Chapter 2 No Room for Me

It was almost 11 p.m. when I got off the subway and followed the directions into a narrow alley.

Halfway through, two figures suddenly appeared. Two burly men lurked a few feet behind me, following at an unhurried pace.

I panicked. I did not dare call the police outright, so I shared my location in the group chat and frantically tagged the two of them.

"I'm a little over 300 feet from the hotel. I think I'm being followed. Call the police for me."

"These two guys are carrying weapons. Alice, call me. I'll put you on speaker so they'll know you two are waiting for me up ahead."

"Where are you?"

The farther I went, the darker the alley became. The atmosphere grew increasingly oppressive.

Troy finally messaged me. My palms were slick with sweat as I opened it.

"Hunter, stop messaging us. Alice and I are playing a game, and the connection keeps lagging."

I stared at the message for a full minute before laughing out loud.

Hearing me laugh, the two men quickened their pace and came up behind me.

"Someone was killed on this stretch of road just two days ago," one of them said ominously. "We're out patrolling. You shouldn't be wandering around here. Head on out."

I nodded stiffly and kept saying, "Okay."

Cold sweat prickled across my back. I was still shaken from the fear, but a bitter feeling was rising in me, too.

When I got back to the hotel, Alice was sitting outside. The moment she saw me, she let out a long sigh of relief. "Hunter, it took you two hours just to get a ride? Seriously?"

I walked past her without a word. Her phone was still on the game screen.

"Did you see my messages?"

After a long pause, she looked up blankly. "What messages?"

Troy came out of the hotel and bumped my shoulder. "There you are. Where'd you run off to? We thought you weren't coming back."

He dropped into the wicker chair beside Alice and started going over where they had lost points in the last round.

I turned and went upstairs. The elevator doors closed, shutting the two of them out.

I looked up at the ceiling, my expression numb with disappointment. My eyes were calm. Whatever love had once been there was gone.

At that moment, I finally made up my mind.

I sent my mother a voice message. "Mom, I want to go to Brassport University. I don't want to go to Briarwood University anymore."

She could hear how unhappy I was and asked if Alice and I had gotten into a fight.

I did not give her a straight answer.

…

When I woke up the next morning, Troy's bed was still perfectly made. He had not come back to the room last night.

The group chat was silent.

Alice had sent me a private message in the middle of the night.

"Hunter, I just saw what happened in the group chat. You're a grown man. Who would've thought you'd still go wandering into dangerous places?"

She also forwarded me an article about how to stay safe when going out late at night.

There was no apology. No sign that she was worried about me.

Just cold blame.

I deleted the article and went to find her so we could clear things up.

I wanted to tell her that the trip had been painfully boring and that I was not going to continue it.

But after I knocked on her door for a long time, there was no answer. She was not in her room.

I called Troy, but it was Alice who answered it. "You're up? Hotel breakfast ends at 10. Don't forget to go eat."

I hummed in response and asked where they were.

There was a brief silence on the other end before Troy took the phone.

"Hunter, the hotel gave us a couples' photo package, and it expires today. You usually sleep in and can't get up, so Alice said we wouldn't bother you. We came out to take the pictures ourselves. Anyway, the photographer's waiting. Stay at the hotel, okay?"

In the background, the photographer teased them.

"Come on, guys, loosen up. You're a couple. What are you shy about? Yeah, kiss her on the cheek. Good. Let's get another one."

My fingers trembled as I hung up.

To take my mind off things, I made a last-minute reservation at a museum.

Part of me wanted to show them that I could be the one to leave them behind, too. I could have just as much fun on my own.

But the truth was, they did not care.

When Alice found out I was going to the museum, all she said was, "Okay. Troy and I are having lunch with an old classmate. Have fun on your own. We'll meet you at the food street tonight."

I glanced at the time.

It was noon. They had just finished the photo shoot.

In other words, they had never planned to invite me to lunch with their old classmate in the first place.

That evening, we met at the food street.

Alice's expression tightened the moment she saw me. She frowned and handed me an iced tea. "Look who finally decided to show up."

Troy sipped his drink, his eyes lingering on Alice's lemonade.

Alice sighed and handed her drink to him. He took half a sip, said it was too sour, and handed it back.

The gesture was so natural that it was as if they had done it countless times when I was not around.

I slowed my pace, letting the distance between us grow.

I walked with my head down for a while before someone suddenly slammed into me.

An entire cup of iced tea splashed across my clothes, and the other person's phone went flying.

The screen shattered on impact.

The person who hit me was a middle-aged woman. Her long fingernails dug into my arm, scraping away a layer of skin around my wrist.

The man with her punched me in the lower back. "Are you blind? This is a brand-new phone. Pay up!"

Through the pain, I turned around. For a split second, I met Alice's eyes across the crowd.