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"Maybe you shouldn't tell anyone about Murphy's Law," Sara suggested, though her small smirk made it clear she was joking, "See how long it takes for anyone to notice,"
"I'd give it a couple weeks, before someone starts thinking I'm just unlucky."
"If you didn't go you wouldn't have to tell anyone!" Milo said.
Nate chucked, "Sorry kiddo, I've made up my mind."
The conversation echoed in Nate's head as he sat alone in his new dorm room, taking in the brief moment of peace before the inevitable (and when his roommate would arrive. Sara had been joking (probably) but that didn't mean it would hurt. For the first time in his life he could feasibly just not mention Murphy's Law.
See what would happen. And while his family wasn't big on the phrase for obvious reason, he couldn't help but thinking "What's the worst that could happen".
The door knob turned an in walked a smiling
"I've got it dad,"
"Well if you're sure,"
"You've got a drive back," he insisted.
"Well, I'll get going. Good Luck!"
"Thanks dad, love ya."
"Love you,"
"Nice to meet you, I'm Ethan."
"Nate," he said, hesitating before ultimately not clarifying Murphy. Ethan already knew that, this greeting was just a formality anyway.
"Nice to meet you Nate!"
The shelf fell.
"Damn, these shitty college dorms are worse than I thought. Already got to call maintenance." Ethan said, "Hope this whole place doesn't collapse on us,"
"Be careful saying stuff like that," Nate said.
"Superstitious?"
Nate snorted, "Please."
"Potatoes please." Nate asked. The potatoes lit on fire, and spread to the rest of the line. A scream filled the air, but the fire was quickly smothered.
"At least we know that the foods cooked,"
"Overcooked more like,"
"Food sickness?" someone had asked as Nate knelt over the toilet.
Nate managed a week nod.
"Rough... well you'll get used to the dorm food eventually."
"Is that your food in the microwave?" the RA asked over the blaring fire alarms.
"Yeah," Nate replied, waving smoke away from his face.
"Typical," The RA huffed, "Just another person setting the microwave on fire, get moving, still gotta evacuate."
"Oh, I lost my homework," Nate muttered, digging through his bag.
"Just print out another copy,"
"Now this is why we practice proper lab safety. If you hadn't all been wearing your safety goggles some of you could have gone blind."
"Does this happen often?" Another student asked.
"There's an incident at least once a semester," the teacher said, "It happens,"
It'd been weeks, and no one had so much as considered that maybe Nate was causing all these incidents. In fact, everyone seemed to think this was normal.
To be fair, colleges weren't exactly known for their high-quality of living. So it probably was normal.
Which meant it had been weeks since Nate had experienced a real Murphy's Law incident. He hadn't even broken any bones since he'd left home.
It was almost... like... he didn't have Murphy's Law.
Almost like he wasn't a Murphy man.
This should have been a paradigm shifting realization. But maybe Nate already knew.
I mean, Nate loved his family. He really did, and he loved spending time with his cousins. But he'd always felt a bit awkward getting grouped up with the rest of his male relatives.
Things were always worse when he was with them. So maybe he didn't have Murphy's Law, it just seemed like it because of who he kept company with.
Everyone had bad things happen to them sometimes. Murphy's Law was just a lot of bad things all the time.
A confirmation bias. (See he HAD been paying attention in class).
Nate had always thought that all his problems were weird. It made it hard to share with other people who wouldn't get it.
And now that he was away from kids and people and family who knew about Murphy's Law, he didn't get blamed for it. He was just a normal guy. His struggles were normal.
He could complain about losing homework or dorm food and people would agree. They got it. There was no distance between them.
For the first time he just felt like Nate.
And he liked that.