I curled my fingers into a fist, more and more certain that every ounce of kindness I'd given had been thrown to the dogs.
It was only after we finished talking that Naomi surfaced in the group chat.
"Ellie, what did you post?"
"I was in an interview just now. I didn't see it."
But in that post from a moment ago, they were clearly sitting in an expensive Western restaurant, the mall behind them lit up bright as day.
Over the past year, Naomi had gone to no fewer than a hundred interviews.
Every single one ended in failure.
She'd lean against my shoulder and ask if I thought she was useless.
I'd comfort her, tell her the right chance would come along someday.
Only today did I understand that all of it was just the excuse she used to brush me off while she was out with Tristram.
The short break ended.
I put my phone away, and when I got back to the office, my manager called me over.
"That Southport project—you're the only one I trust to handle it."
"Two years. When it wraps, you come back with your salary tripled."
"Ellie, think it over."
I looked at the contract in front of me and didn't waste much time deliberating.
"I'll go."
An opportunity had landed at my feet at exactly the right moment. I had no reason to turn it down.
When I got off work, I didn't expect to see Tristram standing at the company entrance.
Naomi was there beside him.
Rain was coming down outside, and the two of them shared a single umbrella.
Tristram had the umbrella tilted entirely over Naomi's side, leaving his own shoulder half-soaked.
When he saw me, his eyes lit up.
"Ellie, over here."
I opened my umbrella and walked over. Tristram slipped underneath it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
He was too broad, and he crowded me halfway out from under it.
Naomi pressed her lips together, and something I couldn't quite name crept into the way she looked at me.
Like jealousy, and like hatred.
"What are you two doing here?"
Tristram turned, staring at me in surprise.
"It's your birthday and Naomi's today. Don't tell me you forgot."
I froze. I really had forgotten.
Two straight weeks of grinding around the clock had left me with no energy to spare for things like this.
He put his arm around me and steered me forward, while Naomi came up and hooked onto my other arm.
"I booked a restaurant. You're both going to love it, I promise."
We arrived, and it was a Sichuan restaurant.
The place was loud and crowded, and the thick wave of heat and spice rolling out at me made me sneeze.
Once we sat down, Naomi expertly ordered a few dishes, then slid the menu over to me.
I closed it and pushed it back.
"I can't handle spicy food these days."
She looked up at me, hurt, her eyes misting over.
"Ellie, did I do something recently to make you upset? Didn't you used to love spicy food?"
Tristram cut in before I could answer.
"Of course she didn't. She's just reading too much into things herself."
I took a sip of water and swallowed it down with the bitterness underneath.
"I said it in the group chat yesterday. You two just didn't care."
Three in the morning. I'd only just finished my overtime.
I said my stomach was aching, a dragging kind of pain, that I'd taken a pill and was about to sleep.
The two of them were in the group chat, giggling away about some game, saying the other one's skills were trash, cursing out how lousy their opponents were.
My message sat buried in their string of stickers, ignored by unspoken agreement.
Not one person asked a single thing.
Naomi's expression turned a little awkward, her fingernail scratching at the table.
Tristram saw the mood had soured and pulled out two gifts, sliding them in front of us.
"Go on, open them. I got you both the same brand, so it's completely fair and even."
My reaching hand stopped short.
In front of his girlfriend, he was talking to another girl about being fair.
Naomi opened her box and let out a delighted gasp, lifting out a bracelet to show Tristram.
