Chapter 2: The Friend Who Always Needed Saving
Megan arrived the next evening with red eyes, perfect lashes, and another emergency.
She stood in Nora’s kitchen holding both hands around a mug she had not been offered.
Caleb sat at the table, too calm for a man whose lie had been found.
Nora noticed that first.
Caleb looked ready.
Megan looked wounded.
Together, they looked rehearsed.
“I hate asking again,” Megan said, already asking.
Nora leaned against the counter and waited.
Megan wiped one dry cheek with her sleeve. “Mum’s bill came through.”
“They said if I do not pay something today, they will send it to collections.”
Caleb looked at Nora with soft pressure in his eyes.
“Meg has had a brutal month,” he said.
Meg.
He had never called her that in front of Nora before.
Or maybe Nora had never needed to notice.
Megan looked down. “I know you are planning the wedding.”
“I would not ask if I had anyone else.”
Nora thought of twelve years of friendship.
School lunches.
Shared flats.
Borrowed dresses.
Midnight calls.
And transfer after transfer with notes like rent help, medical help, urgent help, last time.
It was never the last time.
Caleb reached across the table and touched Nora’s wrist.
“She is your best friend,” he said. “Help her if you can.”
The same sentence.
The exact same sentence he had used on the hotel night.
Nora looked at his hand until he removed it.
Megan noticed.
Her eyes flicked to Caleb, then back to Nora.
Too fast.
Too familiar.
Nora walked to her laptop and opened the banking page.
Megan exhaled like relief had arrived early.
Caleb leaned back, trying not to look pleased.
“How much?” Nora asked.
Megan gave the number quickly, without checking a bill.
That was another mistake.
People in real panic usually checked details twice.
Nora typed the amount slowly.
Then she paused at the reference box.
Usually, she wrote something simple.
For Megan.
Emergency.
Rent.
This time, she wrote something else.
Wedding vendor emergency support.
Caleb’s eyes moved to the screen.
Just once.
Megan’s fingers tightened around the mug.
Nora clicked nothing yet.
“Send me the invoice,” she said.
Megan swallowed. “I can send it later.”
“Now.”
Caleb sat forward. “Nora, do not humiliate her.”
Nora smiled without warmth. “Receipts prevent humiliation.”
The kitchen went quiet.
Megan’s phone buzzed in her pocket.
She checked it and turned the screen away too quickly.
Nora saw Caleb’s name before the screen vanished.
There it was.
Not a suspicion.
A pattern.
Nora cancelled the transfer before either of them could stop her.
Megan looked up. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for the invoice.”
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
Megan’s eyes filled again, but the tears had nowhere useful to go.
Nora picked up her own mug and looked at both of them.
For the first time, she wondered how many emergencies had been performances.
And how many of those performances had Caleb helped write.