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 2
On departure morning, Katie stood in my bedroom doorway reminding me not to eat too much cold watermelon while Dad was away on business.
“Lock the door,” she added. “And don’t wander around downtown by yourself.”
Emily called from the hallway, “Katie, if you don’t hurry, Wyatt’s leaving without us.”
Katie grabbed her overnight bag. “Text me if you need anything.”
I almost laughed.
Instead, I said, “Have fun.”
I watched from the window until Wyatt’s car disappeared around the corner. Then I rolled my suitcase out of the closet, checked my passport, and headed for the airport.
The terminal should have terrified me.
Four concourses. Two shuttle lines. Hundreds of signs. Thousands of strangers.
Instead, I opened my boarding pass, followed the arrows toward Gate B22, and arrived eight minutes later.
Clara Jensen, another student from my department, was already seated near the window with a canvas backpack at her feet.
“Scott?”
“Hey.”
She smiled. “I downloaded the London transit map. Apparently the Underground looks like somebody dumped colored spaghetti on a table.”
I laughed.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said.
Those four words felt strangely important.
Not, Let’s see if you can do it.
Not, Don’t get lost.
Not, Maybe this will finally teach you.
Just: We’ll figure it out.
My phone buzzed.
The group chat.
Wyatt had posted a selfie from a highway rest stop. Katie and Emily were arguing over whose playlist was better.
Then a voice message arrived.
I played it.
“Scott, man, you’re missing out. Though you’d probably get us lost at the first highway exit.”
I looked at the screen.
For years, I had laughed at jokes like that before anyone could notice they hurt.
This time, I muted the chat.
Then I hesitated, pressed another button, and left the group entirely.
No speech.
No accusation.
No farewell.
When boarding was called, Clara stood. “Ready?”
I slipped my phone into my pocket.
“Ready.”
Six hundred miles away, Wyatt noticed I’d left the chat.
At first, he laughed.
“He’ll be back tonight.”
Emily didn’t.
She called me.
My phone was already in airplane mode.
By evening, the mood at their beach rental had soured. Without me there to smooth arguments, Katie and Emily fought constantly. Wyatt snapped at both of them. Nobody remembered reservations. Nobody had packed the charger everyone thought somebody else had brought.
The next night, Katie called Dad.
“Is Scott home?”
Dad paused. “Why would Scott be home?”
Katie went quiet.
“He flew to London yesterday.”
“What?”
“His exchange program.”
Emily heard her shout from across the patio.
Katie’s voice climbed into panic. “He went alone? Dad, Scott gets lost. He doesn’t know London.”
Dad’s answer was calm.
“Scott completed his visa application, housing forms, banking arrangements, department interviews, and international travel paperwork by himself. He’s twenty-one years old, Katie.”
“But—”
“He’ll manage.”
“Dad, I’m his sister.”
There was a long silence.
Then my father said something Katie would remember for the rest of her life.
“You were his sister when you needed one.”
Her breath caught.
“When your mother didn’t want you, Scott begged me to bring you home. He shared everything with you. But lately, you’ve treated him like an inconvenience unless you needed him to make life easier.”
Katie began crying.
Dad’s voice remained quiet.
“You three kept abandoning a person who had never abandoned any of you. Maybe now you’ll understand what that feels like.”
The call ended.
Katie told Emily.
Emily packed immediately.
Wyatt tried to stop her.
“You’re ruining the whole trip over him?”
Emily looked at him as if seeing him clearly for the first time.
“He didn’t ruin this.”
“He’s being dramatic.”
“No,” she said. “We were cruel.”
“Oh, please.”
“We left him in subway stations.”
“To help him.”
“We took his phone.”
“He needed confidence.”
“We laughed when he was scared.”
Wyatt’s jaw tightened. “You agreed with all of it.”
Emily’s face crumpled.
“I know.”
That was the difference.
For the first time, she wasn’t defending herself.
She picked up her suitcase.
Wyatt grabbed her wrist. “So you’re just leaving?”
“Let go.”
“Over Scott?”
Emily looked at his hand until he released her.
“Maybe that’s the problem,” she said. “You still think this is about competing with him.”
She drove home with Katie the next morning.
Three weeks later, I was sitting in a small coffee shop near Russell Square while rain turned the pavement silver.
London was difficult.
Its streets twisted without warning. Roads changed names. Underground exits opened onto completely different neighborhoods.
On my third day, I took the wrong exit and walked forty minutes toward Covent Garden.
The old panic came immediately.
You’re lost.
You’re helpless.
Wyatt would be laughing.
I stopped beneath an awning and looked around.
Nobody cared.
Nobody was filming me.
Nobody was waiting to see whether I’d fail.
I took out my phone, opened a transit app, found my location, and caught a bus back.
That was all.
Getting lost wasn’t a character flaw.
It wasn’t stupidity.
It was a solvable inconvenience.
That afternoon in the coffee shop, an email appeared in my university inbox.
From Emily.
Please, Scott. Just five minutes.
I opened it.
She apologized for everything.
The subway stations. The shopping mall. The restaurant. The Ferris wheel. Every time she’d chosen Wyatt’s approval over my dignity.
She wrote that she and Katie had ended the beach trip early. She said she’d blocked Wyatt.
Then she wrote:
I’ll come to London. Just tell me where you are.
For several minutes, I remembered the little girl who had once waited for me after school every afternoon. The girl who split her cherry Popsicle with me when I failed a spelling test. The girl who promised I’d always find home if she was beside me.
Those memories were real.
But so were the newer ones.
I closed the email without replying.
Then I opened my architecture notes and went back to work.
