They Keep Inviting Me to the Group Chat. I Haven’t Told Them He’s Gone.

The first time, I thought it was an accident. A casual oversight. His number was still in their contacts, and no one had noticed he wasn’t answering. I let the message sit, unread, buried under notifications.

Then, they did it again.

“Hey man, where you at?” someone typed.

The little bubble appeared, three dots flickering as another friend started to type. I should have said something then. But I didn’t. I just watched.

The messages came sporadically — inside jokes, links, plans for a weekend he wouldn’t be attending. Each time they tagged him, my phone vibrated. A small, insistent reminder that they still believed he was on the other end.

So I answered.

Not much, at first. Just a thumbs-up emoji. A simple ‘lol.’ Nothing that would make them look too closely. Nothing that would make them wonder.

The more I did it, the easier it became. I knew how he talked then, the way he responded to things when questioned. I can hear his voice in my head, filling in the blanks.

Eventually, they stopped questioning, why they never saw him in person anymore. The group chat was still alive. As far as they knew, so was he.

And in a way, maybe he still was.

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