Between Friends & Lovers

Chapter One

Jo

Surviving as a Black girl in high society is pretty easy, as long as you know the rules.

One: arrive with your pedigree at the ready—your degree from a prestigious university, the smattering of letters behind your

name, your association with friends powerful enough to confer you relevance. Announce these clearly enough and often enough

that no one asks why you’re here, but with enough humility that you’re not seen as a threat. (Anecdotes that begin with when I was in medical school or my dormitory in Cambridge often do the trick.)

Two: be intentional with your hair. Keep it straight on the days you want to blend in—dealer’s choice on whether you rock

a lace front, U-part, or a silk press, because let’s be real, hardly anyone in attendance will know the difference—and only

bust out the Afro when you want to stand out. Be aware that standing out might not always be in your best interest, and relish

the irony that existing in your unaltered self is considered a statement.

Three: adopt a standard Midwestern accent. Strip your voice of AAVE and go for more Channel 7 News, though you can throw out

the occasional biiiitttchhhh for laughs in select social situations.

And, most importantly, number four: never, ever make a white woman cry. Because white women’s tears are salt sowed into fertile land, the fertile land being your friendships, your peace, your livelihood, and whatever else you may hold dear. The cuter and younger the white woman, the more potent the tears. The more witnesses, especially of the straight male variety, the more devastating the impact.

All this to say: I was screwed.

Ashley Biernacki and I stood facing each other in the atrium of international supermodel Renata Kovalenko’s lavishly decorated

Gold Coast penthouse, where we had both been invited to celebrate her son, TV actor Ezra Adelman’s, thirtieth birthday, at

a party funded by her husband, billionaire CEO of Knydus Technologies Paul Adelman’s, endless coffers. I was here because

Ezra was my best friend. Ashley was here because Ezra was her boyfriend. And because karma doesn’t exist, she’d only become

more beautiful since our last encounter (sixteen years ago, when she’d called me a gorilla for refusing to let her copy my

homework).

“I—I don’t know what you want me to say,” Ashley blubbered. Her high, round cheeks were pink, and the tears that spilled from

her large hazel eyes were pretty, like glistening glass droplets. Her effective zone was only about a two-meter radius, plenty

wide enough to get me in trouble in the crowded atrium. In the two minutes or so since our unfortunate encounter began, Ashley

had managed to transform me from Dr.Josephine Boateng, physician, influencer, and close friend and confidante of the hosts,

into an unspecified angry Black woman preying on Somebody’s Hapless Granddaughter.

“Why are you crying?” I asked, baffled. A distinguished older gentleman at my two o’clock huffed, having heard I’ll give you something to cry about . I searched my vicinity for an ally, and, finding none, settled on an approaching Ezra, who had put me in this quandary to

begin with. “Seriously?”

If I was seeking refuge in Ezra, I did not find it. Ashley was not Ezra’s first girlfriend this year, possibly not his first

this month. Handsome heirs to tech empires didn’t really have to do the long-term-commitment thing. But although he’d always

been kind of a garbage boyfriend, he’d also always been a pretty reliable friend.

Until today. Today, his expression was cold. I watched, stunned, as he grabbed Ashley’s hand, gave it a squeeze, and used

his other to dab her face with a pocket square that I knew cost more than my entire outfit. I’d rather he’d used it to smother

me.

Really, though, I should have known. Ashley Biernacki was very cute, very small, and very blond. She possessed the H-bomb

of white girl tears, and man, did she know how to wield them. As a kid, she’d employed her little siren’s song regularly,

usually after doing something unspeakably horrible to me, and many a beet-faced assistant principal had dragged me into their

office in defense of it.

Judging by Ezra’s expression and the heightened whispers around us, history was about to repeat itself.

“I just wanted to say hello,” Ashley said.

Ezra gave her the most tender smile, then turned a hardened gaze to me. It was odd, seeing him look at me like that, like

a stranger had slithered into his skin and was glaring at me through his eyes.

“Jo,” he said. “Can we talk?” He tucked his now-damp pocket square back into his blazer, running a soothing hand down a shuddering

Ashley’s arm. “Alone?”

The corners of my mouth twitched downward. Here we go. People were watching, waiting with bated breath for my reaction the way one might wait for a circus lion to roar.

But I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. I lifted my champagne flute to my lips, relaxed my shoulders, and gave Ezra what

I knew was my most disarming smile.

“Of course,” I said, then allowed the man who I knew was rapidly becoming my former best friend to lead me through the atrium.

The crowd parted like the Red Sea around us, making way for their prince and the pariah.

Ezra led me down a quiet hallway in silence. I power walked behind him, trying hard to keep pace with his long strides in

my stilettos, and marveled at the breadth of his back. When we first met, he’d been light enough for me to hold in my arms,

so thin that when we embraced, I would wince against the daggers of his collarbones. That Ezra—the mop-haired one with a crooked

smile and a lack of decorum, that had been the boy whose life I’d once saved. He’d looked up at me through glazed blue eyes

and asked me to never leave him, and I’d whispered back, “I won’t,” and now, ten years later, I wondered if maybe I should

have sought reciprocation, made him promise never to leave me either.

