Seven Blank Cards

1 After we got engaged, the six of us booked one last trip together before the wedding. On our second night at the resort, my best friend, Vivian, came up with an idea over drinks: a “24-Hour Partner Swap.” The rules were simple. Everyone would draw a card from a mystery box, and whoever pulled matching symbols had to spend the next twenty-four hours acting like a real couple. And whoever drew a blank card? They were the designated odd one out—responsible for taking photos, carrying luggage, and staying out of the way. In the first round, I pulled a blank card. My fiancé, Ethan, and Vivian both pulled matching crescents. They held hands as they walked down to the shoreline to watch the sunrise, while I lagged ten paces behind them, my shoulders aching under the weight of three heavy backpacks. In the second round, I drew a blank card again. Ethan and Vivian pulled matching roses. The penalty for drawing the rose was a one-minute hug. The rest of the group gathered in a circle, whistling and cheering, while I stood on the periphery, watching the timer tick down on my phone. The third round. The fourth round… Seven rounds in a row. Every single time, I was the extra piece that didn’t fit. By the fifth round, Vivian was resting her head against Ethan’s chest, looking at me with wide, apologetic eyes. “Tess, it’s just a stupid game. You’re not actually getting jealous, are you?” Ethan reached over and lightly ruffled her hair, a gentle, familiar gesture that made my stomach knot. “Don’t bother with her, Viv. She’s always been terrible at taking a joke.” On our final night, they pulled matching wedding cards. The rule for the wedding card was absolute: the pair had to hold a mock wedding ceremony right then and there. Vivian slid into the ivory slip dress I had packed for our engagement photos. Then Ethan reached out, unclasped my hand, and gently pulled my engagement ring off my finger. Before I could process what he was doing, he slid it onto Vivian’s left ring finger. Everyone crowded around them, laughing and chanting in unison: “Kiss her! Kiss her! Kiss her!” A second later, Ethan bent down, cupped the side of her neck, and pressed his lips firmly against hers. While everyone was cheering and taking videos, I walked quietly over to the side table and opened the mystery box containing the remaining cards. I opened the compartment assigned to me. Every single card left in my tray was blank. Then I opened the compartments assigned to Ethan and Vivian. They were stuffed with identical crescents, identical roses, and identical wedding symbols. It hadn’t been bad luck. The entire game had been constructed, from the very beginning, entirely for the two of them. I stood there in the warm evening air and let out a soft, silent laugh. Then I pulled out my phone, navigated to our wedding website, and clicked the button that permanently deleted all the digital invitations I had spent three months designing. If a six-person trip couldn’t make room for me, then I didn’t need to reserve a place for them in the rest of my life. When the digital invitations disappeared from my screen, a fresh burst of laughter erupted behind me. Ethan finally released Vivian’s waist. Vivian’s cheeks were flushed pink, but her hands lingered on his shoulders, her fingers lightly curled into his linen shirt. Derek, standing near the balcony rail with a beer in his hand, hollered out, “One more time! Do it again!” Ethan let out a low laugh and nudged him with his elbow. “Fuck off, Derek.” Yet he didn’t push Vivian away. He kept his arm loosely resting behind her back, as if her weight against him was the most natural thing in the world. It wasn’t until Vivian looked up and caught my eye that she seemed to remember I was standing there. She lowered her head, looking down at her left hand, and twisted the ring back and forth. “Tess, I think the ring is stuck,” she said, her voice dripping with soft innocence. “My fingers must be swollen from the humidity. Mind if I just wear it for the night?” That engagement ring was something Ethan had given me on my twenty-fifth birthday. He had made a huge point of telling me that he had spent weeks having it custom-sized to fit my exact finger circumference. Yet sitting on Vivian’s hand, it slid comfortably down to the base of her knuckle. It fit her perfectly. I didn’t call her out. I didn’t raise my voice. I simply gave a small nod. “Sure.” Ethan shifted his gaze toward me, his brow furrowing slightly, as if surprised by how effortlessly I had conceded. “Tess, drop the tragic act,” he said, a note of sharp annoyance creeping into his tone. “Everyone took time off work to come out here and celebrate with us. Don’t ruin the mood over a party game.” I looked at him, my eyes clear. “I’m not ruining the mood.” “Then smile,” he commanded softly. Derek was already holding up his phone, waving us down. “Alright, temporary bride and groom, look at the camera!” Tyler and the rest of the crew quickly pushed into the frame, sandwiching Ethan and Vivian in the middle. The five of them stood in a neat, perfect row, as if the space had been tailor-made for them. Derek stepped back and handed his phone to me. “Tess, you always take the best shots. Take a few for us.” I took the phone. Through the lens, they were leaning into one another, laughing. Ethan