Chapter 4

Friday night, Lewis went out for dinner with the guys.

He brought Janice along, the same as always.

I said nothing, the way I always did, and went on playing my part: the spare, the invisible one.

All night, everyone egged the two of them on.

"Lewis and Janice are the real match, childhood sweethearts, it's too perfect!"

"Inseparable all these years. You two should've been together ages ago!"

The teasing came in waves, one after another.

Lewis didn't deny it. He didn't explain either.

I sat in the corner, not talking, not smiling, like a stranger who didn't matter.

A little past ten, dinner broke up.

Janice stood at the door and offered to head off on her own.

"Lewis, you've had too much. I won't get in the way of you and Celeste. I'll go on ahead."

She left, quick and clean.

Dumping a dead-drunk Lewis, reeking of alcohol, on me.

I struggled to hold up his dead weight, moving him back to the apartment one step at a time.

I eased him down onto the couch and turned to go pour him a glass of warm water.

That was when the man behind me murmured, low.

Every word clear.

Drunk, he'd let the mask fall.

He said the truth he would never admit sober.

"Janice, my Janice."

"You're the one I've loved most my whole life."

My steps stopped mid-turn.

Hearing those words now, my heart skipped, several beats in a row.

It was hard to breathe. And it ached.

"Too bad you were too young back then, never willing to settle down."

"I had no choice. I could only pick Celeste."

"She's obedient, sensible, no fuss, no scenes. Easy, suitable. The kind you marry and build a life with."

"To put it plainly, I just settled for her. That's all."

After that there was only his heavy breathing.

The living room was frighteningly quiet.

Every slight, every cold shoulder, all of it had an answer now.

From the very beginning, I was only his second-best fallback.

Janice was the first love he kept at the tip of his heart.

And I was just the tool he used to make a marriage do.

Whatever I'd felt for Lewis shattered in that moment, clean and complete.

I turned toward the bedroom. In the corner, the suitcase I'd packed long ago stood there, quiet.

All my personal things were already sorted and put away.

The flight south, the handover for the studio, everything was already in place.

I took out my phone and blocked Lewis's number, and his messaging app too.

I didn't look back at him one last time.

I wheeled my suitcase out of this relationship, so full of grievance and so much of a joke.

The late-night breeze was cool against my face.

And in that moment I was clearer than I had ever been.

I messaged Anne.

"I land in Southport first thing tomorrow."

From now on, there was no Celeste Swanson in Northgate.

This absurd, crowded relationship, I was the one walking away.

Lewis, I won't be your second-best anymore.

From here on our paths don't cross. You and I are done.