By the time I came out of the restaurant restroom, the table had been cleared, my three closest friends were gone, and the phone I used for navigation was in somebody else’s pocket.
Chapter 1
For several seconds, I stood there staring at four empty chairs.
Wyatt Parker had taken my phone before lunch, joking that I depended on GPS too much. My foster sister, Katie, had laughed. So had Emily Lawson, the girl who had lived one floor above me since childhood and once promised she’d always make sure I found my way home.
I went to the hostess stand and asked if they’d seen my friends leave. The young woman behind the counter gave me a sympathetic look and handed me a folded napkin.
Scrawled across it in Wyatt’s handwriting were six words that made my stomach turn.
We’ve done this route twice. You can do it. See you at home.
For months, the three of them had called it “training.”
They’d hop off the subway a stop early and disappear through another exit. They’d vanish in shopping malls while I was buying coffee. Once, they walked away from me at a street festival and watched from across the intersection to see how long it took me to notice.
They said I needed confidence.
What I needed was my phone.
There was nothing noble about memorizing every turn in a city when maps existed. I knew I was terrible with directions. I had accepted that years ago. I could manage perfectly well as long as nobody deliberately took away the tools I used to compensate.
That afternoon, without a phone, I asked a bus driver which line went toward our neighborhood. I wrote the transfers on the back of an old receipt. I got off at the wrong stop once, corrected myself, walked six blocks, and finally reached our apartment building just before seven.
When I opened the front door, laughter spilled from the living room.
Wyatt, Katie, and Emily were stretched across the couch watching a movie. Each held a bowl of popcorn.
Wyatt checked the time and grinned. “Told you he’d make it before seven.”
Katie groaned. “No way.”
“You two lost the bet,” Wyatt announced. “I get to pick what we do next weekend.”
Emily looked genuinely surprised. “How’d you get back so fast?”
Katie sat forward. “Seriously. Last time you took four hours to get home from the mall.”
I stared at them.
Not one person asked whether I was scared.
Not one asked if something had happened.
Instead, Emily narrowed her eyes at Wyatt. “Did you secretly leave him clues?”
Wyatt pulled my phone from his pocket and set it on the coffee table. “Nope. I took this on purpose, remember?”
Katie’s smile disappeared. “You took his phone?”
“You knew that.”
“I knew you were doing the direction thing. I didn’t know you’d leave him stranded without a phone.”
Emily frowned. “What if he’d had an emergency?”
Wyatt’s expression changed from smug to wounded. “Oh, come on. We all agreed he needed this.”
The absurdity of it struck me then. They were arguing about whether Wyatt had gone too far while I stood ten feet away, still wearing the jacket I’d been sweating in for nearly two hours.
Emily came over and took my wrist. “You’re okay, right?”
“I’m fine.”
“Wyatt means well.”
There it was.
Wyatt means well.
Katie held up an untouched bowl. “I saved you popcorn.”
“I don’t want any.”
I picked up my phone and went to my room.
Behind me, Wyatt lowered his voice. “He’s mad at me.”
A moment later, I heard the front door open.
“I’ll walk you home,” Emily told him.
“I can come too,” Katie said quickly.
Emily laughed. “Katie, I live upstairs.”
“So? You’re still walking with him.”
Their voices faded down the hall.
Both women who supposedly worried about my safety had rushed out to escort Wyatt, a healthy twenty-one-year-old man, home.
He lived four blocks away.
I sat at my desk and opened my university email.
For weeks, I’d been considering an exchange program in London through the architecture department. I had never told the others because, until that evening, some part of me had assumed we’d all keep moving through life together.
Katie was my foster sister because of me. Her parents split when we were children, and neither wanted custody. I had begged my father to take her in.
Emily had been my childhood sweetheart before either of us understood what the word meant. For ten years, she waited after school so we could walk home hand in hand.
Then Wyatt transferred into our high school.
He was loud, charming, handsome, and fearless in the way insecure people sometimes mistake for strength. When another student mocked me, Wyatt punched him. I admired him instantly.
Soon, there were four of us.
And somehow, over the next few years, three of them became a circle while I became the person standing just outside it.
The next evening, Katie mentioned a newly opened amusement park over dinner. “Wyatt got tickets for tomorrow.”
I was about to decline when Dad smiled. “You should go. Katie always wanted to ride a Ferris wheel when she was little.”
So I went.
The park was packed. When we finally reached the enormous observation wheel, Katie and Emily began arguing over who would sit beside Wyatt.
“You’re Scott’s sister,” Emily said. “Ride with him.”
“You picked Wyatt’s outfit today,” Katie shot back. “I should get the ride.”
People behind us started complaining.
Finally, all three of them climbed into one cabin.
Wyatt looked through the glass and called, “Lucky guy. Whole cabin to yourself.”
A woman behind me muttered to her husband, “That’s not luck. They’re showing off.”
I pretended not to hear.
When the wheel completed its rotation, I stepped onto the platform.
The three of them were gone.
Again.
This time, I didn’t wait.
I pulled out my phone, ordered a ride, and went home.
Dad was in the kitchen when I arrived.
“Back already?”
I sat across from him. “Dad, I want to study abroad.”
He smiled. “Good. Katie will love London.”
“She’s not coming.”
His smile faded.
“I want to go alone.”
Dad studied me for several seconds. “You’ve never gone that far without family.”
“I’ll have classmates there.”
“You sure?”
For once, I was.
“I am.”
That night, while Katie, Emily, and Wyatt filled our group chat with plans for a weekend beach trip they’d somehow booked without me, I completed the exchange application.
Three days later, the approval arrived.
I stared at the words on my laptop until my vision blurred.
London. One academic year.
Departure date: the same morning my three best friends were leaving for the coast.
And for the first time in years, I decided not to tell them where I was going.
