Sierra’s pictures always make it look like she’s having the best time in the room, and if any part of me had thought maybe that would change in my absence, that’s now squashed. It’s just like it’s always been for her—cracking up at a party, clutching the arms of her usual partners in crime, Jace and Levi. Lying out on the grass and lifting her face to the sun. Showing off an outfit in shades of neon, her fingers raised in a peace sign. Not one thing about her life has changed.

Including the fact that Craig and Claire are nowhere to be found.

So they didn’t end up managing to worm their way into her orbit for real, then. He slept with his girlfriend’s sister, and she kept their secret, and for what?

Craig’s only social media use is limited to stuff like gamer Discords, so I don’t bother with that; instead, I click over to Claire, expecting the usual brightly colored squares of her art. She’s never been big on posting pictures of her face, and she absolutely hates all photographs of her body.

Or at least she used to.

It’s only been a couple of weeks since I left Greentree, and a few months since I’ve seen or spoken to Claire, but I swear I don’t know who this person is smiling hugely with her arm around two girls with similarly dark-brown skin, her meticulous braids dip-dyed lilac. I have never seen the camo-print romper she’s wearing in this picture at the Dunkin’ Donuts we used to go to every Sunday morning, cheesing around the hot pink straw emerging from her iced matcha latte. (At least her usual order hasn’t changed.) And there is no way that the girl wearing a bathing suit—a bathing suit—in this picture clearly taken at the town pool is my old best friend ClaireBear.

And even though there’s no sign of Craig, or Sierra, or … any of our old friends, actually, in any of these pictures, it’s too much.

I turn off my phone, throw it on my bed, and turn the music all the way up.

The last morning of the world’s most depressing weekend, I get myself to the library bright and early. I’ve developed an affinity for a particular seat, and showing up while everyone else is still chowing down on bagels in the Beast is the best way to get it, even if I do miss Sunday Dunkin’ runs with Claire now more than ever.