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All Chapters of The Group Chat Without Me: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

31 Chapters

Chapter 11

Claude finally looked at Chloe.“What are you trying to say?”“I just think you’re making this bigger than it is. She knows you’re looking for her. She knows you’re upset. If she really—”“Really what?”“If she really cared about eighteen years of friendship, she wouldn’t have left without a word.”The room went quiet.Hunter slowly closed his laptop.“She left a letter.”“I know.” Chloe hurried on. “But it was so cold, and you’re still—”“Cold?”Jack reached into his pocket and took out the medal.A small dent marked its edge. After he’d tossed it into the basket, a toolbox had been set on top of it.He had searched all night before finding it.“When she brought this back, I told her to help move your cabinet.”Chloe stiffened.“I didn’t ask her—”“I know.”Jack looked down.“I did.”He seemed to have finally found the right words for that afternoon.“She came to say goodbye. I put her to work.”Hunter leaned back and covered his eyes.Ethan looked toward the studio.The wedding dress

Chapter 12

On my third day in Switzerland, heavy rain fell in Boston.That morning, the school’s graduation page went live.There were football photos, dance videos, and interviews with science fair winners.In mine, I wore a white shirt and stood beside my display.My hair was loosely tied back. I still held an uncapped marker.The teacher interviewing me asked what I was most excited about that summer.On the screen, I smiled.“I received a training invitation from a research group in Switzerland.”“Will you go?”“I hope so.”“Why this field?”I turned toward the display.“I want to build systems that work reliably in low temperatures and with unstable power. Remote field stations shouldn’t depend on good weather and perfectly timed supply deliveries to keep running.”The interview lasted two minutes.Claude watched it seven times.On the last replay, he noticed himself at the edge of the frame.Sitting in the bleachers.Looking down at his phone.He had been there.Only a few dozen steps away.

Chapter 13

When Claude had come out that day, his first question had been, “Why didn’t you find a chair?”I’d told him I could see him sooner from there.Back then, he had thought I would always be outside the door.***After the investigation, the school required the students involved to delete the recordings, stop circulating them, formally apologize, and cover the camera repairs.Graduation groups that had received the video also received a correction from the school.It wasn’t dismissed as a disagreement between girls.Taking someone’s property had happened.Filming and sharing the humiliation had happened.So had the cheering.Chloe was asked where the claims that I was jealous and wouldn’t let her make friends had come from.She said she had only been venting.The teacher asked, “Did you explain that Vivian hadn’t done the things you were implying?”She didn’t answer immediately.Later, in her written statement, she admitted she had allowed people to misunderstand.She hadn’t asked anyone t

Chapter 14

During the first week, I joined a team testing power-control systems in low temperatures.My supervisor was Elena.She had gray streaks in her hair and always kept pens in her jacket pocket.After reading my high school project, she didn’t call me a genius.She asked six questions.I couldn’t answer the third.By the fifth, I realized one of my model’s assumptions didn’t hold up.By the sixth, my palms were sweating.“Am I not right for this?” I asked.She looked up.“Why?”“Because I don’t know.”“You’re eighteen.”She slid the pages back.“If you already knew all the answers, you wouldn’t need training.”I stared at the circles she had drawn around the problems.“Tomorrow,” she said, “make a list of what you don’t know. We’ll start there.”Not with what I was good at.Not with how much trouble I could save someone else.With what I didn’t know.That night, I filled the first page of a notebook with questions.By the end, my wrist ached.I kept the notebook open.***In the third week

Chapter 15

By eleven that night, every timestamp had been corrected.Leo stretched.“Remember the mistake.”I nodded.“Then go to bed.”“That’s it?”“Were you hoping to write a ten-page apology?”I laughed.Then, while I was still laughing, my eyes began to sting.He didn’t ask.He only pushed the tissue box closer.***Summer passed quickly in Boston.Before Harvard’s freshman events began, Jack went back to Chloe’s apartment for the tools he had left behind.The medal was in a velvet pouch now.He had taken it to a restorer, hoping to smooth out the dent.The man asked whether he minded losing a little of the original surface.Jack thought for a long time.Then said to leave it.At least the dent would remind him that things didn’t damage themselves.***Ethan reached the last page of the wedding dress sketchbook.The corners of my note had begun to curl.I want to dance.He flattened it and slipped it into a protective sleeve.On his studio computer was an old folder I had organized.He though

