Chapter 1

I come back from a phone call, and my boyfriend is speaking French to my best friend again.

I step up beside him. Try to catch a word. Before I can open my mouth, Landon raises a hand without turning around.

"Don't interrupt. Sienna and I are discussing something important."

"If you need something, just wait."

The fight drains out of me.

Sienna is trilingual—French, English, German. She loves pulling people into "language practice" sessions.

Landon is worse. English, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Italian—he's fluent in all of them.

When the two of them get going, they never run out of things to say.

They just never say it in the one language I understand.

I used to fight it. I used to say, "Hey, can you guys switch to English? I'm right here."

Two days in, nothing changed.

Now I watch them walk ahead, so wrapped up in each other they don't even notice I've stopped moving.

Something in me just—goes quiet.

I don't follow them. Instead, I find an outdoor café outside the Disneyland park and sit down by myself.

I don't like coffee. Never have. The bitterness reminds me of everything I tried to leave behind—cold mornings, empty cupboards, a childhood where nothing came easy.

But Landon and Sienna love it. They grew up rich—boarding schools, private jets, summers in Europe. The kind of people who debate single-origin beans like it matters.

So when I'm with them, I sit and listen. I listen to them talk about the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the trip they took when they were eight. The Northern Lights in Iceland when they were ten. The family vacation in Santorini just last month.

I dump sugar and cream into my cup until the coffee barely tastes like coffee anymore.

Good thing they're not here. They'd laugh at me again. So childish. So unsophisticated. So basic.

My phone buzzes. Landon.

[Where are you?]

Before I can reply, a second text pops up.

[Sienna and I have been to Disneyland literally hundreds of times. We're way past over it.]

[I gave up my day off to bring you here. Can you not wander off? I'm already annoyed and now I have to come find you.]

I stare at the screen for a long time.

He's forgotten. This isn't even our first time here together.

Last time, he said the exact same thing—I've been a million times, I'm only here for you.

And how did that turn out?

I'd waited in line for over an hour to get a Lotso plush. Nothing fancy—just a classic Lotso. I was so excited I almost cried.

But Sienna spotted a limited-edition Duffy bear, and Landon swapped mine out without even asking.

"Sienna's picky. She never likes anything—this is the first time she's actually wanted something." He didn't even look at me. "We'll come back for yours next time."

The only reason they agreed to come again was because of that "next time" he promised.

I should be used to it by now.

Sienna is his childhood best friend. She's also my college roommate. My so-called closest girl friend.

She's the one who set us up.

So—birthdays, Valentine's Day, anniversaries, even a couples' movie night—there's always a seat saved for her.

I'm not supposed to mind. Not even a little. Because if I do, it means I'm betraying our "golden trio."

I take a breath. Type back: Go ahead without me. Something came up. Heading home.

I leave the coffee on the table. Two sips. That's all I managed.

No matter how much sugar and cream I add, it never quite tastes right.