Christopher met someone.

  Her name was Layla. She was kind, smart, easy to talk to — and she liked him. Not the way Jewel liked him when it was convenient. Layla made her intentions clear from day one.

  At first, he told himself it was casual. A distraction. But as the weeks passed, it got harder to ignore how different things felt with her — clean, simple, straightforward.

  No mixed signals. No waiting games.

  When Jewel found out, she didn’t say much. Just raised her eyebrows and said, “Oh. That’s cool.”

  But something in her tone was off — light on the surface, tight underneath.

  Christopher noticed it, but didn’t press. He was tired of always being the one asking the hard questions.

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  Still, it lingered.

  One night, they were all out at a mutual friend’s event. Layla came too. She laughed at Christopher’s jokes, leaned into him during photos, and reached for his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  Jewel watched from across the room, sipping her drink slowly, eyes locked in place while her smile never quite reached her eyes.

  Later, as the crowd thinned out and Layla stepped away to take a call, Jewel approached him.

  “She’s cute,” she said, casually.

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “She’s great.”

  There was a pause. A quiet moment where something unspoken tried to surface.

  “You really like her?” she asked.

  Christopher looked at her, long and honest.

  “I’m trying to,” he said.

  She nodded, but didn’t respond.

  That night, he caught her staring at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. And for the first time in years, he didn’t feel like hers anymore.

  She was starting to realize it, too.

  And the cracks in her carefully built wall?

  They had finally begun to show.