Chapter 16

In all the places they hadn’t bothered to look, I had been living a serious life of my own.Claude closed his laptop.He remembered a study session senior year.I had pushed an essay toward him and asked whether he had time to look.He was explaining club applications to Chloe.“Later.”I waited until the library closed.Then put my computer away.When he eventually asked whether I’d finished, I said yes.“See? You’ve always been able to do things yourself.”He had said that so often.Always believing it was confidence in me.Only now did he realize how often I had simply wanted him to look.***In September, I made another decision.As summer training neared its end, Elena asked about my plans.I sat in her office with my original college arrangements.Stanford was still an excellent choice.Their lies didn’t mean I had to reject a school I had genuinely wanted.But I had discovered that I wanted to keep pursuing this work here.Not hide in the mountains.Study here. Complete the cour

Chapter 17

No one thought admitting I didn’t understand meant I didn’t belong.We stayed until the study room closed.Outside, snow filled the pools of light beneath the streetlamps.Leo ran ahead and planted a foot in it.“First snowfall, freshman. Mandatory photo.”“Whose rule?”“Mine. Just made it.”Nora swatted him with her scarf.Laughing, he stepped back and raised his phone.I stood under the light, holding my computer, hair blowing across my face.The picture wasn’t very good.One eye was half closed.For a long time afterward, it was my favorite.No one beside me was deciding what I should look like.***During Thanksgiving week, I became desperately homesick.Not for a boy.Not for the bracelet I had thrown away.For my mother putting too much pepper in soup. My father watching the news while stealing bread before dinner.The sun-faded patch on my bedroom carpet.I had thought staying busy would keep me from being sad.Then my mother sent a photo of the table.I cried.She hadn’t photog

Chapter 18

I spent the afternoon unable to settle.It was an ordinary notebook.I had digital copies. She could return it anytime.But one thought kept repeating.She doesn’t care.If I didn’t remind her, she would keep forgetting.If I reminded her too often, she would think I was difficult.That evening, she knocked and handed it back.“Sorry. I forgot to message you.”“It’s fine.”She looked at me.“Actually fine? Or you don’t want to say it isn’t?”I didn’t know how to answer.After a moment, she turned over the little campus services card beside my door.“If you’re exhausted lately, maybe try this. Not because there’s something wrong with you. You don’t have to work through everything alone.”At our first appointment, the counselor didn’t ask which of the four boys I had loved most.She asked, “What do you usually do when someone disappoints you?”“Wonder whether I’m asking too much.”“And then?”“Figure out what would make things better.”“Who makes them better?”I was quiet.“Me.”She nodd

Chapter 19

Jack spent hours walking unfamiliar streets.He didn’t find me.That night, a friend asked whether he wanted to contact his old friend.On his phone was a draft.[I’m in Switzerland.]Nothing else.What could he add?Would it be cruel not to see me?I came all this way. Surely you can come out.It’s only dinner.As those thoughts passed through his mind, he felt ashamed.It was the same old method.Present his effort.Wait for me to become responsible for it.He deleted the draft.His friend touched his shoulder.“Come on.”Jack put his phone away.The train left the next day.I learned about the trip much later.By then, I no longer needed to know.***Losing me didn’t instantly make the four of them better people.For the first few months, Claude still treated everything like a problem he could solve.Find me.Confirm my itinerary.Ask acquaintances whether we knew the same professors.Eventually, a teacher who had once admired him called him into the office.After listening, the tea

Chapter 20

“Documentation, organization, execution,” the professor continued. “They affect whether a piece can be presented properly.”Ethan went home and opened his award-winning high school portfolios.My name was usually on the last page.Sometimes it wasn’t there at all.Because I had said it didn’t matter.And he had accepted that.He emailed the school with corrected contribution statements.When the reply arrived, he sat in his studio for a long time.No one praised him.I wasn’t going to hear about it and come rushing back.He had finally done something that mattered even if I never returned.***For Hunter, the hardest part wasn’t having a film rejected.It was the judge saying his new work lacked the genuine connections in his earlier films.At first, he resented it.The shots were steadier. The equipment better. The color cleaner.How could it be worse?He rewatched his high school films.Jack tossing me a soda.Me missing it and chasing him, laughing.Ethan repairing my coat pocket wh

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