We reached our destination, the study, and Ezra held the door open for me, a jailer opening a cell door. I walked inside, skimming a hand along a bookshelf. I’d never seen any of the Adelmans use this room, and yet it smelled like them, like sunlight and open windows, sandalwood and citrus. In the center of the room was the bureau Mazarin, as pristine as it had been two years ago when Renata had spotted it in a museum and, in the most heinous display of unconscionable wealth, decided to purchase it right out of its case. I circled it, then leaned against it, facing the closed gold-trimmed ocher curtains. Six hundred thousand dol lars and three hundred years of history, all under my bum. I spun the miniature globe atop it as I waited for Ezra to close the door.

The moment it clicked shut, Ezra rounded on me.

“So... care to explain why you’re accosting my girlfriend?” he said.

“What do you mean?” My voice came out high, squeezed out from behind a reed-thin throat. “I was perfectly nice.”

“Of course you were, and that’s why she’s crying,” Ezra said flatly. He raised his hand to his hair to push it back, then,

remembering that it was chock-full of product, lowered it again. “Come on, Jo, I know you think I’m moving too fast, or whatever,

but you can bother me about that, not her—”

“Is that what you think this is about?” I cut him off in disbelief. “That woman. Your girlfriend. Her full name’s Ashley Biernacki,

right?”

“Yes,” Ezra said instantly. And then, finally, he paused. “Wait. How did you know that?”

“Think, Ez,” I said. “ Why would I know that?”

I waited for understanding to hit, for his set jaw to go slack. Seeing the shock in his expression cooled my ire somewhat.

After all, Ezra wouldn’t do that to me. Wouldn’t knowingly cozy up to the woman who had made my life hell, even if it had

been over fifteen years ago. We’d spent too many cool nights under starry skies, unraveling our traumas like threads off tapestries,

for him to hurt me by cavorting with one of the prominent actors in mine.

“Shit,” he said. “Oh shit . Are you sure it’s her?”

“Of course I’m sure,” I said. What I’d said in response to her outstretched hand and peppy “Hi! I’m Ashley! You must be Jo!” was “You know me. You used to make my life miserable.” Factual. Direct. Not particularly mean. I could have smiled more, sure, maybe shaken her hand instead of leaving it hanging limply in front of me, but I also could’ve upended my glass of champagne over her head. I’d been gracious, all things considered.

I told Ezra as much.

“I didn’t know,” he said numbly.

“Well, you not knowing didn’t stop you from instantly jumping to her defense.”

“What was I supposed to do?” Ezra said. “You of all people know how overwhelming Mom’s parties can be, and this is Ashley’s

first one. And Jo, you know I would never have asked her out if I knew about your history. But it’s been a long time, and

I promise she’s a good person now. If you got to know her, you’d probably really like her too—”

I tuned him out. I don’t care if she’s Mother fucking Teresa now , I wanted to shout. If I was honest with myself, I didn’t much care that the woman Ezra was dating was a potentially much-improved

Ashley Biernacki. Just that I was in this room getting admonished, while she was free to dab away her tears and garner sympathy

in the atrium. Just that even now it didn’t occur to Ezra that maybe he should have been defending me .

All of these years, I’d been silently hoping that Ezra would someday see me. That the flippant, habitual love you s that addended his goodbyes would gain definition, that one day it would click in his head that maybe the intimate, buried-in-each-other’s-skin

love he was searching for in women like Ashley was right in front of him all along. And, because I hated to think of myself

as pathetic, I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t hung up on him at all. That I hadn’t looked elsewhere because I was busy . That I was currently a twenty-nine-year-old virgin who had gone on a grand total of three dates in my life because I had to focus on medical school, then because there was no time for romance in residency, and not because I was keeping myself available just in case the boy I’d been in love with for most of my adult life would wake up one morning and decide to pick me choose me love me .

A hand on my chin guided my face forward.

“Talk to me, Jo,” Ezra said gently. “What is this really about?”

With Ezra’s new frame had come new strength, a consequence of years spent crafting a TV-ready body with the assistance of

personal trainers, nutritionists, and chefs. When his hands slid to my shoulders, I knew escaping his grasp would take effort.

It was aggravating, being in love with someone who could see all of your secrets in your face except for the ones that mattered

the most.

I closed my eyes, facing the darkness of my eyelids.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I whispered, more to myself than to him.

Ezra’s voice was soft, raspy, a fingernail scratching along wool.

“What do you mean by that?” he said. “What do you mean by this ?”

I gestured between us, to the too-close space, the desperation that hung thick in the air, tension that had no business existing,

considering I was the only one who could feel it.

“This,” I said. “Whatever this is. Whatever we are.”

