I Was the Fifth Friend, Until They Made Me Nothing Chapter 09

I Was the Fifth Friend, Until They Made Me Nothing Chapter 09

“Evie, did you see the post?”

Sabrina hadn’t contacted me for two months.

When her message arrived at five in the morning, I almost thought I had misread the name.

“What post?”

“Ryan’s Instagram post.”

I had muted his account, so I couldn’t see it.

But Sabrina thoughtfully sent me a screenshot.

It was a drawing.

A portrait Ryan had sketched.

Of me.

He had used my profile from the freshman-year group photo on the athletic field.

He had written a long caption beneath it.

“For three years, I thought she would always be there. It wasn’t that I didn’t love her. I had simply gotten used to believing she would never leave. Now I understand that taking someone for granted is the cruelest kind of laziness. Evie, I’m sorry.”

It had more than forty likes and over a hundred comments.

“Ryan is so devoted.”

“If that isn’t true love, what is?”

“How could she walk away from a man like him?”

Sabrina wrote, “Did you see it? He drew you.”

“I saw.”

“Aren’t you moved?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He drew the version of me he wanted, not the person I am. He’s sketched me many times. In every portrait, my eyebrows are lighter than they really are, my lips are thinner, and my eyes are bigger. He drew the woman he wished I would become. He never drew me.”

Sabrina didn’t answer.

I kept typing.

“Why did you send me this?”

“Because I think he truly regrets what happened.”

“And because he regrets it, you think I should go back?”

“I just think… you were together for three years. Don’t you owe each other one more chance?”

“You send me his post and carry his message back to me. If I return, he’ll be even more grateful to you, and the two of you will grow closer. Is that how this works?”

Her response came a beat late.

“Evie, you’re overthinking it.”

“No, I’m not. You enjoy being everyone’s favorite, and you enjoy playing the mediator in front of me. You don’t need me to come home because you care about me. You need me there because without me, your place beside them becomes impossible to ignore.”

It took me a long time to write the message.

I deleted it twice.

The third time, I finished it and pressed send.

She answered almost immediately with a voice note.

I played it.

She was crying.

“Evie, how could you say that about me? I’ve always thought of you as my real sister. What you said is so hurtful.”

Her sobs were soft and broken.

Exactly the way she had cried in the group chat.

I had heard that same cry too many times.

Every time she cried, everyone gathered around her.

Every time she cried, the person who told the truth became the aggressor.

“You can cry, Sabrina. It doesn’t change the facts.”

“What facts? Are you calling me fake?”

“I didn’t call you anything. But you know what your relationship with Ryan is.”

“We’re friends!”

“Friends don’t wear custom engraved bracelets from each other. They don’t rush to be the first person to like a post about an ex-girlfriend. They don’t stay beside someone while he’s drunk, then call his ex to explain how much he regrets losing her.”

She went silent.

I ended the voice call.

Ethan emailed me that night.

“Evie, Sabrina says you attacked her. What is wrong with you? What did she ever do to you? She’s been part of our lives since we were kids. If you want to leave, then leave, but don’t take your anger out on her.”

I replied with one sentence.

“Ethan, have you ever asked what I did wrong?”

He didn’t answer.

The season’s first cold autumn rain fell over Zurich before dawn.

I sat by the window, revising the final proposal for the project’s second phase.

On my screen was a storefront design for one of the Old Town lanes.

Warm light shone through the glass and spilled across the cobblestones.

Helmut had called it the studio’s strongest entry-level work of the year and planned to submit it to the Zurich Emerging Visual Design Awards.

In three months in Zurich, I had been put in charge of two projects and nominated for an industry award.

Three months.

More recognition than I had received in four years with that group combined.

My phone lit up.

It was Miles.

“Sabrina posted screenshots of your conversation in the group chat. Ethan is furious. Ryan deleted his post.”

“And then?”

“Sabrina said you’d hurt her so badly that she needed some space. Then she left the chat.”

“She left?”

“Yes. Before she did, she wrote, ‘I was only trying to help. I never thought everyone would decide I was the villain.'”

A textbook exit.

First the tears. Then the injury. Finally, a retreat designed to make everyone chase her.

She had left the chat, but they would all follow her to offer comfort.

“What did Ethan and Ryan do?”

“Ethan called and asked whether I was taking your side. I said I only thought some of the things you described had really happened. He said I was being just as dramatic as you.”

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

“You didn’t. I finally understood, that’s all. It just took me too long.”

He sent one last message.

“Take care of yourself, Evelyn Parker.”

I turned off my phone.

The next day, Ryan sent me his final message.

One sentence.

“Fine. You win.”

I had won.

He thought this was a contest.

Even after deciding who had won and lost, he still didn’t understand that I had never been competing with anyone.

I was only finding my way back to myself.