stood squarely in the center. Vivian, wearing my dress and my ring, had her arm hooked tightly around his elbow. The other three clustered around them like a genuine bridal party. “Tess,” Ethan snapped, his patience wearing thin. “What are you daydreaming about?” I blinked, brought the camera up, and tapped the shutter. One shot. Two shots. A dozen shots. Not a single one of them had me in it. By the time we returned to the hotel, it was nearly two in the morning. When we first arrived at the resort, I had booked three luxury ocean-view suites. Two of the suites were for the other four friends, while Ethan and I were supposed to share the third. But when we walked up to the front desk to pick up the keys, Tyler clapped his hands together with a grin. “Hey, there’s still twelve hours left on the Partner Swap timer. According to the game, Ethan and Vivian are staying together tonight.” My fingers tightened around the key envelope. “Sharing a room is part of the game now?” Vivian answered as if explaining something obvious to a child. “It’s just a room, Tess. The suite has two queen beds. It’s not like anything is going to happen.” Ethan’s face darkened as he looked at me. “With everyone right here, what exactly are you accusing us of?” I stared at him, ignoring his tone. “Then where am I sleeping?” The group exchanged brief, uneasy glances. Finally, Derek pointed down the hallway toward the end of the corridor. “Ethan and Vivian’s room is the family suite. There’s a pull-out sofa bed in the living room. Can’t you just sleep there?” So that was the arrangement. I was expected to sleep on a pull-out couch outside the bedroom of my fiancé and my best friend, listening to them close the door, waiting for their twenty-four-hour game to run its course. A sudden wave of absurdity washed over me. It was so ridiculous it was almost funny. “I’ll just book another room downstairs,” I said, turning back toward the reception desk. Tyler immediately caught my arm. “Woah, hold on! Rooms here are eight hundred dollars a night. Why waste that kind of cash? We all grew up together—who here doesn’t know everybody?” I didn’t grow up with them. The five of them had known each other since pre-K. Their families went on summer trips together; their parents sat on the same country club boards. I was the outsider who met Ethan during our sophomore year at NYU, the girl he eventually introduced to his inner circle. In those early years, I had tried so desperately hard to fit in. When they reminisced about breaking into their prep school’s boathouse in ninth grade, I listened quietly and smiled along, even though I had no idea who they were talking about. When they dropped inside jokes that only the five of them understood, I secretly jotted the names and references down in the Notes app on my phone so I could look them up later. I memorized every single person’s birthday, their coffee orders, their allergies, and their favorite cocktails. Whenever we planned a dinner, I was always the first to arrive. Whenever we went on trips, I was the one who spent weeks comparing flights, booking villas, organizing private drivers, and building color-coded itineraries. Yet no matter how much effort I poured in, whenever they talked about the past, it always boiled down to the same dismissive phrase: “Well, you didn’t know us back then, Tess. You wouldn’t get it.” Eventually, “you wouldn’t get it” mutated into “there’s no need to tell her.” They changed dinner reservations without notifying me. They started a new group text with matching profile pictures without including me. Even this trip—this supposed “pre-wedding celebration”—was something I only found out about because I happened to glimpse a chat log on Ethan’s laptop. They had been planning it for six months behind my back. When I had asked Ethan why nobody had mentioned it to me, he had simply chuckled and ruffled my hair. “Well, we were waiting for you to step in and organize it, babe. You’re so much better at that stuff.” So I had taken out my credit card, booked the flights, secured the resort, and paid for the deposits out of my own account. And in the end, the five of them came to enjoy the vacation, while I was brought along to act as the concierge, the photographer, and the pack mule. And now, I was expected to give up my own bedroom. I loosened my grip on the key card and handed it over to Tyler. “You guys take it,” I said quietly. “I’ll stay down in the lobby lounge.” I didn’t fight. I didn’t raise my voice. I just walked away. When I woke up the next morning on the plush sofa in the corner of the lobby lounge, the sun was already high. I unlocked my phone. The main group chat was active. Someone had posted a photo of the five of them sitting at the resort’s private beach club, enjoying a spread of mimosas, eggs benedict, and fresh fruit. Five place settings were arranged neatly around the outdoor table. A direct text from Vivian popped up right below it: [Tess! We were so worried we’d wake you up, so we came down to grab breakfast first. Eat whenever you wake up!] I washed my face in the lobby restroom, smoothed down my clothes, and walked over to the resort restaurant. The hostess gave me a warm, professional smile. