Give Me Back Whats Mine ➳ David Dobrik

Chapter Twenty Seven ➳ They Were Injury Captured On Film

DAVID

I couldn't believe the weight of the opened envelope in my hands.

Not even thirty seconds before had it felt like a normal letter. But now that I knew its contents, it took everything in me not to drop the pearly white invitation on the floor.

Natalie walked past me into the kitchen, sending me a small smile along the way.

I leapt over the back of the couch to join her.

'Did you get yours?' I asked, waving the invite at her.

She nodded, scanning the freezer for ice cream, a spoon already dangling from her mouth.

'So?'

She plucked a container from the very bottom of the fridge and placed it on the counter.

'So, what?' She asked back before eating a massive spoonful of what looked like pistachio ice cream.

'Ew.' I said, scrunching up my nose. 'Green isn't even a real flavour.'

Natalie just rolled her eyes, waiting for me to continue. 'So, what?' She asked again.

'So ... what's the plan?' I began. 'Are you going to take Fletcher as your plus one? Are you guys heading early? Are you driving or flying?'

She only let one beat of silence pass between us.

'Isn't it absolutely mad that Noah and Hadley are getting married?'

I spent most of my days trying to figure out Natalie. But I could tell instantly when she was pivoting and avoiding.

She wasn't wrong though. Noah and Hadley had been friends of ours in middle school and into high school. And now they were getting married. Were we really entering that time in our lives already?

We were in our mid-twenties, so I suppose the notion of marriage wasn't too farfetched. But to already know undoubtedly that you'd found the one person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with? It just seemed kind of crazy to me.

I suppose the pair were a massive jump in front of us, attached at the hip for as long as I'd known both of them. Sure and certain of each other at the tender age of thirteen. Living together in domesticated bliss mere weeks after graduation. And now, marriage.

And I think the strangeness of it all, the weight I'd felt in the invitation as soon as I'd read it, was because it all felt very familiar. The story of Noah and Hadley echoed in some back corner of my brain.

Should that be me and Nat?

My mind went instantly blank, almost as if it were a book someone was snapping shut.

'Absolutely mad.' I answered back.

'But to answer your earlier question ...' Natalie paused, as if to pick her next words carefully. 'Fletcher won't be attending the wedding with me. His graduation gift from his Grandparents was a family vacation to Spain, so he's gone for the next few weeks.'

'Okay ...'

The whole thing sounded off. Why was I only hearing about this now? Why wasn't she going with them?

As a couple, they had been the picture of strength over the last couple of weeks, especially after what we were now affectionately calling photogate. Not that I'd actually seen much of either of them. They were always at his place, which I was sure was for some much needed separation from the whole thing.

The larger part of me had been overwhelmingly relieved that the two of them had made it through that entire debacle. Not for him, but for Natalie. Even though I despised their relationship, I would never want to be a source of hurt for her. And that was what those photos were. They were injury captured on film.