The Circle

Chapter 1

NOVA

Ishould’ve been writing. Yet, here I was, performing my secret daily ritual: obsessively searching my ex-best-friend’s username on every social media app.

No results. No results. No results.

Yep, still blocked.

I hissed out a breath through my clenched jaw. I rolled my shoulders, realizing I was hunched over my phone at an alarming angle.

As I shifted back to my computer, the cursor in my blank word document taunted me with its slow, steady blink.

Late morning light illuminated the chipped paint on the desk I’d lugged back from a curb in East Village.

A sound not unlike a plane taking off coming from my kitchen indicated one of my roommates was making a coffee with our rapidly-declining coffee machine.

“Fuck this,” I muttered at the blinking cursor. A gulp of my coffee, now lukewarm, slid down my throat to fuel my bad decisions.

I opened PicWave and briefly scrolled through the feed of images, videos, and targeted ads on autopilot before I remembered why I’d opened the app in the first place. My heart picked up.

Yet again, I was losing a game with my childhood best friend I never agreed to play.

I squared my shoulders—and I made a burner account.

By the time I’d set up my burner, my coffee was cold and my heart hammered. I tapped my foot rapidly as my brand-new account loaded, an account that wouldn’t be blocked by Lorelei and would allow me to catch a glimpse of her for the first time in months.

At a sharp bang, I jumped and glanced back at my bedroom door, where a furry white paw expertly curled underneath the closed door to slam it against the frame. I paused my slow typing of Lorelei’s stupid username—@Siren_Baby—and got up to let the cat in.

When I opened the door with narrowed eyes, lips in a flat line, I was greeted by Inara’s squeaky chirp and slow blink. Her tail slowly swished across the floor as she sat there, staring up at me.

Beyond the calico furball and to the right, Hudson halted mid-bite of his avocado and egg toast, leaning over the kitchen counter.

Silver, leaf-shaped earrings dangled from his lobes, pairing nicely with his thin black turtleneck.

How he could stand to wear long sleeves in the middle of the summer, indoors even, was beyond my comprehension.

Window AC units weren’t that powerful, especially when we had to keep them at the highest tolerable temperature to avoid a two-hundred-dollar ConEdison electricity bill.

I raised my brows at his choice of lunch. “Looks like someone never wants to be able to afford a home of his own.” I clicked my tongue and shook my head as Inara purred and rubbed against my calf.

“Fuck, you’re right,” he said, matching my feigned seriousness.

He stared down at his last bites of food.

“If I only changed my ways…cut out four avocados a week, twenty a month…” His dark brows drew close, a line developing in his forehead as he performed quick calculations.

“I could save at least $700 a year—which means I would only need nine-hundred-ninety-nine-thousand-three-hundred dollars more to afford a cute little New York home.”

I snorted. “Try a studio condo. Guess you’ll just have to move back to Ohio.”

“Guess you’ll just have to shoot me with a gun.” He pointed his last bite of toast at me. “You should be writing. That’s why you’re riling me up about class warfare at eleven in the morning on a Monday like a fucking psychopath. You’re procrastinating.”

Inara continued rubbing against my legs in a figure-eight holding pattern.

I frowned, my silly disposition shifting first to guilt and then to defensiveness. “Shouldn’t you be doing your job?”

All three of us worked from home. Or rather, Hudson and I worked from home while Delilah, our third roommate, was unemployed from home.

As long as her parents kept helping her out with rent while she got back on her feet, there were no complaints from Hudson and me.

Delilah saved our asses after Lorelei abruptly cut us off and moved out mid-lease.

I never wanted to feel that kind of stress again.

We had already been barely scraping by as it was, Hudson working for a non-profit, Lorelei moving from server job to server job, and me desperately trying to make it as an indie author.

As much as I would’ve preferred to have the place to myself while I wrote, having a full house was better than having no house.

Hudson scoffed. “I’m on a lunch break. How about you stop asking me to tell you to write whenever I catch you off task? You don’t listen.”

I threw up my hands, the words poised on the tip of my tongue—what’s the point? I’m not getting anywhere with the six books I’ve already written.

But I didn’t want to hear myself whine, so I pivoted. “I made a burner account.”

Hudson pursed his lips. “That’s sad, Nova.” His icy gaze softened when he read the emotion on my face.

A familiar lump was in my throat, a harsh mix of grief and anger.

“She’s dead to us, remember?” he said, softer this time.

My relationship with Lorelei was different than Hudson’s. He met Lorelei five years ago, after she and I had already been living in the city for two years. Lorelei had decided against going to school, but Hudson and I met at NYU, so he became friends with Lorelei through me.

