Five of Us Went to the Theme Park, They Only… novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Four Passes
Four Express Passes for five people, and all four friends vote to leave her behind; after eleven hours holding their phones she reads the chat on a lock screen and steps out, and her card lights up with their dinner.
On our first morning in Orlando, my boyfriend Evan got four Express Passes for the park.
There were five of us.
He put it in our group chat before I had finished my coffee.
"Four passes, five people. Somebody skips the big rides."
I had booked the flights, the rooms and the park tickets, as I always did.
Four answers came in one after another, all within a minute.
My older brother wrote first. "Wendy won't mind. Her best friend's been dreaming about this park for months."
The boy who grew up next door to me wrote second. "Don't make it a thing, Wen. It's one day."
Evan wrote third, and he said it to me in front of everyone. "You're so easy about this stuff, babe. It's why I love you."
Then my best friend sent a crying-face sticker covered in hearts.
"Love you, bestie!!" Daphne added.
Not one of them asked if I wanted to give up my pass.
I typed "Fine," because I always did.
They screamed through the roller coaster and came off the log flume soaked and laughing.
I waited outside every gate with four phones in my hands.
Daphne's sunscreen, Colin's water bottle and Rohan's charger pulled my bag down on one shoulder.
Each time they came out, Evan kissed my forehead and said, "You're the best, I'll make it up to you."
At dusk the parade came down the street, and Daphne dragged the other three into the front row.
"Wendy, get a good one of the four of us!" she called back.
I stood behind a wall of strangers and held my phone over my head.
On the screen, four happy faces pressed together.
Then the fireworks started, and they shouted each other's names and leaned in tighter.
Mine never came.
That was when I understood it.
I hadn't lost out on a ticket, and it wasn't bad luck.
In their heads, there had only ever been four of them.
The last sparks faded, and the crowd turned toward the exits.
Evan's phone lit up in the stack of phones I was holding.
I hadn't touched it, but the preview was right there on the lock screen.
The chat was called "The Four."
Daphne had written: "Is she still holding all our stuff lol."
Under it, Evan had written: "She'll pay for dinner too. She always does."
Above that, the chat said it had been created eight months ago.
Eight months, and I was the only one in the park who didn't know.
They came back through the crowd, still flushed from the last ride.
Daphne took my phone and flipped through the pictures.
"I knew you'd get the perfect shots," she said.
She stopped on her favorite and zoomed in.
Fireworks burst over their heads.
Evan had his arms spread wide, and Daphne leaned into his shoulder.
Colin and Rohan flashed peace signs on either side of them.
"This one goes on Instagram," Daphne said.
Her thumbs flew across the caption.
"The perfect foursome. None of us can be missing."
She posted it. Then she looked up at me and smiled.
"Oh, Wendy, I wrote the number wrong. You don't mind, right?"
She said sorry and never edited it.
My brother Colin ruffled my hair, slipping into the peacemaker he'd been since we were kids.
"Come on, don't sulk. We'll find you a ride tomorrow."
Rohan, the boy from next door, studied his shoes.
Evan put his arm around my shoulders.
"Don't be dramatic, babe. Let's just get dinner. You've got it, right?"
I looked at the four of them.
My brother, my oldest friend, my best friend and the man who'd lived in my condo for three years.
Every one of them was waiting for me to say yes.
I took Evan's phone from the stack and put it in his hand with the screen still lit.
He read his own message.
His smile went flat.
I handed Daphne her phone, Colin his water bottle and Rohan his charger.
I set Daphne's sunscreen on top of the pile in Colin's arms.
"I do mind," I said.
Nobody said anything.
Then Colin laughed, and the others laughed with him.
"Wendy, come on," Evan said. "Not here."
So I stepped out.
I turned my back and walked into the crowd heading for the gates.
Evan called my name once, then twice.
He didn't follow me.
At the exit, my phone buzzed in my empty hand.
It was an alert from my bank.
A charge of $3,812.40 had just gone through at the resort steakhouse, for a party of four.
It was on the card I had added Evan to last spring so he could "handle things."
Evan hadn't come after me because he was busy ordering.
They were sitting down to a steak dinner on my money, minutes after I walked away.
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