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but our breakfast service closed fifteen minutes ago.” Before I could reply, my phone began to vibrate in my palm. It was Ethan. I answered. “Hello?” “Where the hell are you?” His tone was sharp, laced with heavy impatience. “At the restaurant.” “Why are you still at the restaurant?” He sighed loudly into the receiver. “We’ve been sitting down at the marina waiting for you for twenty minutes.” I opened the group chat again. Not a single person had posted about heading to the marina. “Nobody told me what time we were leaving,” I said. “Didn’t Vivian text you?” “She texted to say you guys were eating breakfast without me.” There was a beat of silence on his end, followed by an irritated huff. “Tess, use some common sense. If you see everyone else has left, couldn’t you just ask? Everyone is down here waiting on you.” I never got my breakfast. By the time I rushed down to the marina, the engine of the private yacht was already idling, sending deep vibrations through the wooden dock. The five of them were standing near the stern, drinking iced teas. Not a single seat had been cleared for me. Vivian was wearing Ethan’s oversized white button-down linen shirt over her bikini, the hem falling just past her thighs. When she saw me approaching, she pulled the collar flush against her chest, looking flustered. “Tess, please don’t get the wrong idea! The zipper on my linen cover-up snagged, so Ethan was nice enough to lend me one of his shirts.” Ethan’s dress shirts had always been off-limits to me. Once, during our second year of dating, I had accidentally washed one of his custom white shirts with a dark load, leaving it faintly tinted gray. He had refused to speak to me for an entire week, claiming that he hated anyone touching his personal garments. Yet now, Vivian was wearing his shirt right in front of him. Ethan didn’t mind at all. In fact, he reached out and adjusted her collar, his voice soft. “You should throw on some linen pants too later. Don’t catch a cold from the sea breeze.” Vivian poked her tongue out at me playful. “See? He’s such a control freak.” I grabbed the boat’s railing and stepped aboard. Before I could even balance myself, Tyler shoved a heavy tote bag into my arms. “Perfect timing! Sunscreen, the DSLR camera, and all the water bottles are in here. Mind watching over them?” I held the heavy canvas bag against my chest and took a seat on the small bench right next to the loud, rumbling engine—the most uncomfortable spot on the entire vessel. The cold ocean wind blasted against my face. Because I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday afternoon, my stomach began to twist in sharp, rhythmic cramps. I had spent six months taking private swimming lessons just for this day. Ethan loved deep-sea diving, but I had always been terrified of open water. Yet I had forced myself to conquer that fear, secretly training until I finally earned my open-water diving certification, hoping to surprise him on this trip. When we reached the dive site, the boat captain stepped out and announced, “We can only send five divers down per group due to safety regulations.” Derek immediately turned his head and grinned at me. “Hey, doesn’t Tess hate the water anyway? You can just stay on the deck and guard our stuff.” I parted my lips, wanting to tell them that I wasn’t afraid anymore—that I had my certification card sitting right inside my wallet. But before I could speak, Vivian threw her arms around Ethan’s right elbow. “Ethan, I’m so nervous! You have to hold my hand the entire time we’re down there, okay?” Ethan reached over and carefully checked the pressure gauge on her oxygen tank, his expression focused and gentle. “Don’t worry. I won’t let go of you.” I swallowed the words back down my throat. One by one, the five of them tipped backward off the edge of the boat and splashed into the crystal-blue ocean. I sat alone on the empty deck, holding their designer sunglasses, their phones, and their dry clothes. After twenty minutes, the boat captain walked over, holding two cups of warm water. He handed one to me and looked down at my hands. “You’re not going down?” I reached into my canvas bag, pulled out my wallet, and thumbed the edge of the glossy, brand-new diving certificate card. I looked at it for a long time. Then I slowly slid it back into my bag and shook my head. “No,” I whispered. “Not anymore.” By lunchtime, Vivian had developed a case of seasickness, and Ethan stayed glued to her side, rubbing her back and feeding her ginger chews. My stomach was cramping so severely from the hunger and stress that I couldn’t stomach the thought of rich food. I flagged down the boat’s catering staff and asked if they could bring me a small bowl of plain broth or simple rice porridge. Tyler overheard and burst out laughing. “Tess, seriously? Now you’re feeling sick too? Are you just copying Vivian because she’s getting attention?” The rest of the group chuckled along. Ethan raised his eyes from Vivian and looked at me, his brow furrowed. “Since when do you get seasick on boats?” “I haven’t eaten anything all day,” I explained softly, holding my lower abdomen. “My stomach hurts.” Instead of asking if I was okay, Ethan turned back, smoothed a stray strand of hair behind Vivian’s ear, and handed her a glass of warm water. “Then just hang tight for a bit, Tess. Don’t cause a scene while she’s actually feeling miserable.” A few