But Lorelei and I… we were like sisters from the very beginning—born just two months apart. We were more than sisters after everything we’d been through. It wasn’t something Hudson would ever understand. It wasn’t something anyone could ever understand. No one but us.

Us against the world, I could nearly hear her whisper to me, beautiful and haunting.

“I just need to make sure she’s okay, but I don’t have to involve you if you want to stay out of it.” I took a step back toward my bedroom, and Inara meowed like I’d committed a crime against her species.

“Not so fast,” Hudson said, rolling his eyes as he dusted off his sweater and put his plate in the sink. “You obviously succeeded in piquing my interest. As intended.”

I bent down to pet Inara, hiding my smug smile as I cooed to her. “Hi, stinky baby. Soft, stinky baby. Softest, stinkiest baby in the whole world.”

“Nova!” Hudson snapped impatiently.

I looked up and batted my eyes before straightening and walking back to the small kitchen island.

Inara hopped up on the island and watched us like a sentinel as we hunched over my phone. We’d long given up trying to keep her off the counters.

My hand shook as I unlocked my phone and pulled up my new PicWave account. Of course, this was when Delilah decided to wake up and stroll into the kitchen with a dramatic yawn. Her pink robe trailed behind her in a pile of fluffy tulle.

“Darlings,” she greeted with a sweeping nod. Her blonde hair, swept up in a bun that hung on for dear life, communicated a lack of effort that was cool and chic. She homed in on the screen between Hudson and me immediately. “What are we up to?”

“Sleuthing on Judas,” Hudson said.

“Oooh! Naughty.”

Before I could toggle to the search bar, a familiar ad popped up.

“Do you ever get this weird ad?” I asked them.

“Nova,” Hudson groaned. “Focus!”

“Okay, okay, sorry!”

I gave the ad, a blank black square, one more glance. The handle was just @O. And the call-to-action banner was learn more. In the middle of the black square, if you waited long enough, two words would appear: The Circle.

And that was it. Gimmicky marketing I refused to fall victim to. Likely for some absurdly expensive new restaurant or gym or AI bracelet that told you the optimal time to take a shit.

In the PicWave search bar, I typed Lorelei’s handle. I felt Delilah at my back, spying over my shoulder.

My body buzzed with intense emotions. As if I were a bomb technician, beads of sweat formed along my brow while I sliced through each wire.

The page loaded.

The first line of her bio read: Freedom in service of something greater.

Then, in italics: We live in a broken world. It’s time to come closer.

All I could see were the emojis. I ignored the bizarre spiritual speak altogether.

“What the actual fuck, Lorelei?” I bit out. I saw red, flashes of memory threatening to surface before I slammed a psychic door in their face.

“Did she find religion?” Delilah asked with a snort.

I bristled, my whole body going rigid. “No.”

Hudson made a condescending noise of derision. “I’m guessing her new man is some manifestation alpha crypto Chad.”

I quickly scanned her page, surprised she’d only posted three new pieces of content in the past two months.

I wasn’t sure what I had expected or even wanted.

A picture of the man she’d moved in with who I’d never even met?

A picture of her, safe and healthy? A video of her out drinking, clearly miserable but pretending to be wild and free after the latest failed relationship with someone who treated her like garbage?

I got none of those things. Instead, I saw a picture of an artfully arranged charcuterie board on a sleek marble countertop captioned I love serving Him.

“Oh my God,” Delilah gasped.

“Judas did not rebrand as a tradwife,” Hudson said. “No fucking way.”

The next post was a video of a stunning cityscape view.

Vibrating with a deep-seated feeling of betrayal, I slid my screen brightness all the way up and studied every aspect of the video.

In the reflection of the floor-to-ceiling windows, I could make out two figures: Lorelei in a shimmering silver gown, her frame even thinner than before she left, and a man standing directly behind her, tall and lean, his face eerily obscured by shadow.

Unlike her previous posts, the video was strangely and intentionally edited to be grainy and dark.

She was flaunting a life shrouded in mystery.

And the caption ironically read, Authenticity is the only way up.

“What is she trying to sell?” Delilah asked, now loudly munching on almonds as she queued up a coffee pod. “Is there a link in her bio? Maybe to an abundance mindset course?”

Saying nothing, I shook my head. There was no link. Hudson kept glancing at me, and my lips sank into a heavy frown. Even Inara looked concerned, which was a difficult emotion for cats to feel toward others.

The last post was a black square, no caption. I almost scrolled away before I realized it was a video.

At the thirty-second mark, in a quick flash, a symbol appeared in the center of the grainy black void. It was so quick, I nearly missed it.

A circle.