Ezra’s hold slackened just enough that I could have slid out of it if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t. Instead I watched the revelation

settle over his face—first, through his rapidly blinking eyes, then the stuttering inhale followed by an exaggerated swallow,

finally, the click and shift of his jaw, his telltale sign of discomfort that none of his acting coaches had succeeded in

training out of him. I realized, suddenly, that this was it. That he knew. That I wanted him to know.

“Jo,” he said quietly. “Do you... ?” He opened his mouth to continue, then clamped it shut, and I leaned into him, closing the distance that he’d already all but eradicated.

“Do I what?” I whispered. I realized, right then, that if Ezra finished his question, I would tell him the truth. That the

fear that had held me back all these years (fear that he wouldn’t feel the same; that we would have a few weeks of awkwardness

in which he would pretend that I’d said nothing at all; that there would be a new, palpable distance between us, a millisecond’s

hesitation before he pulled me into hugs that were no longer crushing; that I would lose him slowly, and in the process lose

Renata, and wake up in a world in which I could call neither of them mine) now paled in comparison to a future in which I

stayed stagnant by his side and he continued to choose Ashleys over me.

Ezra stared down at me, shocked into stone. I watched his gaze slip down to my lips, then back up to my eyes, like he was

seeing me anew, and a hope I’d once stomped out reignited in my chest.

“I...” he started.

Behind us, the door flew open.

“You two are always squirrelled away somewhere!” a voice said, Renata’s. “Ezra, that girl you brought is weeping all over

the atrium. Why don’t you be a gentleman and...” A pause. “Oh. Am I interrupting something?”

I watched Ezra’s eyes tick over my shoulder to meet his mother’s, but I didn’t turn around to acknowledge her, just chased

down his gaze. I could sense him pulling away, leaning ever so slightly toward the door, and I felt every inch like a scab

pulled early.

Ezra cleared his throat. “I have to go,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” I said. “You’re choosing to.”

He rolled his bottom lip into his mouth, a confirmation, and my heart sank.

When Ezra stepped around me, around the desk, and bolted for the exit, I didn’t watch him leave. Is this the hurt I’ve been avoiding all these years? I thought, as the door clicked shut. I’d expected devastation. I’d expected to feel like I was tearing apart at the seams,

like I would fall to my feet and never stand up again. I’d expected the sort of heartbreak that inspired breakup anthems,

screenplays, sonnets.

Instead, what I felt was a quiet, resolute grief, like I’d known all along that this would be the outcome of letting Ezra

know that my feelings for him were not entirely platonic. And now that I’d exhausted the last of my what-ifs, the time had

come to move on.

I had already tried many other methods of getting over Ezra—ardent denial, immersing myself in work, even physical space.

But what I really needed was to quit him cold turkey. No more good-morning texts, no middle-of-the-day calls where we recounted

an old misadventure for the hundredth time, no spontaneous meals, no innocent touches that my brain could interpret as something

more. Just me, a carton of ice cream, and a fifth rewatch of Love Actually . Girls’ nights out with my roommate, Dahlia, where I would actually let her play wingwoman like she’d always wanted. Maybe

even a dating app, when I felt ready.

A hand settled on my shoulder.

“That certainly seemed tense,” Renata said. “Are you okay?”

I turned. Renata looked down at me, her eyes wide with concern, and mine instantly welled with tears.

When I first met Renata Kovalenko, I’d found her hard to look at without staring. Her beauty was incisive, her features almost inhuman in their perfection, and they’d graced editorial magazines for two decades prior to her retirement. Now her presence was as welcome and familiar as my favorite blanket. I remembered what she’d told me when we first met, at Ezra’s hospital bed. You’re ours now , she’d said, squeezing my hand. I will not let you be a stranger.

“It’s nothing,” I said. A tear escaped down my cheek, and I swore under my breath, dabbing it away with the heel of my hand.

“All right, fine, it’s something , but I’ll be okay, Renata, really.”

Renata’s gaze turned hawkish.

“Did that boy say something to you?” she said. Her voice lowered to a harsh whisper. “I’m telling you, this acting business,

it turns good men into such pigs . All that adulation, it’s not good for their heads. We need to put him back in his place.”

“It’s his birthday party,” I deadpanned.

“He’s thirty,” Renata said. “Old enough to be fully aware that this party is mostly for me.”

I laughed. Renata didn’t, and my heart ached with love for her.

“Seriously, Renata, there’s no need. It’s a bit embarrassing that I’m even weepy in the first place. That’s what I get for

mixing Prozac with champagne.” When she didn’t relent, I sighed. “I just need a minute to get myself together.”

Renata glared at me, unblinking, for what felt like a full minute. Then she straightened, smoothing her hands down her dress.

“Okay,” she said. “Your room upstairs is clean. Go. Take the time you need.” She flexed a diminutive bicep, curling her mouth

into a snarl. “And if you change your mind, give me the word. I’ll have him thrown out by his underpants.”

“I won’t,” I said. “But thank you.”

“Of course,” she said. Then, squeezing my shoulder, she swept the door open and disappeared into the throng, leaving me to

contemplate a future without her.