shrugging. "My dad and my brother are obsessed, though. They talk about it all the time, and it's so exhausting. I don't need that kind of stress in my life."

"Yeah, same," Anya said. "It's so negative. I'd rather focus on things that actually make me happy, you know?"

And just like that, the conversation shifted, seamlessly flowing back to Priya's dilemma. They were laughing again within seconds, picking apart Priya's hypothetical text with playful jabs and exaggerated reenactments. She laughed too, even tossed out a joke of her own, but her heart wasn't in it.

It wasn't their fault. It wasn't. She knew politics wasn't everyone's thing. And it wasn't just about politics anyway. It was everything—philosophy, ethics, the questions that didn't have easy answers. She wanted to talk about why people sought power, whether it corrupted them or revealed who they'd always been. She wanted to debate whether this election win was the beginning of real change or just a brief pause in the usual cycle of mediocrity. But those kinds of conversations didn't seem to fit here.

Instead, they lingered on the edge of her mind, unspoken and restless, while she smiled and nodded and stayed within the comfortable bounds of what they always talked about.

The thought crept in before she could stop it: I wouldn't have this problem with my dad. Or my brother. Or even my guy friends.

The shame came just as quickly. She hated thinking like that. Hated the way it made her feel small and unfair. She didn't believe in lumping interests together by gender—she didn't. But in moments like this, when her frustrations simmered beneath the surface, the thought still slipped in. It felt like her mind was betraying her, whispering things she knew weren't true but couldn't help feeling anyway.

Her friends weren't shallow. They weren't incapable of deeper conversations. Priya had a way of reading people that was almost unsettling in its accuracy. Maya's wit was sharp enough to cut through any nonsense, and Anya had a quiet way of seeing the beauty in things others overlooked. They were brilliant in ways she admired deeply. And yet, here she was, lumping them into categories she didn't even believe in.

What was wrong with her? Why was she doing this?

It wasn't like she didn't have her own blind spots. She'd never felt comfortable talking about boys or dating or anything remotely emotional with her guy friends. The thought of discussing romance or heartbreak with them felt absurd—almost laughable. Those conversations always belonged here, at this table, with these people.

So why was it so easy to expect her friends to dive into topics like politics or philosophy but not to expect her guy friends to hold space for her vulnerability? Why did those lines exist at all? Why did she hold them so firmly, even when she knew they didn't make sense?

The thought unsettled her, twisting in her chest like a splinter. Was she part of the problem? Did she keep these divisions alive without realizing it?

"Are you even listening?" Maya's voice broke through her thoughts, sharp but teasing.

She blinked, startled. "Huh?"

"I said," Maya repeated, grinning, "if Priya doesn't text him soon, I'm going to do it for her."

"Oh," she said quickly, forcing a laugh. "Yeah, definitely. You should."

The conversation moved on, their laughter ringing out like a bell. She joined in, letting their voices wash over her, the warmth of their energy filling the space around her. For a while, the ache in her chest softened, though it didn't go away entirely.

Later, as they stepped out into the golden light of the late afternoon, the warmth of the sun on her skin couldn't quite melt the knot in her stomach. She loved her friends. She did. But the questions lingered, stubborn and unanswered.

Why was it so easy to expect one group to hold philosophical conversations but not emotional ones? Why did she divide parts of herself like this, offering fragments of who she was to different people? Was it society? Was it her? Or was it just... human?