I Stopped Talking and They All Regretted It Chapter 02

I Stopped Talking and They All Regretted It Chapter 02

The first hour of the isolation, I felt okay.

At least the PA system still talked to me.

“Campers signed up for the outdoor orienteering activity, please gather at the field by 3 p.m.”

I tilted my head up at the speaker.

“Copy that. You’ve got real flow. You’d make a solid rapper.”

The people around me shook trying to hold back laughter.

Nobody dared make a sound, though.

By the second hour, I’d struck up a conversation with the vending machine.

“I paid five bucks. Why’d only one bottle of water drop?”

The machine had nothing to say for itself.

I gave it a pat.

“Bit of an introvert, huh.”

By the third hour, Theodore had confiscated my phone.

His reason: I’d mass-texted “you there?” to every single one of the nine hundred people in my contacts.

“This is what you call cooperating?”

He shoved the phone in his pocket, face like a thundercloud.

I looked at him, pleading.

“Just text back ‘nope,’ then. I’m not picky.”

He walked off without another word.

I chased after him a couple steps, then stopped myself.

Mom said if I just got through three days quietly, she wouldn’t send me away again.

So I had to play along.

At the afternoon gathering, Coach Hayes, who ran the outdoor program, handed a route card to each camper.

The cards came in three colors: red, yellow, and blue.

I drew red, paired with Charlotte, headed to Fort Worden Historical State Park near Port Townsend, Washington.

Old coastal defense fortifications still stood out there, and the camp had pitched the campsite halfway up the hillside along the open trail.

Charlotte glanced at the red card in my hand and, out of nowhere, smiled at me.

It was the first time all day she’d actually looked me in the eye.

I scooted right over.

“You’re finally willing to talk to me? Knew it. Sisters can’t stay mad overnight.”

She didn’t say anything back, just took my route card and pinned it to my backpack for me.

I trailed after her the whole way, thrilled.

“Want some chips?”

“Iced coffee?”

“Do you think Theodore’s had some digestion thing going on lately? He’s looked awful the past couple days.”

Charlotte stopped dead.

I nearly plowed straight into her.

She dropped her voice.

“Emma, why do you have to cling to every single person? Can’t you just sit still by yourself for once?”

I mulled it over.

“I can be alone just fine. It’s when people suddenly stop talking to me that I start feeling like they’re plotting how to get rid of me.”

Charlotte froze for a second.

I seized the opening and pointed at a nearby bench.

“Want to sit and talk it through? It’s kind of a long story. I could start with my very first foster parents.”

Whatever sympathy had flickered across her face vanished on the spot.

“Never mind.”

She picked up her pace and left me in the dust.

Before the gathering, Theodore made a special trip over to drop off a windbreaker for Charlotte.

I pulled out my friend notebook, wanting to show him the outdoor activity cheat sheet I’d put together.

He snatched it right out of my hands instead.

Inside, packed edge to edge, were details everyone at camp had ever let slip in passing.

[George — bad back. Help carry chairs on rainy days.]

[Cafeteria manager Martha — son, 22, single, into girls with short hair.]

[Noah — severe peanut allergy. EpiPen in the right side pocket of his backpack.]

The further Theodore flipped through it, the darker his face got.

“You’re keeping tabs on people’s allergies? What exactly are you playing at?”

“Making friends,” I said, like it was obvious. “In case something happens to one of them someday, I can help out.”

Charlotte’s eyes welled up again.

“Theodore, she’s even writing down stuff about my friends’ families. That’s not making friends. That’s surveillance.”

Theodore ripped the notebook clean down the middle.

Pages fluttered to the ground.

I crouched down and gathered them, one by one.

Theodore let out a cold laugh. “They all got along fine before you showed up. Don’t flatter yourself, Emma.”

I stuffed the torn pages back in my backpack and didn’t say another word.

He wasn’t wrong, honestly.

All eleven of my past foster families had probably done just fine after I left.

I was the only one who cried like the whole world had ended, every single time.

When the bus rolled out of Seattle, I finally got my phone back.

Every app sat eerily quiet.

I sent Mom a photo of myself boarding the bus.

A red exclamation mark popped up next to it right away.

She’d blocked me too.

I stared at that little red mark for a long time.

My fifth foster mother had pulled the same move, back when she’d decided she didn’t want me anymore.

She’d claimed her phone was broken, that’s why my messages weren’t going through.

I found out later the phone was fine.

It just wasn’t taking anything from me.

Once the bus reached the meeting point at Fort Worden, Coach Hayes started sorting everyone into groups.

“Red cards to the left, blue to the right, yellow with me.”

I glanced down at my backpack.

The red card from that morning had somehow turned blue.

I looked up to ask Charlotte about it.

She already had her arm looped through Coach Hayes’s, leading the red group down a different open trail.

I called out her name.

She didn’t turn around.

Everyone else acted like they hadn’t heard a thing either.