Page 47 of I Accidentally Joined a Wolf Shifter Group Chat

The simplicity of the response made me wonder how often people complimented her work without immediately requesting changes.

There were pieces of herself she still kept protected. I understood that. Our conversations had grown personal without becoming complete, and perhaps that incompleteness made honesty easier. We didn’t have to look at each other while admitting things. We could pause. Think. Edit.

It made me want more.

I wanted to know what her laugh sounded like, not see an emoji. I wanted to see the expressions she made while arguing. I wanted to know whether she gestured with her hands, whether her hair was still red, and whether her green eyes were dramatic or subtle.

The only problem was, she still hadn’t responded to Grandma Ruth’s invitation about the reunion, and I didn’t know how to bring it up without pressuring her, because at this point, I didn’t think I’d be able to hide how badly I wanted her to come.

SLOANE

VIDEOS OR IT DOESN’T COUNT

One evening, my phone blew up with messages that landed rapid fire, such a steady stream that it sounded like I was getting a call instead of texts. At first, I assumed the group chat had erupted over something ordinary that everyone had chosen to describe in unnecessarily dramatic terms. That had happened before. A missing casserole dish had become a multigenerational betrayal. Grandpa Alfonse trimming a hedge without telling anyone resulted in fifteen messages about personal safety, property boundaries, and various questions over why he still had access to the large pruning shears.

This was different.

The notifications arrived too quickly for me to read them in real time, so I scrolled back to the first message while the new ones continued stacking beneath it.

Mason: WE HAVE A PROBLEM

Hilary: What happened?

Mason: Eli shifted at school

Karen: What do you mean, he shifted at school?

Mason: I mean he SHIFTED. AT SCHOOL.

Patty: OH NO

I sat straighter on my couch. There was that word again. Shifting.

They used it often enough that I’d mostly stopped noticing. Shifting schedules. Early shifts. Difficult shifts. People being advised not to shift too close to public roads. I had assumed it referred to work schedules, or some kind of elaborate family tradition.

Now a teenager had apparently shifted at school, and everyone had lost their minds.