جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 10

The mechanic said the car definitely would not be fixed that day.My girlfriend, Eleanor Delaney, leaned against the car door and checked her phone for a while.Then, she handed me a ticket.“You can catch a six-hour bus at 1 p.m. You’ll get there just in time for dinner.”I glanced at it and asked, “For me?”“Yeah,” she said, pointing at the remaining SUV.“There are only four seats. Someone has to take the bus.”Edmund Turner, my best friend since we were kids, picked up his bag and said, “Let me go instead. It’s a long ride, and Everett would be bored sitting there by himself.”Another childhood friend of mine, Faye Howard, touched his shoulder. “Did you forget how sick you were yesterday?”My other childhood friend, Lily Concord, frowned and chimed in, “With your stomach, you’ll feel awful again tonight if you take that six-hour bus ride.”Eleanor had already set my suitcase by the roadside.“Everett will be fine.”Then, she tilted her chin toward Edmund and said, “He’s

Tom helped me find a ride.Three hours later, I arrived at the scenic area.The four of them were having lunch.There were four sets of meals on the table.Edmund was the first to notice me.“Everett, you finally made it!”Faye glanced down at the time.“You took forever. Any later and we wouldn’t have had time to do anything this afternoon.”I stood by the table and asked, “You didn’t order anything for me?”The four of them froze at the same time.Lily spoke first. “I figured you ate on the way.”Edmund quickly pushed his meal toward me. “Here, take mine. I barely touched it.”Eleanor reached out and stopped him.“You’re just starting to feel better. Eat your food.”She then looked at me and said, “There’s a convenience store nearby. Grab something to tide you over.“I’ll take you somewhere nice tonight.”Back when she used to say she would make it up to me later, I could never stay mad at her for long.I nodded. “Okay.”The convenience store only had two cold san

When the plane landed, I turned my phone back on.Texts came flooding in.I had over a dozen missed calls from Eleanor.Faye and Lily had each called several times, too.The last text in the group chat was from Edmund.[Everett, where are you? Everyone’s been really worried.]I stared at his text for a couple of seconds. Then, I texted Ivan to let him know I had landed safely.Just as I put my phone down, Eleanor called again. I picked it up.“Everett, so you finally decided to pick up?”Her voice sounded tight and restrained.“Where are you?”“I just landed.”“I know you just landed. Which airport?”There was a pause before I answered, “Where my job is.”The other end of the line went quiet.“What job?”“I received an offer a while back.”“When did you get an offer?”“Two weeks ago.”She was clearly thrown off.“Wait, hold on a second.“You found a job two weeks ago, and it’s out of town?”“Yeah.”“Why didn’t you tell me?”Her question almost made me laugh.

On the third night, Edmund called me.I hesitated for a few seconds, then picked up.It was very quiet on his end.“Everett?”“Yeah.”“Are you blaming me too?”“No.”He was silent for a moment.“The more you say no, the more uneasy I get.”I did not respond.After a while, he said, “The truth is, I’ve known it for a while now.”“What?”“They always take my side.”This time it was my turn to be silent.Edmund let out a low chuckle.“Back when we went out to eat, they always asked what I wanted first.“When we took photos, they always took mine first.“If I said I was tired, they’d stop so I could rest.“Sometimes I knew it wasn’t fair to you.”I asked, “Then, why didn’t you say anything?”The other end of the line was silent for a long time. Edmund said, “Honestly?“Having people always favor me feels pretty good.”That was very honest of him. He admitted it so plainly that I did not have it in me to be angry.He then added, “But I swear I never meant to take

Eleanor did not come to my office to pester me again.But I still received texts from her every day.[It’s getting colder today. Make sure you dress warmly.][You get sick easily, too. Don’t eat too much takeout.][Text me back when you get a chance.]Those were the words I had desperately waited to hear in the past.But I did not even feel like replying. One Friday night, Lily called me.“Just give me five minutes.”“Hm.”For once, she got straight to the point.“Faye and I went back through our old chat history.“It’s… pretty embarrassing.”I kept quiet.She let out a self-mocking laugh.“Every time you said you wanted to go somewhere, we always said ‘next time.’“The second Edmund brought something up, we’d basically go that same day.“On your birthday, you wanted barbecue, and we ended up going to the pizza place he wanted.”I was caught off guard when she brought that up. I had almost forgotten about that.She continued, “I never really noticed it before.”“