minutes later, the crew member brought out a single bowl of steaming white porridge. Just as I reached my hand out to take it, Ethan reached across the table, grabbed the bowl, and set it directly in front of Vivian. “Eat a few bites of this,” he urged her gently. “It’ll settle your stomach.” My hand froze in mid-air. I looked around the table. Not a single person thought there was anything wrong with what he had just done. Vivian stirred the porridge twice with her spoon, took two tiny bites, and then wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Ugh, it’s completely bland. I don’t want it.” She pushed the mess of stirred porridge back across the table toward me. “Tess, weren’t you complaining about your stomach? Here, you can have the rest.” The porridge was a soggy, scattered mess, and a faint smudge of her pink lipstick clung to the rim of the ceramic spoon. In the past, I probably would have smiled and accepted it. Because in the past, Vivian would always cuddle up to me and say, “We’re best friends, Tess! What’s mine is yours!” And Ethan would look at me approvingly and say, “Tess is always so sensible. She’s not high-maintenance like other girls.” But this time, I didn’t reach out. Instead, I raised my hand and motioned to the server. “Excuse me. Could you please throw this away?” Vivian’s face froze. “Tess… I barely touched it. Are you… are you disgusted by me?” “I don’t eat other people’s leftovers,” I said, my voice entirely flat. Ethan’s face darkened in an instant. “Tess! What the hell is wrong with you? She’s feeling awful and she still thought to share her food with you. Do you really have to embarrass her like this?” I looked at the five faces staring back at me across the table, and for a second, a strange sense of detachment washed over me. For seven years, this had been our dynamic. Whenever there were leftovers, they were passed to me. Whenever a table was too small, I was expected to sit at the adjacent counter. Whenever a car ran out of seats, I was the one who volunteered to take an Uber. Whenever they needed someone to document their lives, they remembered I existed. And the moment I refused to play my assigned part—even just once—I was suddenly labeled as bitter, petty, uncooperative, and incapable of fitting in. I lowered my eyes, staring at the polished teak floor of the boat deck. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. As expected, the tension around the table instantly evaporated. Derek let out a relaxed laugh and patted the table. “There we go! That’s more like it! We’re out here to have fun, guys!” I offered them a tiny, hollow smile. My apology wasn’t because I thought I was wrong. It was simply because I realized I no longer cared enough to argue with any of them. That evening, they set up a lounge area on the main terrace of the villa to drink margaritas. I went back to my room alone and pulled my luggage out from under the bed. The trip was supposed to last seven days, but we were only on day three. I had zero intention of enduring another four days of this psychological theater. I logged onto my phone and booked a seat on the earliest flight back home tomorrow morning. Once the confirmation landed in my inbox, I realized I couldn’t find my phone charger. I remembered that Vivian had borrowed it from my bag earlier that afternoon, so I walked down the hall to her room to retrieve it. The door to her suite was unlocked and slightly ajar. The room was empty—she was still downstairs on the terrace with Ethan—but her iPad was sitting open on the nightstand, its screen glowing brightly in the dim room. A new notification banner popped up at the top of the screen. It was from a group chat titled: The Original Five. I stopped in my tracks. Derek had just dropped a short video clip into the chat—it was the recording of Ethan and Vivian kissing during the mock wedding earlier that night. Below the video, a rapid stream of messages was flooding in: [Derek: Finally got them to lock lips!] [Tyler: Told you guys the Partner Swap idea would work like a charm.] [Derek: Tess’s face went dead white when Ethan kissed her. I’m amazed she didn’t blow up right then and there.] [Tyler: Please, she’s a master at faking it. She’d swallow her own teeth before making a scene.] I stood by the edge of the bed, my fingertips slowly losing all warmth. A group chat without me. I reached out and tapped the screen, scrolling upward through the chat history. The very first message in the log was dated three months ago. Vivian had dropped a screenshot of a viral “Couple Swap Game” into the chat, along with a text: [Vivian: Tess is always bragging about how smoothly she integrated into our group. How about we test how many rounds she can actually survive?] Tyler had replied almost instantly: [Tyler: Easy. Rig her box so every single card she pulls is blank.] Derek had added: [Derek: And make sure Ethan and Viv get matching cards every single time. From holding hands, to hugging, to kissing—make it wild.] My heart hammered against my ribs as I scrolled further up. Ethan hadn’t responded at first. But hours later, he had typed out a short message: [Ethan: Don’t push it too far.] I stared at those five words, a pathetic, stupid spark of hope flaring up in my chest. At least he tried to stop them. At least he cared. But then my thumb scrolled