Page 124 of Saint Céline
“She lies because people let her!”
“That is possibly the richest sentence anyone has ever said in this room.” Anya stared at her.
Sophia glanced toward me on the dance floor. Then back at Katherine.
“She is our friend.”
“She was mine first,” Katherine said.
There it was. Not an accusation. Not a kind revelation. This was about ownership.
Anya’s expression changed after that. The amusement vanished completely. “That’s disgusting,” she said.
Katherine looked at her, startled. Anya continued, voice low enough not to carry past them. “You’re telling us something that could ruin her because you’re jealous she’s dancing with a boy who barely knows you exist.”
Katherine went white. Sophia said nothing for a moment. Then she set her untouched drink down on the bar.
“We won’t tell anyone,” she said.
Relief flickered across Katherine’s face before Sophia finished. “But not for you.”
I can still imagine that silence. Even though I was not there for it. Even though downstairs, under the lights, I was laughing while Thad spun me once and pulled me back in, completely unaware that the two girls who would become my safest place were deciding in that moment whether my lie made me unforgivable.
Anya told me later that Katherine looked as if Sophia had slapped her.
Maybe that would have been kinder.
When I returned from the dance floor, flushed and breathless with Thad’s hand still loosely linked through mine, the atmosphere around the bar had changed. I felt it immediately. Sophia looked normal, which meant nothing because Sophia could look normal at funerals, investor dinners, and probablynatural disasters. Anya was smiling too brightly, which meant something had offended her deeply and she had not yet chosen a socially acceptable weapon.
Katherine stood between them with her arms folded, face pale and closed.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Katherine said too quickly.
Anya looked at her. Sophia picked up her drink.
Thad leaned down near my ear. “Everything okay?”
I glanced between the three girls, irritation prickling under my skin. “Apparently.”
Katherine would not meet my eyes. For the rest of the night, Sophia stayed close to me, trying not to be obvious. But whenever Katherine drifted near, Sophia inserted herself into the conversation smoothly. Anya became more direct. She pulled me to dance twice, took my phone to photograph us, and at one point rested her chin dramatically on my shoulder while announcing to Thad that if he hurt me, she would have his family vineyard audited.
Thad and I laughed. Katherine did not.
At the time, I thought she was upset about Thad.
That was true. I just did not know it was not the only thing.
After that night, something shifted between all of us. Not with me, Sophia and Anya. With Katherine. The girls were still polite to her. Sophia would never be anything else in public. Anya could be cutting, but even she understood loyalty required restraint when the person being protected had not yet been told there was something to protect her from. But they stopped making space for Katherine automatically.
When we went to lunch, Anya no longer moved her bag to save the fourth chair unless I asked. When Sophia planned movie nights, the invitation went to me first, and Katherine’s inclusion became something I had to add rather than somethingassumed. In our suite, their voices softened when Katherine entered, not from guilt, exactly, but from the wary discomfort of people who had seen what a lonely girl could do with a secret.
Katherine noticed too. One evening in November, she stood at my bedroom doorway while Sophia and Anya argued in the kitchen about whether instant ramen could be improved with truffle oil.
“You’re busy,” Katherine said.
I looked up from my desk. She held my biology notes in one hand, already corrected.
