Chapter 5 The Friend He Never Left

he first time Amara had ever seen Celeste, it had rained.

Not the gentle sort, but the hard, pounding kind that made car windows slick and drenched you to the core in a matter of seconds. Amara had been standing under the canopy of Julian's office building, ironing the wrinkles from her dress and admiring herself in the tinted glass, trying to be perfect. Julian had invited her to a business dinner that night-just a small gathering, he had said. "You'll finally meet Celeste," he'd added casually, as if her name didn't carry weight. But Amara had heard it too often not to feel the stir of unease.

Inside, the lobby shone with gold and marble, and Amara's heels faded softly against the buffed floor as she approached the elevator. She recalled the flutter in her chest-neither fear exactly, but hope. Hope that the encounter with Celeste would soothe the bunched-up knot of tension in her belly that arose each time Julian spoke of her. Hope that the intangible terrors she refused to voice would break and be no more.

The elevator door opened, and Amara entered the busy office area. Julian greeted her warmly and kissed her on the cheek. "You look beautiful," he told her. His hand swept across her lower back as he led her into the conference room where dinner was waiting to be set up.

And there she was.

Celeste.

Tall. Slenderly balanced. Blonde hair pulled back in a fashionable knot. Lips reddened by a color that drew attention without apology. She walked across the room with a self-assurance that was second nature, laughing as if she belonged and always had. Her hand extended first and came out.

"Supposedly Amara," she said, voice warm but distant. Her hold was tight. Her smile-courteous. She didn't stay to create personal or social bonds.

Amara smiled too, now aware that she had overdressed in the green dress and minimal makeup. "Great to meet you. Julian's spoken so much about you."

Celeste smiled. "All good, I hope."

"Oh," Julian interrupted, slipping in between them, "more than good. Celeste is family. Without her, I would not have made it through my first five years of business."

Celeste placed a hand on Julian's arm, an offhand motion as if one they had rehearsed. "We were simply two high-functioning students who wanted to rule the world," she said with a knowing smile.

The three of them sat, the others drifting in eventually, but Amara was split in her attention. She listened to Julian laugh-actually laugh-at one of Celeste's jokes. She saw him smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners, lean in when she spoke, exchange glances that took microseconds but contained years of history.

Amara sipped on wine and smiled sweetly when she got her turn, responding to kindly questions and nodding in all the right spots. But in her mind, she was doing calculations. Adding up the seconds Julian looked at Celeste rather than her. Subtracting the way his hand moved from her back as soon as they sat down. Noting the tone change-how he spoke softer to Celeste in ways he hardly ever spoke softly to her anymore.

It wasn't jealousy. Not really.

It was instinct.

And something didn't feel right about it.

Later, when the dinner had subsided and the guests had departed, Amara stood alone by the window with Celeste. The city lights glowed below the rain, the glass streaked with drops.

"He loves you, you know," Celeste said, her voice oddly flat.

Amara turned to look at her. "I know," she said. But her voice betrayed her, soft and uncertain.

Celeste tilted her head. "Julian's always been intense. Focused. But he's not good at expressing things-not in the traditional sense. He needs space sometimes. He shuts down when he's overwhelmed."

It sounded rehearsed, like something Celeste had said to women before.

Amara smiled politely. "We're learning."

Celeste sipped her wine and looked out the window again. "Don't take it personally when he cancels on a date or calls to cancel. He doesn't mean anything by it."

Amara did not respond.

Because she had taken it personally. She had watched him move away every month, little by little, and said it was stress. Just work. Just life.

And look at Celeste, warning her not to make it personal. As if she'd had a fairer chance at Julian's lifestyle. As if she'd had a few years of experience juggling him-maybe even she had.

They didn't talk much after that. Julian caught up with them, arm around Amara's waist. She elbowed into him, not in affection but in rejection. A defiance.

But she didn't get the welcome that awaited her.

Only the bitter crush of doubt.

That evening, driving home, Julian reached out and wrapped his hand around her own.

"So? How was Celeste?"

Amara paused, seeing the column of headlights spatter on the windshield, rain-soaked.

"She's... incredible," she said.

Julian grinned. "She's a genius. Best business decision I ever made was keeping her on my side."

Those words resonated in Amara's head even then, as she lay in their bed all those months later. Julian was beside her, chest going up and down in smooth curves, phone dead on the bedside table. He'd grumbled something earlier about a late client meeting, about passing out afterward. He'd not seen how she hardly spoke. How she stayed up longer with each passing night.

She remembered that initial encounter with Celeste, the way she'd experienced something in her chest twist and curl, and reminded herself she was being paranoid. That she was being unfair. Jealous. Insecure.

She wasn't.

What she'd experienced was reality. A flash of intuition buried deep in denial.

She had feigned not to see. Feigned not to hear the hitch in Julian's voice when he uttered Celeste's name. Feigned not to sense the change in the atmosphere when she walked into a room.

And now, the pretending was slowly suffocating her.

Amara rolled onto her side, winding into herself. Her heart hurt-not from Julian's distance, but from her own passivity. She had waited. Hoped. Believed the fissures in their foundation could be repaired with time and patience. All those years of waiting had taught her to live on crumbs while another person devoured morsels of her husband she once called her own.

Outside, the rain came back, pounding on the window in a gentle beat. Amara gazed into the blackness, hearing it,

The companion he never abandoned.

That was Celeste. More reliable than Amara. More trusted. More familiar.

But Amara was the one he had married. The one who'd loved him so deeply. Who'd trusted him when his own doubts had attempted to destroy him. Who'd started a life based on the belief that love could conquer all.

Now, she wasn't so convinced.

She put her hand over her heart, as if she were trying to hold something in.

Perhaps love wasn't enough.

And perhaps-perhaps only-perhaps it was time to stop playing dumb that it wasn't.