Home / Next Time, Don't Bother Showing Up / Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

All Chapters of Next Time, Don't Bother Showing Up: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

"Erin Bennett, are you really taking something this small all the way to a breakup?"Noah blocked the exit to the training field and pressed a hand down on my tripod. "Claire threw up three times last night, and everyone else in her cabin was at the evening program. She called me. Was I supposed to just ignore her?"I slowly pried his fingers off. "Yes. The camp has a nurse on duty, program instructors, cabin coordinators, and an emergency line. Even if she really needed company, it shouldn't have been a guy with a girlfriend sitting with her all night."Noah's face darkened. "When did you get so mean? It's her first time away from home for a residential program. I'm the only person here she trusts. You have your roommate, your film crew, and plenty of people willing to help. You can manage without me once."Once.I nearly laughed.On endurance-test day, Claire said her new hiking boots had rubbed her heel raw, and he carried her to the clinic. On cabin-inspection day, she said she did

Chapter 2

Noah and I met in our high school photography club.Our first project together was covering the school track meet. He was in front of the camera; I was behind it. At the four-hundred-meter finish line, he jogged over and hung his medal around my neck, still catching his breath. "So? How'd I do, Bennett?"I raised my camera and captured his face lit by the sun. The video unexpectedly went viral, racking up hundreds of thousands of views. After that, we filmed cafeteria reviews, late-night study vlogs, and a graduation countdown series. The account grew from a few hundred followers to more than a hundred thousand, and we went from partners to a couple.Senior year, I'd already been accepted to North Ridge Film Academy's Documentary Film program with a generous scholarship. My teachers all urged me to go, saying the equipment, mentors, and hands-on opportunities there were the best fit for me.But Noah held me tight and wouldn't let go. "Four years two states apart is too long. Erin, let'

Chapter 3

On day seven, the program organized a nighttime hike in the mountains.It was the single most important shoot of the entire series. I'd cleared it with the group instructor in advance and gotten permission to record alongside the group with an action camera. Noah was supposed to wear a wireless mic and capture our conversation along the trail.Before we set out, he clipped the receiver onto my camera and tapped the brim of my cap with a grin. "This time I'm turning my phone off. Nobody's pulling me away."I actually believed him.Halfway through the hike, Claire suddenly crouched beside the trail, clutching her chest and gasping for air. When Noah broke from the group, he forgot the transmitter was still clipped to his jacket. I ran after him to remind him, but he'd already hoisted Claire onto his back and shouted at me, frantic, "At a time like this, all you care about is the audio?"He ran off with the mic still on him. All I got on the recording was the rustle of fabric, pounding fo

Chapter 4

On the morning of day twelve, I scrapped the two-person setup and placed the camera at the far edge of the training field.Noah arrived late. He carried coffee and toasted bagels, his voice deliberately gentle. "Last night was my fault. I shouldn't have hung up on you. Claire said she had a fever in the middle of the night, so I took her to the clinic. Once orientation is over, I'll reshoot every shot I owe you. Deal?"I finished checking the memory card and hit record. "You don't have to report to me anymore. Where you go or who you're with is no longer something you need to explain to me."He stepped in front of the lens. "Can you stop saying things you don't mean? Let's talk this through."I looked up at him. "Noah, let's break up."A few seconds passed. He tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You're trying to use a breakup to force me to cut Claire off again? I'm not doing that. You know I can't stand people trying to control who I'm friends with."I looked at this person I'd loved

Chapter 5

That evening, I sat alone on the bleachers filming establishing shots. The lens swept across the white lines of the track, the camp flags rippling in the wind, the rows of water bottles, and the long shadows stretched across the grass.Lucas Grant walked over while I was swapping batteries. He was a junior and president of the film club, in charge of the campus media crew covering orientation."Your two-person plan's off?" he asked.I looked up. "How did you know?""You've listed a two-person setup on the request form eleven days straight. Every day there's one camera and one person on site. Today you reframed the shot around one person at center.""New format. From now on, it's a one-person setup."Lucas was quiet for a moment, then sat beside me. "Mind if I look at some of your footage? Campus media needs a closing film for orientation. I saw your high school track-meet coverage. You've got a real eye."I pulled up a few clips. After he watched the night-hike footage, he took off his

