"May I join you?" Celeste's voice interrupts my thoughts, and I startle a little out of surprise. I nod silently in response, and she sits next to me.
I can't get home until tomorrow. I tried to find a ticket for this day, but everything is sold for Sunday from Spokane to New York. And then Christopher asked me to come to dinner at his sister's house because he promised her. I didn't want to at first, but I’d already agreed before, and I didn't want to cancel Celeste. It's not her fault that her brother is such a jerk.
"I didn't want to scare you. I just want to talk, if you don't mind," she says again, and I look at her. She gives me a smile.
"Of course, I don't," I say and smile back.
A moment of silence follows, and I wonder where Christopher and Abigail are.
"Why are you so upset?" she asks to my surprise, and I widen my eyes in question. "Has something happened between you and my brother?"
"We argued, that's all," I say and turn away. It’s always hard for me to lie to people when I look into their eyes.
"You always argue, but the last time I saw you, you were pretty happy together."
"How do you know that we always argue?" I look at her again and raise an eyebrow.
"He told me." She smiles slightly. "He said he loves your battles."
A long pause comes after that. I exhale. "We had a fight like we’ve never had before."
I don't want to talk about it, especially with Christopher's sister, but it's her house, and now I'm here, so I guess I have to.
"What did he do?" she asks, and I snort involuntarily. How can I answer that?
"Why do you think it's his fault?" I ask and look at Celeste again. She seems pretty upset, too.
"Please, I know my brother." She snorts too, and we both laugh.
"He hid something from me while I trusted him," I say, the smile evaporating from my face. “Where is he, by the way?"
"They went to Abigail's room to play dolls."
I smile again, involuntarily this time. I can't imagine Christopher playing with any kind of toys, much less dolls.
"What? He's good with Abigail. He always does what she asks." Celeste responds to my reaction even though I said nothing.
"I would never have guessed that," I confess honestly. I always thought he was colder, more detached.
"I wanted to thank you." Celeste changes the subject, and I sigh with relief. "You did an amazing job."
"This would be a lot easier if I worked directly with you." I try to imagine how it would be if she was in charge. I'm sure there wouldn't be this many challenges and changes to my designs. "We could make it all faster, you know?"
Celeste simply looks at me as if trying to figure something out for a few seconds.
"You have no idea, do you?" she finally asks, and a question mark appears on my face again.
"What are you talking about?"
"You have no idea that Christopher made so many changes to be able to work with you as long as he could."
It's my turn to look at Celeste suspiciously, trying to decide if she's telling me the truth.
"He's a good person, Michelle," she continues as I keep staring at her, unable to say a word. "I know he seems indifferent at first glance, but he's not. He did everything he could to support Conor and me after our parents died. He was only nineteen, you know? And we were still underaged. But he became our legal guardian and went to work to support us. He built his empire from nothing, but family is what he cares about the most."
I didn't know any of that. There is not much information about Christopher on social media. I always thought he inherited money to build his hotel chain or something. And I never knew about his parents and those tough decisions he had to make being practically a child himself.
"Whatever he did, please give him another chance, Michelle," Celeste adds and gets up from the chair. "Don't break his heart."