I Was the Fifth Friend, Until They Made Me Nothing Chapter 02

I Was the Fifth Friend, Until They Made Me Nothing Chapter 02

“Evie, didn’t you buy too many of these?”

The day before the Senior Showcase and Farewell Gala, I spread the five gift bags I’d prepared across my desk and counted them.

Sabrina leaned halfway through my bedroom door and picked one up to examine it.

Handmade soap. A pressed-flower bookmark. A handwritten card.

I had written a different message in each one.

“Five is exactly right. There are five of us.”

Sabrina opened one of the cards and read it aloud.

“‘Miles, after all these years of arguing, we finally won’t have anything left to argue about. I hope everything ahead of you is wonderful.’ Wow, Evie. You put so much thought into these.”

“I just wrote whatever came to mind.”

“What did you write in mine?”

I handed her the bag with her name on it.

She opened it, read the card, and smiled.

“‘Sabrina, take good care of yourself.’ That’s it?”

“What did you want me to write?”

“I thought you’d say something like, ‘Take care of the guys for me.'” She slipped the card back into the bag, her tone airy. “We’re all about to go our separate ways, after all.”

Go our separate ways.

She said it so easily.

“Did you get the offer from that arts nonprofit?”

“I did. It’s a ten-minute walk from Ethan’s office.”

“What about Miles?”

“His creative agency is in the building next door.”

“Ryan?”

“His architecture firm is in the same neighborhood. We’ll all be so close. Isn’t that great, Evie?”

She said the word “we.”

As though that included me.

But did she know that my offer wasn’t in this city? Or even this country?

“Weren’t you applying to some design studio? Ethan said you were sending out resumes.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you heard anything?”

“I’m still waiting.”

It was a lie.

The offer had been sitting in my inbox for three days already.

I was due to start the following Monday.

“Tell me as soon as you hear,” Sabrina said as she carried her gift bag out. “We can all have lunch together every day once we start working.”

When the door closed, I opened the offer email again.

Zurich.

An eleven-hour flight.

Far enough.

Ryan came to see me that night.

He leaned against my desk and flipped through the graduation album I’d put together.

“Why did you include pictures from freshman year?”

“I wanted something to remember it by.”

He turned to a photo of the five of us on the athletic field.

Freshman outdoor orientation week. After spending all day in the sun, we were all burned red.

“You look ridiculous in this one.”

“You don’t look any better.”

He laughed.

His finger paused over the photograph, the tip landing on the person beside me.

Sabrina.

“She hadn’t grown her hair out yet.”

“No.”

“She looked good with short hair too.”

I didn’t answer.

He turned the page and found a picture of the two of us alone.

Christmas, outside the campus gates, our scarves wrapped around us until only our eyes showed.

“Do you still have this scarf?”

“I lost it.”

“How?”

“I left it behind when I switched dorms. By the time I went back, maintenance had cleared everything out.”

He said, “Oh,” and didn’t ask anything else.

That scarf had been the first gift he ever gave me.

The day I lost it, I dug through every trash bin in the old residence hall and still couldn’t find it.

I cried the whole way back.

I never told him.

There was no point. He would have said he could buy me another one.

“Ryan.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you and Sabrina been spending a lot of time together lately?”

His hand stopped on the album.

“What do you mean, a lot of time?”

“You have lunch together every day. She brings you coffee at the studio in the afternoon. Last week, you spent three days helping with her capstone.”

“She didn’t know how to use the modeling software. I was just teaching her.”

“For three days.”

“She was shaky on the basics.”

“You’ve never taught me.”

He looked up at me.

“You don’t need me to teach you. You’re much better than she is.”

I was better than she was.

That meant she deserved to be cared for, and I didn’t need anything.

“Ryan, Sabrina has a faculty adviser for her capstone. She doesn’t need you doing it for her.”

“What’s gotten into you today?”

“I just think… you’re too invested in her.”

He closed the album, impatience creeping into his voice.

“Evelyn Parker, what exactly are you trying to say?”

He used my full name.

In three years together, he only did that when he was angry.

“I’m saying you’ve never had that kind of patience with me.”

“What patience? I spend every day with you. Isn’t that enough?”

“Every day? You were with Sabrina three days in a row last week. I texted you and waited two hours for an answer. You call that spending every day with me?”

He stood up.

“I was helping her. Her capstone deadline is coming up. Can you please not make a scene right now?”

A scene.

My feelings were a scene.

Sabrina’s needs were serious.

“Fine. I won’t make a scene.”

“Don’t use that tone.”

“What tone?”

“That passive-aggressive tone.”

I took a deep breath.

“Ryan, I’m going to ask you something. Answer me honestly.”

“Go ahead.”

“If I suddenly disappeared one day, would you look for me?”

He stared at me for a second, then laughed.

“Where would you disappear to?”

“It’s hypothetical.”

“Of course I’d look for you. You’re my girlfriend.”

He said it as if the answer required no thought at all.

But he didn’t know that my suitcase was already under my bed.

A twenty-inch carry-on containing everything I considered worth taking.

It wasn’t much.

About as little as I’d received from this relationship.

“Stop thinking about weird stuff.” He ruffled my hair. “Did you steam your dress for the showcase?”

“Yes.”

“Sabrina said the zipper broke on her champagne dress. Can you take a look at it tomorrow? You’re much better at sewing than she is.”

He was asking me to repair Sabrina’s dress.

He saw nothing wrong with that.

“Sure.”

“Get some sleep.”

He left.

After the door closed, I crouched down and pulled the suitcase from under my bed.

I unzipped it. Clothes and documents were arranged neatly inside.

My passport was on top.

My Swiss national visa and work-permit approval sat perfectly straight inside it.

I pulled the Christmas picture of Ryan and me out of the album and studied it for a moment.

Then I returned it to the drawer instead of putting it in my suitcase.

Some things weren’t worth taking.