Yvonne first met Celeste and Conrad on a Thursday evening that smelled like burnt coffee and rain. She’d ducked into a small café near her brother’s workplace; a cramped little place with cracked leather booths and a chalkboard menu that never changed. She waited for Adam, who was running late. The couple was already there, sitting by the window.
Celeste spotted her first. “You look like you need company,” she called across the room, loud enough for everyone to glance up. “Come on, sit with us before I start making up stories about you.”
Yvonne laughed despite herself. Celeste was the kind of woman who filled space without asking permission; warm, loud, bossy in a way that felt motherly if you didn’t think about it too much. Conrad, in contrast, was soft-spoken, the kind of man who leaned forward when you talked, like every word mattered. But when Celeste spoke, he fell quiet, listening with the patient deference of a man long used to following orders.
By the time Adam arrived, Yvonne was already halfway through a slice of Celeste’s lemon cake and knee-deep in their conversation. They learned Celeste had a little online shop, Conrad was “between projects,” and their neighbor’s marriage was crumbling, courtesy of Conrad’s whispered asides. In return, Adam let slip that he’d just been promoted, Yvonne that her side business was finally gaining traction, the fact they’d both been feeling “lucky” lately. Celeste smiled at that, a slow, assessing smile.
The couple slid into their lives like water through cracks. It started as the kind of friendship that grows without anyone noticing. Dinner invitations, movie nights, dropping by “just because we were in the neighborhood.” Celeste had a way of insisting that didn’t sound like insistence until you realized you hadn’t had a single evening to yourself in a month.
Celeste was always cooking too much, “so you have no excuse to say no.” They were generous; bringing food, sharing bottles of wine, always making sure you took the last piece of whatever was on the plate. Celeste touched everyone when she talked, a hand on Adam’s shoulder, her palm brushing Yvonne’s arm. It seemed harmless, almost affectionate. At first, it felt like gaining a second set of parents, the kind who were actually interested in your life.
Still, Yvonne couldn’t shake a faint unease. They wanted to know everything, not just the big events, but the tiny shifts, the private doubts. Celeste in particular seemed to steer conversations like a ship’s captain, deciding where they went and how long they stayed there.
The couple asked questions that dug a little deeper than polite conversation. How much was your rent again? Do you get sick often? Any family history of illness? If she hesitated, Celeste would tilt her head and wait, as though answers were inevitable.
It wasn’t long before “weekly” became “every other day.” Celeste would text in the morning: Dinner tonight? We’re making that roast you liked. Or she’d call: We’re near your place. Ten minutes. Put the kettle on. Adam didn’t seem to mind at first, he liked the attention, the home-cooked meals but Yvonne started to notice things.
Yvonne also noticed how the couple insisted on sharing food from the same plate, sipping from each other’s drinks, offering bites with the same fork. “It’s just how some people are,” Adam said. But Yvonne felt something in her gut; a pulling, like the tide going out.
The first crack in their easy life came small. Yvonne’s laptop crashed the night before a big client pitch. Adam lost his phone in a taxi. Then bigger things like the supplier for Yvonne’s business went under without warning. Adam’s promotion got pulled when the company “restructured.”
Meanwhile, Celeste and Conrad seemed to be thriving. Celeste’s small online shop suddenly went viral after a celebrity mentioned it on social media. Conrad won an all-expenses-paid trip from some raffle he didn’t even remember entering. They laughed about it over dinner at Yvonne’s place, a dinner they’d invited themselves to, and neither sibling missed the way the couple’s cheeks glowed in the candlelight, like they’d been basking in the sun. Adam laughed politely, but Yvonne noticed the shadows under his eyes.
Then Adam got sick. The diagnosis came in late in December right after Christmas.
Testicular cancer. Caught early, the doctors said. While it was aggressive and treatment need to begin soon, the prognosis was good. Those words didn’t stop the ground from tilting beneath them.
They needed time; time to process, to decide on treatment, to breathe. Celeste didn’t seem to understand that.
“You can’t just sit on this,” she told Adam the day after his biopsy results came in. “You need to start treatment right away.” She called every day after that, pressing him for a decision.
After seeing her little brother broke down in tears at her place, Yvonne finally texted: We need a little space right now, Celeste’s reply came almost instantly: We’ll come over. We can talk about it properly.
They arrived an hour later, Conrad’s car pulling up outside like a hearse. Celeste was in the passenger seat, leaning forward like a general in a war movie. She made Conrad drive them across town just to stand at Yvonne’s doorstep and demand answers.
That was the day Yvonne snapped. “We need you to leave us alone. We’re done.” Celeste’s face went blank, as if someone had erased the expression with a cloth. Conrad muttered something about “just trying to help,” but his eyes flicked to Celeste, waiting for permission to speak.
They left without another word. And that was that. They didn’t speak again.
The weeks that followed felt strangely lighter. Adam started treatment. Yvonne’s laptop replacement arrived early. The delayed business launch picked up with new suppliers. Their lives didn’t become perfect overnight, but the constant sense of being… drained… eased.
Yvonne still thought about them sometimes even though she tried not to, about how quickly the warmth had curdled into something else. She didn’t know whether to chalk it up to manipulation, or… something stranger. She remembered the odd things Celeste had said over the months, the little comments about “balancing the scales,” or “some people have more luck than they need.”
She also remembered one night at Adam’s house, spotting a framed print hanging above the bookshelf. It was an intricate, circular design, almost like a wheel, etched with markings she didn’t recognize. Adam told her Celeste had given it to him, calling it “an old family charm to keep the balance.” Yvonne held his gaze for a moment. “Mind if I get rid of it?” He nodded without hesitation. “Go ahead. I don’t want anything of theirs in my home.”
A couple of months later, Yvonne saw them again.
She was at the mall with Adam, helping him pick out a birthday gift for his girlfriend, the same woman he’d met during chemotherapy. One of the nurses at the hospital, now a steady, bright presence in his life. They stepped out of the jewelry store, still laughing over his indecision, when Conrad came into view, pushing a wheelchair.
Celeste sat in it, her frame thinner, her skin pale, a faint surgical scar peeking above her blouse. She looked straight ahead, unsmiling. Conrad’s posture was slouched, eyes were fixed ahead, his mouth set in a grim line.
Yvonne felt Adam stiffen beside her. The couple passed within a few feet, and her stomach knotted, but neither of them slowed. They kept walking, eyes fixed ahead, as if the other pair didn’t exist at all.
For a flicker of a moment, Yvonne almost felt sorry for them. Almost.
That night, she lay in bed thinking about the framed print on Adam’s wall, the way Celeste’s hand always seemed to linger on Adam’s shoulder, the odd uptick of misfortune that had shadowed them during those months. She told herself it was coincidence. That people didn’t, couldn’t, take luck from others.
But she slept better that night than she had in months.
If you asked Yvonne years later about Celeste and Conrad, she’d tell you they were just a couple who didn’t understand boundaries. But sometimes, when the house was quiet and the dark felt too close, she’d think of that smile Celeste gave her the day they first met; slow, assessing, like she’d spotted something worth taking. She could still hear Celeste’s voice in her head, warm and certain:
Some people have more luck than they need.
And Yvonne would shiver, just a little, as if the tide had gone out again.
