I Stopped Talking and They All Regretted It Chapter 01

I Stopped Talking and They All Regretted It Chapter 01

I came out of the womb an overachieving social butterfly.

Other babies just cried. I was already babbling half the night away with the new mom in the bed next to mine.

When I was five, I got lost in downtown Seattle.

By the time the police found me, I was parked on a bench in Westlake Park, running a speed-dating round for two dozen retirees.

At thirteen, my eleventh foster family shipped me back to the emergency shelter in King County.

On the drive over, I talked the transport driver’s ear off for three straight hours and got him to blow through seven exits.

When he finally pulled up outside the shelter, his eyes went glassy and he begged me:

“Kid, it’s not that I don’t like you.”

“I just never got a word in edgewise.”

My mom had been married into the Sinclair family for eleven years by the time I turned eighteen. That’s how long it took her to remember she had a daughter.

That night, the Sinclairs threw me a welcome dinner at their estate in Medina.

But before the aperitifs even hit the table, my stepsister Charlotte’s eyes filled up and she said:

“Emma told me that as of today, she’s the only daughter in this family, and that I need to move out. Now.”

“She wants my spot next to Mom, too. Maybe I just shouldn’t eat tonight. I don’t want her seeing me upset.”

My stepbrother Theodore’s face went dark on the spot.

“First day in the house and she’s already laying down rules for Charlotte? She really thinks this place belongs to her now?”

The whole family tore through the house looking for me, furious, and finally found me in the gatehouse.

I was working through a bag of pretzels, helping the gate guard, George, patch things up with his girlfriend after a fight that had started on a dating app.

Charlotte’s crying caught in her throat.

Theodore’s face went dark. “So you’re the one who said you wanted this family all to yourself?”

I threw up my hands.

“No way. Nobody in this whole house even wants to talk.”

“The gatehouse is a different story, though. Eight security monitors, six walkie-talkies, neighbors calling in complaints past midnight. It’s basically a late-night talk show down here.”

…

George’s eyes went misty. “Emma said when I retire, she’ll find me the best retirement community around.”

Mom’s face went green.

She hauled me back to the guest room by force.

When Mom married into the Sinclairs, she’d told me, heartbroken, that a man as rich as Mr. Sinclair would never take on a woman who came with a daughter attached, so she’d hidden me away instead.

Eleven years later, she’d finally remembered me, and Mr. Sinclair was willing to take me in. But she clearly couldn’t stand the state of me. She swept a disgusted look over my hair, wild as a briar patch, and locked the door on her way out.

There wasn’t another soul in the room.

I lasted three minutes before my whole body started itching with restlessness.

Five minutes later, I dialed up a department store’s customer service line and had a great half-hour chat with the rep.

The next day, I got shipped off to Northridge University’s summer prep camp.

The Sinclairs had been sponsoring it for years. Theodore was a senior at Northridge, and this year he was both the sponsor’s rep and the head of the camper committee.

Mom gripped my hand and laid down the law:

“Emma, keep a low profile. Every kid here comes from a serious family. Don’t go running up and befriending everyone you meet.”

I nodded, solemn as a judge.

Minute one through the gate, I caught a basketball that flew out of bounds without even flinching.

Minute three, the program director and I discovered we were both hooked on the same divorce-mediation reality show.

Minute ten, I’d already rewritten the cafeteria manager’s son’s dating profile.

Half an hour in, my voice came crackling over the campus PA system.

“Testing, testing. Can everybody hear me?”

“It’s time to share our favorite songs.”

By the time I walked out of the broadcast booth, I had a whole crowd trailing behind me.

Someone wanted the cafeteria’s secret menu, someone else wanted a game of pickup basketball, and another kid asked me to slip a love note to his crush.

Charlotte stood dead center in the hallway, going paler by the second.

The girl beside her waved at me, all excitement. “Emma, let’s grab burgers after tonight’s workshop!”

Charlotte’s eyes welled up on the spot.

“You’re supposed to be my best friend!”

She turned and ran off crying.

That night, the Sinclairs held their first family meeting.

Theodore slapped a stack of printed contact logs down on the table.

“One day at camp and you’ve added over four hundred contacts. Emma, does that sound normal to you?”

I glanced it over.

“You’re missing three. The program director, the nurse in the health office, and the hot dog cart guy by the gate. You never screenshotted those.”

That shut Theodore up for a good long while.

Charlotte’s shoulders shook as she cried.

“She knew perfectly well those are all my friends, and she went after them anyway. She’s trying to take everything I have.”

I jumped in to explain myself.

“Friends aren’t phone chargers. I can’t exactly swipe them and walk off.”

Mom pinched the bridge of her nose and cut me off.

“Emma, this social-dependency thing of yours really does need fixing.”

Theodore slid a printed schedule across the table.

Across the top, in bold letters:

[72-HOUR SOCIAL ISOLATION.]

“Starting tomorrow morning, nobody at camp is allowed to speak to you.”

“Blocked on every social account. No answered calls. No responding to you even face-to-face.”

My smile froze on my face.

“Not even one word?”

Theodore looked at me, cold as ice.

“Nobody paying attention to you for once isn’t going to kill you.”

I spun around and grabbed Mom’s sleeve.

She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Emma, this is for your own good. Get through three days and you’ll finally learn how to act around people.”

I looked down and set a 72-hour countdown on my phone.

All eleven of my foster families had gone quiet like this right before deciding they didn’t want me anymore.

No answers, no eye contact, no explanation of what I’d done wrong.

Usually, three days later, it was time to pack my bags.

At eight the next morning, the announcement went out over the PA system and the camp group chat, reaching every single camper.

The laughter in the hallway cut off all at once.

Right in front of me, everybody blocked me on every platform they had.