Chapter 1 Part 2: The Unwifed Circle by Kenniesha Burrell
The stranger’s footsteps faded into the hum of the party inside, but his words clung to the night like the scent of salt on our skin.
We stood there, unmoving, the wind curling around us, tugging at hair and hems as if urging someone to speak.
It was Kai who broke first.
“Did… anyone else feel like he knew us? Not just saw us, but… knew?”
Mahalia rolled her eyes, too quickly. “Probably just some bored finance guy with a good tailor and bad pickup lines.” But her fingers toyed with the thin gold chain at her neck a tell she probably didn’t know she had.
Zariah’s gaze stayed fixed on the door where he’d disappeared. “No. He wasn’t here for the party. He came for something… or someone.”
That last word landed sharp, and I caught it so did Raine, who straightened from her lazy lean against the railing.
“What are you saying? That one of us knows him?”
No one answered.
The silence turned thick, sticky with the heat of unasked questions. And that’s when I saw it Avina, the calm one, the peacemaker, looking down at her hands just a fraction too long.
Zariah noticed too. “Avina.” Her voice wasn’t harsh, but it wasn’t gentle either. “You’ve gone quiet.”
Avina blinked, then gave that soft smile she used to deflect anything uncomfortable. “I don’t know him.”
But her eyes said otherwise.
Kai frowned. “Wait you’ve seen him before, haven’t you?”
Avina hesitated just long enough to confirm it. “Not exactly,” she said carefully. “He’s… familiar. But I don’t know his name.”
Mahalia crossed her arms. “Familiar how? Ex-boyfriend? Client? Doctor? What are we talking about here?”
Avina shook her head, her voice dipping lower. “Not like that. It’s… more of a feeling. Years ago, I was at Port Royal, just after sunset. I saw him, leaning against a wall, staring at the sea. And I remember thinking he looked like someone waiting for bad news.”
Zariah’s brow furrowed. “And you never spoke to him?”
“No,” Avina said. “But that was… what? Eight years ago? And now he’s here, in our space, talking like he knows who we are? It’s probably a coincidence.”
Raine snorted. “Coincidence is just a lazy word for secrets.”
The breeze shifted, carrying faint strains of music from the rooftop’s dance floor. But none of us moved to go back inside.
Mahalia leaned in, her perfume amber and orange blossom curling between us. “If this guy knows something about us, we need to find out what. And why now.”
Zariah’s tone was quiet but firm. “Or… we need to make sure he has nothing to use against us.”
The way she said it made the hair on my arms stand up.
Kai’s voice cracked slightly. “What if whatever he knows… is about something one of us has been hiding?”
We didn’t answer her. Couldn’t. Because we all had something.
And maybe just maybe he knew every one of them.
From inside, a burst of laughter erupted, spilling warm light onto the balcony as the door swung open again. But this time, it wasn’t the stranger.
It was Layla.
The one who hadn’t been to brunch in months. The one we’d quietly stopped asking about.
Her smile froze when she saw us all together. And before anyone could greet her, she said the words that made my pulse trip.
“He’s here, isn’t he?”
We stared.
Zariah stepped forward. “You know him too?”
Layla’s eyes darted toward the party, then back to us. “Know him?” She gave a hollow laugh. “I’ve been trying to outrun him for three years.”
The music seemed to fade, replaced by the low, pounding rhythm of something else anticipation, dread, the sharp scent of change.
Layla’s gaze swept over us, her voice trembling just enough to betray her fear.
“If he’s found me… then he’s found all of us.”
And just like that, the circle was no longer about choice.
It was about survival.
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