The Worst Friend Then You Can All Lose My Number novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Ten Thousand Comments

Joss posts the awards night as a joke, takes it down and apologizes, and Carys posts her receipts. The Tokyo hotel's reply says the booking was moved to Joss's name before the vote.

By Monday morning, four hundred thousand strangers had watched me get voted worst friend.

Caleb's message was still the first thing on my screen, and I had not answered it.

If Joss typed my zero on Friday, the vote had never been a vote.

I was still staring at that when the links started coming in.

Joss had posted the video at two in the morning.

The caption said, WORST FRIEND AWARDS, and a trophy emoji, and she's cancelling Tokyo, pray for us.

It was the whole scene. The TV with my zero on it. Jared laughing on the couch. My own face, white, holding my phone out to read a hotel cancellation.

I stood at my kitchen counter and scrolled the comments.

Some people were laughing.

Some people were not.

Imagine paying for everyone's trip and still being the villain, one said.

Another said, the boyfriend's face when she leaves the chat, I'm screaming.

Joss had left her own comment at the top.

OMG I am so sorry, this was supposed to be private, a friend posted from my account!! Taking it down now. Carys, call me!!

The video was gone within an hour.

Screen recordings of it were not.

Megan texted me four links before seven o'clock and one line. Don't call her back.

I didn't.

I made coffee and I opened my spreadsheet.

Seven trips. Seven columns. Every card charge, with a date.

Lisbon, Santa Fe, the cabin, Mexico City, Banff, Nashville, and a long weekend in Savannah that nobody remembered but me.

The total sat at the bottom of the page in bold.

$31,480.

I did not think about it for long.

I took out the names and the card numbers and posted the sheet with five plain sentences.

I planned seven trips for my boyfriend and two friends. I paid for all of them. Saturday night they rated me zero out of ten and called me the worst friend in the group. Tokyo is cancelled. I am not the worst friend. I am the only one who paid.

Then I put my phone face down and went to work.

I was in the elevator when it started to buzz against my hip, and it did not stop.

By the time I sat down at my desk it had passed ten thousand comments.

A woman with a dog for an avatar wrote, I booked a family reunion for forty people and my sister gave me a two. I would pay good money to see this girl's itinerary.

A man wrote, Venmo her. Everybody Venmo her.

Somebody posted my sheet on a forum, and somebody on that forum added up the numbers and got my total right to the dollar.

Jared called at nine.

I let it ring.

He texted instead. Take it down. My boss saw it.

I wrote back. Pay me.

He wrote, You're doing this to humiliate me.

I wrote, You did that on your own, on camera.

Three dots appeared. They went away. They came back.

Then Joss wrote me, in a long paragraph with five hearts.

Carys, I'm sick about it. I would never. Jared has been under so much pressure, he's not himself. Can we talk? I'll bring bagels.

I read it twice.

I wanted to believe her.

It was strange how much I wanted to. She had been in my life since our second week of college, in the dorm room across the hall, and she had been at every birthday since.

I typed, Not today.

She wrote back instantly. Of course. Whatever you need. I love you.

At noon, my boss stopped at my desk and held up her phone.

"Is that you?"

I nodded.

"Is it true, about the trips?"

"Every dollar."

She watched me for a moment.

"We should have you run our client offsites," she said. "You'd be better at it than the people we pay."

I laughed, and it was the first time in two days.

At one fifteen I opened my email to forward the Tokyo cancellations to my accountant.

There was a new message from the Shinjuku hotel.

It was from a guest relations manager, with a long signature and an apology for the inconvenience.

I read the first line.

Dear Ms. Farnsworth, we have processed the cancellation of two of your three rooms.

I read the second.

The third room was transferred on the fourteenth to another booking holder at her request, and can only be changed by her.

My mouth went dry.

The fourteenth was five days before the awards night.

I scrolled down to the booking details.

Room three. One king bed. Two guests. Six nights.

Transferred to: Merrin, J.

Payment on file: my card.

I had been paying for it the entire time.

I put my hand on my desk to stop it from shaking.

Joss had asked the hotel to turn my room into a king bed for two guests, and she had done it five days before she asked everyone to vote me out of the trip.

Joss said you'd do this, Jared had texted me.

She had planned it from the start.

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