down to his very next text: [Ethan: Tess takes things way too seriously. We still need her to handle all the vendor bookings and logistics for the wedding. Don’t actually piss her off so much that she walks away.] Derek had replied with a series of laughing emojis: [Derek: Relax, man. She’s obsessed with you. She’s never leaving.] Ethan’s reply was brief: [Ethan: True.] True. Four letters, like a physical blow across my face. He hadn’t been ignorant. He had known about the game from day one. He knew every single card in my box was blank. He knew his friends were treating me like a performing monkey for their own amusement. He knew I would suffer through it, round after round, swallowing my pride. His only concern had been whether their cruelty would disrupt my ability to organize his perfect wedding. I kept scrolling, my mind numb. I saw the messages regarding the trip’s itinerary. I had posted my meticulous, weeks-long itinerary into the main group chat months ago, and no one had ever bothered to reply. But in The Original Five chat, they had ripped it to shreds: [Tyler: The diving excursion Tess booked sounds boring as hell.] [Derek: Vivian’s scared of open water anyway. Let’s switch it to a yacht party instead.] [Ethan: No need to tell her in advance. We’ll just change the plan when we get there. She won’t say no.] They had even debated the room assignments weeks before we left the city: [Tyler: Put Ethan and Vivian in the main family suite.] [Derek: What about Tess?] [Tyler: Sofa bed in the living room.] [Derek: What if she complains?] [Ethan: I’ll talk to her. She’ll agree.] Standing in the quiet bedroom, I felt a sudden, suffocating pressure in my chest, making it nearly impossible to draw breath. For seven long years, I had blamed myself for my inability to truly connect with them. I had assumed I was just too quiet, too awkward, or too culturally different. So I had tried with everything I had. I catered to their whims, laughed off their subtle disrespect, and willingly took on every tedious task they didn’t want to handle. Only now did I finally understand the truth. It was never that I wasn’t trying hard enough. They had been standing inside a locked room with their arms crossed, holding the door shut, watching me bang my fists against the glass from the outside—laughing at how desperate I looked. A new notification banner flashed across the top of the screen. [Tyler: Where’s Tess right now?] [Derek: Probably crying into a pillow in her room. Hey, should we set up another round for tomorrow?] A voice note from Vivian popped up a second later. I tapped it. Her sweet, airy voice filled the quiet room: “Maybe we should stop, guys. Tess seemed genuinely upset at lunch today.” Ethan’s text flashed immediately beneath her voice note: [Ethan: If she’s mad, let her cool off on her own. Does everyone have to baby her every single time she pouts? It’s exhausting.] Listening to his voice through the speaker, the absolute last embers of warmth inside my chest died out completely. I was about to close the tablet when a new video notification popped up in the chat. It was a clip Derek had stealthily recorded from the villa balcony just minutes ago. The terrace was empty now, except for Ethan and Vivian. Vivian was noticeably intoxicated, her head resting heavily on Ethan’s shoulder as they stared out at the dark ocean. In the video, her voice sounded small, fragile, and thick with alcohol: “Ethan… if I hadn’t turned you down back in college… would you still have ended up with Tess?” My fingers froze against the cold glass of the screen. The ocean breeze howled through the speakers. In the video, Ethan remained silent for a long, agonizing moment. Then, he spoke in a low, quiet voice: “No.” Vivian let out a wet, breathless laugh, tears slipping down her flushed cheeks. “Do you regret it now?” Ethan didn’t answer her with words. Instead, he reached out his hand, gently cupped her face, and wiped away her tears with his thumb. The tenderness in that single movement was an answer far more absolute than any words could ever be. The video cut off. The group chat remained silent for a few seconds before Derek sent a message: [Derek: I’ve been saying it for seven years: you two were always meant to be together.] Tyler chimed in: [Tyler: Tess was an intruder from the day Ethan brought her around. She took Vivian’s spot for seven years—it’s time she gave it back.] A high-pitched ringing echoed in my ears. To them, the woman who had stood beside Ethan for seven years, the woman who had supported him through his darkest moments, the woman he was supposed to marry in two months—was nothing more than an intruder who had stolen someone else’s life. I turned off the tablet, placed the charger back on the nightstand, and walked out of the room. I didn’t march down to the terrace. I didn’t scream. I didn’t demand an explanation. Because the answer was already crystal clear. I walked back to my room, opened my airline app, and moved my flight up to the red-eye departing in two hours. That gave me just enough time to pack and leave. If there was never any room for me in a group of six, then for the rest of my life, I would never reserve a single place for them again.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “538181”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel