His GPS Always Navigated To My Best Friend’s Apartment Chapter 04

His GPS Always Navigated To My Best Friend’s Apartment Chapter 04

On the morning of my final day, a flight confirmation email from the Oak Creek branch popped up on my screen.

The flight was scheduled for eight o’clock tonight.

Inside the apartment, every single trace of my existence had been completely erased. The closet stood empty, stripped so bare that not a single clothes hanger remained.

At five in the afternoon, Ethan’s name flashed on my phone.

“Seven tonight. The Grand Pier Bistro. I booked us a table.” His commanding tone carried himself as if the explosive argument from two nights ago had never even happened. “Dress up nicely. Don’t go out with a bare face like you usually do.”

“It’s a high-end restaurant after all, and I don’t want to be embarrassed.”

I stared out the window at the sky slowly bruising into dusk. “Okay.”

Hearing my submissive response, his tone smoothed out a fraction. “Good to see you’re finally showing some sense. I ordered a bunch of dishes. I guarantee you’ll love them.”

I lowered my hand and ended the call.

Just as I was grabbing my bags to head out the door for the airport, the phone rang a second time.

“Cancel the reservation,” Ethan blurted out the second I answered. “I’m in the emergency room at Metropolis General. Chloe is getting her stomach pumped right now.”

In the background, Chloe’s fragile sniffling drifted through the speaker.

“I’m so useless…” she whimpered, her voice cracking perfectly. “I just wanted to take Rachel’s place and keep you company for those extra-spicy Ghost Pepper ribs… I didn’t mean to end up in the hospital and ruin your entire anniversary trip…”

“You should go back and be with her, Ethan… I’ll be perfectly fine on my own…”

“Don’t say stupid things like that!” Ethan coaxed her, his voice dripping with tender devotion. “I’m the one who took you out to eat them. Even if it costs me my life, I will take responsibility for you until the very end.”

But the exact second he turned his attention back to me, that overflowing tenderness instantly hardened into a venomous, finger-pointing tirade.

“Did you hear that, Rachel?”

“If you hadn’t stubbornly refused to go eat those ribs with me in the first place, would Chloe have forced herself to keep me company until she ended up with a bleeding ulcer?!”

My hand gripped the phone so hard it shook uncontrollably. “Ethan… today is our three-year anniversary…”

“Rachel, how did you become so utterly cold-blooded and selfish?!” he cut me off without a shred of mercy.

“My staying here at her bedside isn’t just about my duty as a man—it’s because she is your best friend! She endured this horrific trauma all because of you, and I am here paying back your moral debt for you!”

“I’m not even asking you to be grateful, yet you’re seriously standing there throwing a fit over a stupid dinner?”

“Show some maturity and go pay the cancellation fee for the restaurant yourself.”

“And if you have even an ounce of human decency left in you, you’ll get your ass down to this hospital right now and nurse her yourself!”

The call was abruptly disconnected, leaving behind nothing but a string of cold, mechanical dial tones.

I stared at the phone screen as it gradually went dark.

Honestly, I had already seen this coming. Between me and Chloe, he would always find a million flawless justifications to choose her.

I walked over to the dining table, pulled out three hundred dollars from my purse, and slid the bills neatly under the glass tabletop. It was the exact cost of that mended peanut butter cake from two nights ago.

I didn’t owe him a single cent anymore.

Go spend the rest of your life with Chloe, Ethan.

Goodbye.