Five Plates, Four Sets Of Cutlery, Zero For Me Chapter 05

Five Plates, Four Sets Of Cutlery, Zero For Me Chapter 05

At six in the evening, the four of them came home together.

The table was covered with ingredients, more food than they usually made for a holiday dinner.

Sadie took two packages of shrimp paste out of a bag.

“Nat’s favorite. I bought two packages.”

When she saw Dylan seasoning the soup pot, Evan quickly stopped him.

“Her stomach’s sensitive. Don’t make the broth too spicy.”

Then he swapped the regular pot for a divided pot with mild and spicy broth.

My brother took the bottle of yogurt drink I liked from the refrigerator and placed it right in the center of the table.

Over the past two days, the four of them had planned this dinner as an apology to me.

“What time does Nat usually get home?”

Evan checked his phone.

“Usually seven. It’s six forty now, so she should be here soon.”

Seven o’clock came and went. Natalie didn’t come home.

My brother sent a message in the group chat.

[Tagging Natalie. Are you off work? We’re waiting for you to eat.]

No one answered.

“Could she still be working late? She came home late last Friday, too.”

“Then let’s wait a little longer.”

Seven-thirty. Eight. Nine.

The food they had prepared slowly went cold.

Sadie took it into the kitchen to warm it up. When she bent down to take out the trash, her hand stopped.

The sticky note she’d carefully written for Natalie that morning was lying inside the trash can.

She picked it up. The paper had a deep crease through it.

Her hand shook, and the note slipped back into the trash.

“Owen…” Her voice broke. “Come look at this.”

My brother came over, saw the note in the trash, and frowned.

“She came back?”

“I don’t know…”

Sadie’s eyes filled with tears.

“Is Nat still mad at me? Does she not forgive me?”

Evan seemed to think of something all at once and went to look inside my room.

The space beside the wall was empty.

Natalie’s suitcase had always stood there.

He called toward the kitchen.

“Don’t jump to conclusions. Nat must have left for work.”

“Where?”

Owen asked.

Evan froze.

“She went…” He opened and closed his mouth. “I didn’t ask.”

“How long will she be gone?”

“She didn’t say…”

“When did she leave?”

“I don’t know.”

My brother stared at him, his frown deepening.

“Evan, Natalie is your girlfriend, right? You don’t know where she’s going, how long she’ll be gone, or when she left?”

Evan had no answer.

Dylan took out his phone and called Natalie.

Her phone was off.

“It was off. She might be on the plane.”

“On a plane? A plane to where?”

Owen asked again.

No one could answer him.

The four of them stood in the living room, and no one said another word.

Finally, my brother untied his apron and threw it on the floor.

“Forget it. We’ll leave her alone. She’s probably just throwing a fit and couldn’t even be bothered to tell us.”

“Let her be mad. She’ll get over it in a couple of days.”

Sadie tugged on his shirt, her voice barely audible.

“Owen, what if Nat is really angry…”

“How long could she possibly stay mad?”

My brother let out a cold snort.

“Ever since she was a kid, she’s always gotten over it on her own.”

He sounded completely certain.

Evan went over to Sadie.

“Don’t cry. Nat will think it through and come back in a few days.”

“She blows up, but she always comes home in the end.”

Sadie nodded through her sniffles.

No one enjoyed the dinner.

Afterward, Evan went back to his room and closed the door.

He leaned against it and stared at his phone.

Only then did he realize that Natalie’s last message had been sent in the group chat on Saturday:

[Where are you guys?]

There had been nothing else from her all week.

Before this, she had always told him where she was going ahead of time.

If she had to travel for work, she asked him to drive her.

Even when she went to the grocery store, she would ask, “Do you need anything?”

But that week, she hadn’t told him a thing.

He didn’t know when her suitcase had disappeared.

He didn’t know when she had left.

He didn’t know where she had gone, either.

Evan dropped his gaze to the words Where are you guys? His chest tightened.