#Chapter 198: On the Outside Looking In

I liked the silence until I abruptly didn’t, and the loneliness took hold. Then, as I always do when I feel alone, I called my friends. “Why don’t we try to recreate a girls’ night?” Maria said through the phone, excitement in her voice. “We can get on one of those video chats and talk and drink our wine.” That sounded great to me. It would be the closest thing I could get to actually being in the same room as my friends. ] “Let’s do it,” I said. I installed the video chat service Maria was used to onto my laptop, then took my laptop into the kitchen, set it at my small table, and poured myself a glass of wine. Glass in hand, I started the call. When Maria had presented the idea, I thought we’d all be on our laptops, each of our faces filling a box on a screen. Instead, when the voice call connected, I was greeted with Rachel, Megan, and Maria all sitting on their couch, crowded around a single laptop. “There she is!” Megan said, holding up her half-empty glass of wine