Five Plates, Four Sets Of Cutlery, Zero For Me Chapter 04

Five Plates, Four Sets Of Cutlery, Zero For Me Chapter 04

I picked up Evan’s phone from the coffee table.

He hadn’t locked the screen. He never did. He’d always said, “Go ahead and look. I don’t have anything to hide from you.”

The phone unlocked straight to the messaging app.

The first pinned group was called Sadie Project.

There were four people in it. Not me.

Evan reached for the phone, but I’d already opened the chat.

I dragged my finger across the screen, scrolling upward one message at a time.

Tuesday of the previous week, 9:00 p.m.

Evan: [The design concepts on her desk are really good. They’ve been sitting there for days, and she hasn’t touched them.]

Owen: [Hasn’t Sadie always wanted to enter the project shortlist? Submit them for her. She’ll get through for sure.]

Sadie: [Can I really do that? What if my cousin finds out?]

Owen: [She hasn’t touched them in days. She probably won’t use them anyway.]

Dylan: [LOL. Secretly making big moves.]

Evan: [Still, we’d better not let her find out. You know how she is. She’ll make a scene.]

I kept scrolling.

Thursday afternoon, 2:00 p.m.

Sadie: [I finally submitted them!]

Owen: [Fingers crossed.]

Evan: [You worked hard. Let’s go celebrate sometime. Don’t invite Nat, though. She’ll ask a million questions.]

Dylan: [I’m in.]

Friday afternoon, 4:00 p.m.

Sadie: [It made it through! I passed the first review!]

Owen: [That’s my girl. Our Sadie is going places.]

Evan: [Congratulations. Perfect timing, too. Nat said she’d be working late tonight, so we won’t have to wait for her to eat.]

Dylan: [Just don’t let it slip in front of Nat. She takes everything seriously.]

I felt like a fool.

That was the exact time I’d told them in the group chat that I was working late, and Sadie had replied with nothing but an OK GIF.

While they were brushing me off, they were using another chat to plan a celebration for my cousin, who had passed the first review with my designs.

I set the phone gently back on the coffee table.

“Owen.”

That was my brother’s full name. I said it quietly.

“When you told Sadie she was going places, did you remember you had another sister?”

The smile on my brother’s face froze.

“Evan.”

I turned to him.

“When you said Sadie would make a scene if she found out, did you remember that I was your girlfriend?”

The color drained from Evan’s face.

“Nat, let me explain. At the time, we honestly thought…”

“Thought what?”

I cut him off.

“That one set of designs wasn’t worth the trouble of asking me?”

“Or that I wasn’t worth the trouble?”

No one spoke in the living room.

Sadie started crying again. This time, no one comforted her.

I got to my feet and headed for the door.

My brother called after me.

“Natalie, do you have to do this every time? Why do you have to hold on to every little thing?”

I stopped but didn’t turn around.

“A little thing? You sat in that chat figuring out how to avoid me, repeating, ‘Don’t let her find out. She’ll make a scene.'”

“Now that I have something to say, suddenly I’m the one who won’t let it go.”

“You treated something I spent night after night creating like a little gift you could hand off to her.”

“If even this counts as a little thing, then I guess nothing about me has ever been a big thing to you.”

I opened the door and walked out.

The door closed behind me. Through it, I heard Sadie crying and my brother sighing.

No one came after me.

I stood in the hallway with my phone in my hand. The screen went dark, lit up, then went dark again.

The details for my Friday-night flight were still open on the screen.

I stayed at a hotel near the office for two days.

None of them contacted me.

Early Friday morning, while they were all at work, I went back to the apartment for my suitcase.

As I dragged it past the kitchen, I paused.

There was a new sticky note on the refrigerator.

[I’m sorry, Nat. I know I was wrong. It’s our Friday family dinner, so you’ll definitely come home tonight, right? We’ll wait for you.]

I peeled off the note, read it, and dropped it into the trash beside me.

That circle of people I’d once desperately wanted to belong to. That hopeful waiting I’d once cherished.

Neither could stir even the slightest ripple in me anymore.