Chapter 2

I put down my fork and headed for the door, but Quentin caught up before I made it out. His hand closed around my wrist hard enough to hurt.

"Lennie just got dumped, Jenna. You're supposed to be her best friend. Instead of trying to make her feel better, you've been sitting there with an attitude all night. What are you trying to pull?"

For a moment, I simply looked at him.

Five years. I'd loved this man willingly for five whole years.

"Quentin," I said quietly. "You really never fail to disappoint me."

His brow furrowed. The sarcasm went right over his head.

Then a startled cry came from the living room.

Three seconds? He didn't even need one. Quentin immediately turned and went straight to Lena.

That was all I needed to see.

I walked out without another word.

A few weeks earlier, corporate had asked if I'd be willing to transfer to the Norvale branch. I'd put off giving them an answer because Quentin hated the idea of us being apart. He'd said long distance wasn't for him. He wanted to come home to me every day.

Funny how little that mattered now.

All I could picture were Lena's pink bunny slippers by our door and the cilantro sitting in the bowl he switched to me.

Maybe I hadn't suddenly been pushed out of my own relationship.

Maybe I'd been on the outside for a long time and had only just noticed.

I'd introduced Quentin and Lena as soon as Quentin and I started dating. Back then, Lena had a boyfriend, and there were still lines she and Quentin knew not to cross.

Things only started changing after Lena's relationship became an endless cycle of breaking up and getting back together.

At first, the changes had been easy to dismiss.

One night, Lena called me drunk and asked me to come get her. Quentin came along, and she ended up throwing up all over his car. He was so disgusted afterward that he sold the thing.

Whenever she fought with her boyfriend and came running to me, Quentin used to complain. He hated that our nights together kept getting interrupted and grumbled that the two of us never had any privacy anymore.

Then, at some point, he stopped complaining.

The smell of alcohol on Lena stopped bothering him too.

Before long, whenever she drank too much, Quentin was the one reaching for her first. He'd steady her, make her something to help her sober up, and patiently rub her back when she felt sick.

Even our trips changed.

Quentin started suggesting we bring Lena along because having her there made it easier to hide our relationship. He called her our cover.

In practice, the two of them walked ahead together while I followed behind carrying Lena's purse and coat.

Once, Lena complained that Quentin always made her look bad in photos, so she spent ages showing him exactly how she wanted them taken.

Their heads rested together as the breeze lifted a few strands of Lena's hair and swept them lightly across Quentin's cheek. The corner of his mouth curved up in a smile so faint it was almost impossible to catch.

I remembered looking at the two of them and suddenly wondering what I was even doing there.

So I walked over, handed back Lena's purse and coat, and returned to the hotel alone.

Quentin and I had a massive fight that night.

He accused me of reading too much into everything. According to him, there was nothing remotely inappropriate between him and Lena. She was only there because having her around made it easier for us to keep our relationship secret.

By then I was crying so hard I could barely get the words out.

"Then stop keeping me a secret! It's been five years, Quentin. Five years of hiding me. I don't understand why you keep doing this. Can't you see what it's doing to me?"

He'd gone quiet.

After a long time, he came over and wrapped his arms around me.

"Okay," he said. "We'll go public."

And today was supposed to be that day.

Instead, on the same day Lena's breakup finally became permanent, Quentin logged into my account, deleted the video I'd stayed up all night making, and wiped out whatever was left between us along with it.

I brushed the tears from my face and called corporate.

"I've decided. I'll take the transfer to Norvale."

It was already dark when I got home.

The kitchen had gone cold. Grease had hardened in the skillet, and Quentin and Lena were nowhere to be seen.

I sank onto the couch and opened my social media account, intending to change the password before Quentin could get into it again.

But I never made it that far.

The first post on my feed was one Quentin and Lena had uploaded together.

It was nothing more than a single collage.

In the top photo, Lena was nestled against Quentin's chest.

Beneath it was a prenatal ultrasound.

And playing over the post was "Primrose in My Lover's Arms," one of the songs that had been everywhere lately.

The same song I'd chosen for the five-minute video I'd made for Quentin.

My hand tightened around my phone.

Suddenly, I couldn't seem to swallow.

A tear landed on the screen just as Quentin's name lit it up.

I answered.

"Jen, you saw it, didn't you? I can explain. It's because..."

"You don't need to."

My voice was barely above a whisper.

"You don't ever need to explain anything to me again."

I closed my eyes.

"We're done, Quentin."

Then I hung up and booked the flight to Norvale.