Chapter 6

Claire soon published a long post.She said she'd been frail since childhood, that being away from home had triggered severe anxiety, and that she never imagined reaching out to a childhood friend would be twisted into something malicious. She said the filmmaker controlled the edit and was an expert at using selective footage to manipulate emotions. At the end, she attached multiple clinic photos and chat screenshots, tearfully claiming she was the victim of cyberbullying on campus.In the orientation group chat, some people took her side."She really did report sick. Erin's film doesn't name names, but the implication is pretty obvious.""Relationship issues should be handled privately. Putting it online for clicks isn't exactly classy.""Fifty thousand new followers overnight means ad revenue. Who's to say the whole thing wasn't scripted?"Noah didn't post anything publicly, but he texted me: "Take the film down for now. Once it blows over, I'll help you reshoot something new."Same

Chapter 7

Noah truly started to panic the day before the closing ceremony.I removed myself from the backend of the couple account we'd run together and moved every video I'd planned, shot, and edited since high school to my personal page. I changed my page's name from "Noah & Erin's Journal" to "Erin Bennett Films."He sent dozens of messages."Why didn't you ask me before changing the name?""Those old videos have me in them too. What gives you the right to move everything?""Erin, are you really cutting me out completely?"I replied once: "Videos we both appeared in are set to private. The original files, scripts, and copyright registrations for everything else are under my name."He didn't write back.That evening, Megan told me Noah had spent the entire night in his cabin going through our old videos. For the first time, he'd noticed that most of the popular ones credited only me for everything from concept through post-production. His idea of "running the account together" had really meant

Chapter 8

At the closing ceremony, the university screened an excerpt from my film.When the big screen showed the sunrise on day twelve, the entire venue erupted in applause. The film club's faculty advisor announced on the spot that I would represent the university at the National Student Short Film Competition.Noah sat in the front row, eyes fixed on the screen the entire time. I didn't look at him.Next, the program coordinator read the completion list. The fourteen-day outdoor orientation was a required one-credit course for incoming students. Anyone who missed more than three sessions without valid medical documentation would receive no credit and have to repeat the program the following year.Claire's name appeared on the "Incomplete" list, with a note: eleven absences, eight without valid documentation.A low murmur rippled through the crowd. Claire shot to her feet. "This isn't fair! I was really sick every single time. Noah can vouch for me."Every pair of eyes landed on Noah. His fac

Chapter 9

A month later, Twelve Days in My Own Frame won the Gold Award in the Campus Division at the National Student Short Film Competition. My exchange application to North Ridge Film Academy was approved too.The day the notification came, I called my father. He said "That's wonderful" three times, then quietly sniffled on the other end of the line."Did you choose this one yourself?""Yes.""Don't ever give up the path that's right for you for anyone else.""I won't."Lucas invited me to join a campus media documentary project about first-year students adjusting to college. After our first planning session, I walked out of the academic building and saw Noah again.He was holding a cardboard box. Inside were old hard drives from our high school photography club, hand-drawn storyboard notebooks, and the Polaroid camera I'd once given him."These are yours," he said."I already copied the shared footage from the drives. You don't need to return anything that belongs to you.""I'm not here to r

Chapter 10

The day before I left for North Ridge, I went back to campus to shoot the last batch of footage for the new project.The winter training field was nearly empty. The grass that had bleached white under the summer sun was deep green again. I set up the camera beside the bleachers where it had all begun. Lucas held the reflector and asked, "Saving a spot for anyone?"I knew he was joking. I finished adjusting the frame and shook my head with a smile. "I'm never saving a spot for anyone again."Halfway through the shoot, a small crowd gathered at the bulletin board. As I passed, I saw a notice confirming Claire's transfer to another campus. I heard she'd made new friends and stopped faking illnesses. Maybe she really had changed. Maybe no one enabled her anymore. I had no interest in finding out.Noah stayed at Bay State University. His name still appeared among my Story viewers now and then, but he never sent another message.The last time we saw each other was at the university's media e

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