I Was the Fifth Friend, Until They Made Me Nothing Chapter 04

I Was the Fifth Friend, Until They Made Me Nothing Chapter 04

“Evie, are you free tomorrow? I want to pick up a few things at the mall.”

Sabrina sent the voice note the next morning.

Tomorrow.

June 18.

My flight.

“I can’t tomorrow.”

“What about the day after?”

“I can’t then either.”

“When are you free?”

“I’m not sure.”

She sent me a pouting emoji.

“Fine. I’ll ask Ryan to come with me.”

I didn’t answer.

I set my phone on the desk and began checking my luggage.

Passport. Swiss national visa. Work-permit approval. Confirmation from the studio.

One suitcase. One backpack.

Three years of love and four years of college fit into so little space.

Ethan called around noon.

“Evie, dinner tonight? One last meal before everyone goes their separate ways.”

“Who picked the place?”

“Sabrina. The waterfront seafood restaurant we went to last time.”

The same restaurant.

I had made ribs for his birthday. They had gone to Sabrina’s restaurant instead.

“What time?”

“Seven. Are you coming?”

“I’ll be there.”

I hung up.

Then I pushed my suitcase into the back of the closet.

I would go to the farewell dinner.

One last time.

When I arrived at seven, they were already seated.

Sabrina sat beside Ryan, the two of them looking at the same phone screen.

Miles sat across from them, peeling shrimp for Ethan.

Four people, paired neatly across from one another.

The only open seat was at the end, beside the aisle.

It was an extra chair, several inches lower than the others.

I sat down.

“Evie, you’re finally here!” Sabrina waved. “We were watching the graduation video.”

She handed me her phone.

Miles had edited the five-minute video and added a sentimental song beneath it.

There was a slow-motion clip of Ethan playing basketball, a close-up of Sabrina playing guitar, Ryan sketching in the studio, and Miles commanding the stage at a debate tournament.

Was I in it?

I watched to the end.

In the group photo that appeared for the final three seconds, I stood at the edge with half my face cropped out.

“What do you think?” Miles asked.

“It’s really well edited.”

“I think we should change the song,” Sabrina said. “This one sounds old. I know something newer.”

Miles immediately picked up his phone. “Send it to me.”

“Okay.”

No one asked what I thought of the song.

No one noticed that I appeared for only three seconds, with half my face missing.

The food arrived one dish at a time.

Ethan put a piece of salmon on Sabrina’s plate, then poured Miles a glass of wine.

When Sabrina said she hated using utensils other people had touched, Ryan asked the server to bring her a clean serving fork.

I used the fork already on the table. No one offered to replace it.

Halfway through dinner, Sabrina suggested a game.

“Everyone has to name the most memorable thing from the past four years involving someone at this table.”

Ethan went first. “Sophomore year, Miles stayed up all night preparing for the debate finals. His voice was gone by the time he got onstage the next morning.”

Miles laughed. “I’ve got one. Junior year, when Sabrina had that fever, Ethan took a rideshare from one end of the city to the other to bring her medicine. Two hours round trip.”

Sabrina covered her face. “I remember! I threw up all over your jacket.”

Ryan thought for a moment.

“When Sabrina was working on her capstone, she stayed in the studio until midnight every night. Once she fell asleep while drawing and hit her forehead on the corner of the desk. She had a bruise the next day.”

His memory was about Sabrina too.

“Mine,” Sabrina said, smiling at Ryan, “was the freshman field day. Ryan finished the mile and ran straight over to hand me his water bottle.”

He hadn’t been bringing it to me.

I had been waiting at the finish line that day too.

When he ran toward us, I held out a bottle of water.

He never saw it. He ran straight past me to Sabrina farther down the track.

I drank that water myself later.

“What about you, Evie?” Sabrina asked. “What’s your most memorable moment?”

For once, all four of them looked at me at the same time.

I studied them one by one.

Ethan. Miles. Ryan. Sabrina.

“The first day of freshman year.”

“What happened?”

“It was pouring during move-in. I dragged my suitcase almost two miles to the residence hall by myself. I was soaked when I got there. Then I found the three of you talking in the hallway, and none of you asked why I was drenched.”

Silence settled over the table.

Ethan laughed awkwardly. “We’d just started school. We barely knew one another.”

“It stayed the same after we did.”

The atmosphere changed the moment the words left my mouth.

Ryan put down his fork. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been taking that tone with everyone lately. If you have something to say, say it.”

“Would any of you listen?”

“Of course we’d listen.”

I looked at him.

“Ryan, when you bought Sabrina that bracelet, did you think about me? When you stayed alone with her in the studio until midnight, did you think about me? When you helped her rehearse, fixed her microphone, filmed her, brought her water, and got her a clean fork, did you think about where I was even once?”

His mouth opened.

“You’re overthinking it.”

Three words.

All my hurt, answered with three words.

“Fine. I’m overthinking it.”

I stood.

“I’m full. I’m leaving.”

“Evie,” Ethan called after me.

“It’s a farewell dinner.” I smiled faintly. “Someone has to be the first to go.”

The night air was cold when I stepped outside.

Through the glass door behind me, I heard Sabrina’s muffled voice.

“Is Evie upset? Did I say something wrong?”

Then Ryan answered.

“It’s fine. She’s like this sometimes. She’ll get over it in a couple of days.”

She would get over it.

He was certain I would.

Certain I wouldn’t leave.

Certain I would always wait for them in that undersized chair at the end of the table.

My alarm went off at four in the morning.

I carried my suitcase out.

The residence-hall corridor was empty, my footsteps echoing against the concrete floor.

A rideshare waited outside the campus gates.

Before I got in, I looked back once.

A light burned on the sixth floor. Sabrina’s room.

The third floor was dark. Mine.

No one would notice that my bed was empty.

At least not today.

Airport security. Boarding. Takeoff.

The city outside the window grew smaller until it dissolved into a haze of lights.

Eleven hours.

It was raining lightly when the plane landed in Zurich.

I turned on my phone.

Messages flooded in faster than I could read them.