My Boyfriend Chose Her. So Did My Two Best Friends. Chapter 04

My Boyfriend Chose Her. So Did My Two Best Friends. Chapter 04

“Cassidy, come outside. I’m downstairs.”

I got that message while folding my last shirt.

Weston wasn’t on the island anymore.

He’d flown back early.

Delaney leaned out the window to look down.

“He’s actually here. Desmond too.”

“Where’s Graham?”

“Don’t see him. Maybe in the car.”

My phone buzzed again—Weston, a voice memo.

“I’m not coming up. Come down, let’s talk.”

I zipped my last bag shut.

“Watch my stuff, I’ll be right back.”

Delaney hesitated. “Are you going to tell him?”

“Not tell him. Just say goodbye.”

The stairwell was quiet on the way down.

It was graduation season—most people were buried in theses or packing, nobody around.

I pushed open the building’s front door. Weston was standing under the streetlight.

His T-shirt still had salt stains from the beach, his hair a mess—he’d clearly gone straight from the airport to a cab.

Desmond leaned against the car, scrolling his phone.

He glanced up at me, said nothing.

“Why’d you come back?” I asked Weston.

“What do you think? You ran off, you think I’m just gonna sit on that island?”

“You could have stayed. There were still two days left.”

“Cassidy, can you not be like this?”

He stepped closer, voice dropping.

“Just tell me what’s going on. Clearly.”

“Nothing’s going on. I just wanted to come back first.”

“Because we didn’t wake you for the sunrise? I already explained, Harlow was scared of the dark last night—”

“I know.”

“Then why are you still—”

“Weston, let me ask you something.”

He looked at me.

“Go ahead.”

“Why was your charging cable at Harlow’s dorm?”

He froze for a second.

“I left it there last time when I helped her fix her computer.”

“You went to her dorm to fix her laptop?”

“Her computer wouldn’t turn on, she asked me to look at it. What’s wrong with that?”

“When did you go?”

“Last week? The week before? I don’t remember exactly.”

“I asked you to fix my printer two weeks ago and you said you didn’t have time.”

He frowned.

“That’s different, your printer just needs to go to a repair shop, Harlow’s laptop—”

“How is it different?”

Desmond cut in.

“Okay, okay, Cassidy, can we not drag this out over something so small? Weston flew back overnight, at least give the guy a decent attitude.”

Flew back overnight.

Not because he was worried about me.

Because I wasn’t answering, and it made him look bad.

“Desmond, I’m talking to Weston, can you not interrupt?”

Desmond raised an eyebrow, laughed once.

“Wow. Someone’s found her spine.”

“I’ve always had a spine. I just didn’t use to say anything.”

He shook his head, went back to his phone.

Weston looked at me, his tone easing slightly.

“Fine. Whatever you have to say, just say it.”

“That Instagram Story—four hands. Why wasn’t I in it?”

He pulled out his phone, scrolled.

“That one? You weren’t there when we took it.”

“You left at four in the morning. I was still waiting in the living room.”

“Waiting? Weren’t you asleep?”

“I woke up at 3:50. Your rooms were already empty.”

He went quiet for two seconds.

“Then why didn’t you call?”

“Why should I have had to?”

“If you’d called we would’ve waited for you.”

“Four of you walked out that door, and not one of you thought to wake me—and I’m supposed to chase after you with a phone call?”

“Cassidy, this is exactly what you do. You never say anything in the moment, and then afterward you bring up old grievances.”

Never say anything.

I hadn’t been silent.

I’d said it, more than once.

On Christmas of my sophomore year, the four of them went ice skating and forgot to invite me.

I said, “Can you guys tell me ahead of time next time?”

Graham said, “I thought Weston told you.”

Weston said, “I thought Graham told you.”

Junior year, Independence Day, the four of them went to an escape room without me.

I said, “Can you guys stop forgetting about me?”

Desmond said, “I thought you didn’t even like escape rooms.”

I’d never said I didn’t like them —they’d just never once asked what I liked.

Every time I said something, I got brushed off, and it slowly turned into “Cassidy is too sensitive”, “Cassidy holds grudges”.

So I stopped saying anything.

And then that turned into, “How am I supposed to know if you never say anything?”

I looked at Weston and suddenly felt exhausted.

Not the tired of an argument.

A weariness that went bone-deep.

“Weston, you know why I didn’t call?”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to see—if I didn’t reach out first, would any of you even think of me.”

He said nothing.

The streetlight lit his face. His expression wasn’t guilt, more like impatience.

“And then what? For over two hours, you took photos, posted them, shouted my name in the group chat as an afterthought. From start to finish, not one person called.”

“Cassidy—”

“That’s enough.”

He shut his mouth.

I stepped back.

“Go back. You’ve still got two more days on the island. Harlow’s there alone, you must be worried.”

“I came here to find you. Not her.”

“You found me. I’m fine. You can go.”

“I’m not leaving until we actually talk this through.”

“Weston, what do you want to hear? That it’s fine, I don’t mind, and that you’ll pay more attention next time? How many more times do you need me to say it?”

He raked a hand through his hair, turned away, agitated.

Desmond spoke up from the side.

“Okay, that’s enough, it’s the middle of the night, stop making a scene.”

I laughed, once.

“That’s enough.”

I turned and walked back inside.

“Cassidy Marsh!” Weston called after me.

I didn’t turn around.

Pushing through the door, I heard Desmond say behind me, “Let her cool off. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I had to ship my last box home.

The day after, set up international roaming, sort my accounts.

The day after that—a 6 a.m. flight.

Upstairs, Delaney was sitting on her bed waiting.

“Did you tell him?”

“No.”

“Then what’d you go down for?”

I sat on top of my suitcase.

“Take one last look at him.”

Delaney studied me for a long while, then handed me a carton of milk.

“Drink something.”

My phone buzzed on the desk. A message from Graham.

[Weston says you’re still upset. Cassidy, come on, we only have a few more days on this trip, how’s everyone supposed to enjoy it?]

How’s everyone supposed to enjoy it.

In the end, my leaving was just a footnote that ruined the mood.

I flipped the phone face-down and took a sip of milk.

Two days later.

4:30 a.m., Delaney helped me carry my bags downstairs.

The sky wasn’t light yet, that particular chill of early morning in the air.

A cab was waiting outside the campus gate.

“Text me when you land,” Delaney said.

“Okay.”

“Cassidy. Don’t ever be everyone’s pushover again.”

“I won’t.”

I got in the cab.

As it passed the campus’s south gate, I saw the sign for the coffee shop still lit up.

That was where Weston and I had first held hands.

The second week of freshman year, he’d waited for me outside that shop and said,

“Cassidy. Be my girlfriend.”

Graham and Desmond had stood behind him, hooting, whistling.

There’d been no Harlow then.

Back then, they could still see me.

The cab drove past. The glowing sign shrank to a pinprick in the rearview mirror.

We’ve arrived at the airport.

Check-in, security, the gate.

The screen above the boarding door read: DESTINATION—MELBOURNE.

I sat down, buckled in.

The flight attendant asked everyone to power off their phones.

I looked at the screen one last time.

Weston had posted an Instagram Story ten minutes earlier.

A photo of the island at night, captioned:

[Home now. Let’s talk it out properly.]

Harlow had commented with a hug emoji.

Graham had liked it.

Desmond commented: [Bro, gotta go apologize to your girl.]

I turned my phone off.

The plane began to taxi, the runway lights blurring past and falling behind.

At takeoff, the pressure change pressed dully against my eardrums.

I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, I was on the other side of the world.