5
SELENA
I'm already seated when the plane doors close, my bag tucked beneath my feet, my hands folded too neatly in my lap. There's a familiar tightness in my chest, the kind that comes when I'm about to do something I don't want to do but have convinced myself I must.
My phone vibrates just before takeoff.
Lucien: Are you sure you don't need me to come with you? Ben will do great filling in.
I smile despite myself, a quiet laugh slipping out as I shake my head. My worrywart of a husband. He means well, but we both know Ben would run the company into the ground by Thursday. Ben is brilliant, yes, but impulsive, reckless, still half a boy playing at being a man.
Still, a selfish part of me wishes Lucien were here. I wish he were sitting beside me, his hand wrapped around mine, murmuring dry jokes under his breath, jokes no one else ever finds funny. I wish he'd be there when I see my family again. When I see Jade. When I see Kai.
I don't know which of them I'm more afraid of.
Jade and I haven't spoken in years. The only people I let back into my life from that time were my mother and my sister, Sabrina. I didn't even attend Jade's wedding ceremony. The kinder part of my heart still feels guilty about that, missing such a big day in her life. The rest of me knows better. That part remembers betrayal. It remembers silence where apologies should have been.
Sometimes I tell myself maybe everything worked out the way it was supposed to. Maybe Kai and Jade were soulmates. Maybe they were always meant to find each other, and I was just the extra piece. The white crayon in the box. Unnecessary.
And I tell myself that's fine, because it led me to Lucien.
At the time, it didn't feel fine. It felt like my world ended. I felt weak for a long time. But meeting Lucien changed something in me. He didn't save me, he saw me. With him, I became stronger without even realizing it. I glow just by existing beside him. He pulled a version of me into the light that I didn't know was there.
My phone vibrates again. A single question mark this time.
I type quickly.
Me: No, stay. Ben will run our company into the ground. We need a man in charge, not a boy.
His reply comes instantly.
Lucien: But you need your man ??
I can hear his voice when I read it. The teasing whine. The warmth. The certainty.
The truth is, we've barely been apart since we married. We move through life together, office, home, dinner, late-night shows we refuse to finish without each other. Even when I go out with friends, I always come back to him. Always home. This is the first time we'll be apart for more than a day, and I hate it as much as he does.
Maybe we look clingy. Maybe we are. I don't care.
He's my rock.
The flight attendants begin their routine, and I send one last message before switching my phone to airplane mode.
Love you, baby. I'll miss you.
I tuck my phone away and pull out a book, only to freeze when I see the name on the first page.
Kai.
I let out a breathless laugh and toss the book aside. Of course. The universe has a sense of humor.
I accept a bottle of water when it's offered, but my thoughts are already spiraling. Kai is the one I'm most nervous to see. He was my best friend from the moment we moved to America at sixteen. My constant. My safe place, until he wasn't.
I can never forget the things he said to me. The things I didn't know he believed until it was too late. People like to say there are no hard feelings, that time smooths everything over, but that's a lie. I'm a good person. I was sad when Sabrina told me Jade left him, just walked away, no explanation. A part of me felt sorry for him.
Another part, the darker, quieter part, thought: Good. Now you know how it feels.
What scares me most is this: I've always been weak when it comes to Kai.
Not weak enough to leave my husband. Never that. But weak enough that if he says my name, North Star, the way he used to, I know something in me will soften. I'll want to forgive him. I'll want to forget.
And I don't want to.
I want to stay strong. I want to be the Selena Lucien knows. The woman who chose herself. The woman who doesn't orbit someone who never chose her back.
Sometimes I think about telling Lucien everything. The whole truth. But then I'd have to admit how fragile I used to be. How much Kai once held me in the palm of his hand without even trying. I'm embarrassed by it. Even now.
I know it wasn't my fault, but regret doesn't listen to logic.
I close my eyes as the plane begins to climb, the ground falling away beneath us.
And despite everything, despite love, despite distance, despite time, I think back to how it all started.
To the boy who once called me his North Star.