I Stopped Talking and They All Regretted It Chapter 08

I Stopped Talking and They All Regretted It Chapter 08

Less than an hour after the post went up, my phone was drowning in messages.

This time, they weren’t cries for help.

They were apologies.

[Emma, I saw you head toward the old blue trail that day.).

[I wanted to flag it for Coach Hayes, but Theodore wouldn’t let me.]

[The stuff about me in your notebook, you didn’t dig that up. I told you all of it myself.]

[When I had my peanut allergy scare, you’re the reason the nurse’s office got the EpiPen in time.]

Some people were ready to go to war for me.

Others had already tracked down the poster’s school and home address.

I sent a voice message to the program group chat right away.

“No pile-ons online. No doxxing anybody’s address. Just say what you actually saw with your own two

eyes.”

Cooper, sitting nearby, cracked a smile.

“So you’re finally talking again.”

I cleared my throat.

“This counts as handling something important. Personal chitchat’s a different matter entirely.”

Over three hundred campers filed statements, one after another.

Cafeteria manager Martha even sent in a video.

“Emma remembers all that about my son because I asked her to help clean up his dating profile.”

Gate guard George pulled up old chat logs proving I’d gotten him a doctor when his back had flared up.

The nurse from the health office pointed out that the front half of that so-called surveillance notebook was

almost entirely allergy notes, medications, and emergency contacts.

I’d never remembered any of them to control anyone.

I was just scared that someday somebody would go missing and nobody would even notice.

The poster took the thing down fast.

The police found her anyway.

Her name was Mia. Charlotte’s best friend.

Mia admitted Charlotte had sent her the photos ahead of time.

The day before the outdoor trip, Charlotte had already briefed her.

“If anything happens, just say Emma’s putting on another act:”

She’d even lined up hidden-camera footage and screenshots in advance.

This hadn’t been some spur-of-the-moment stunt.

She’d wanted me out of the camp, and out of the Sinclair family, for a long time.

Northridge held a public briefing.

Director Grant admitted on stage that the so-called social isolation had never gone through any kind of professional review.

Ordering an entire program to collectively freeze out one camper wasn’t behavioral therapy by any stretch.

That was mass ostracism, plain and simple.

Theodore, as the sponsor’s rep and head of the camper committee, had leaned on his family’s influence to push the plan through. He got stripped of every position he held and hit with formal school discipline.

Coach Hayes, for never verifying the headcount himself, was suspended pending investigation.

Charlotte got expelled from the program, and Northridge yanked her early admission.

Police formally opened an investigation, with endangerment and obstruction of search and rescue both on

the table.

Once the briefing wrapped, Mom caught me at the door.

“Emma, come home. I already got your room set back up.’

I typed something out for her.

[I never took Charlotte’s room from her.]

She blinked.

“I know that, sweetheart.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

I kept going.

[I never took your spot at the welcome dinner either.]

[That night, I was in the gatehouse eating a sandwich from takeout.)

Her tears spilled over all at once.

Charlotte had claimed, back then, that I’d forced her out of her seat.

Once the whole family found me in the gatehouse, the truth had already been laid out plain as day.

And still, in the end, they’d said I’d deliberately ducked the dinner to embarrass everybody.

It wasn’t that they hadn’t known I was innocent.

They just hadn’t wanted to admit Charlotte was lying.

I kept typing on my phone.

[Your house was too quiet.]

[I never got used to it.]

Mom grabbed my wrist.

“Then let me talk with you.”

“However long you want to talk, I’ll listen.”

I eased my hand free.

[But I don’t want to talk to you right now.]

She stood frozen, her face gone bloodless.

Cooper wheeled my chair toward the exit for me.

Theodore suddenly caught up.

“Where are you headed?”

[Program dorms.]

“Your leg hasn’t even healed. Nobody’s there to look after you.”

I glanced at him.

[I have a lot of friends. I never get into trouble wherever I land.]

That was a line he’d said himself, once.

Coming back around now, it didn’t sound so great anymore.