They Left Me Out of Their Group, So I'll Leave Them Out of My Life novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Group
While Santino showers, his phone lights up with a group chat called Good Times Without Tegan, and Tegan reads all of it before she leaves; the first message was sent the morning of her grandmother's funeral.
Santino's phone lit up on the kitchen table while he was in the shower, and the group name on the screen had my name in it.
Good Times Without Tegan.
I was standing at the counter in his T-shirt, making his coffee the way he likes it, with the oat milk he swears he can't taste.
We had been together four years.
He had left the phone face up, six inches from my hand, because he had never once thought I would look.
I looked.
The preview said "Members (8)" and a stack of unread messages.
I knew his passcode. It was my birthday.
The chat opened on a photo that was pinned to the top.
A wooden dock, a calm lake, a red canoe tied at the end.
Santino went up north to his family's cabin about once a month, and girlfriends weren't allowed, his mother's rule. I had never seen the place.
I figured that was it.
Then I scrolled down to Sunday, and the messages were about me.
Bailey had written at 6:40 that morning: "Is she still at the apartment? Don't let her near the Friday plan."
Bailey is my best friend. She lives two floors up. She had brought me soup the week before when I had a cold.
Beckett had answered: "She makes the best pancakes though lol."
One of the others wrote: "Pancakes don't make her fun."
Then Santino, at 7:02: "Relax. I told her it's a family thing. She's good about family things."
Under it were laughing faces, six of them.
I kept scrolling.
Three weeks earlier, Bailey had written: "Tegan paid for the cake again. She thinks it's for your cousin."
Santino had answered: "She likes feeling useful."
Someone had written: "Honestly, best group name ever."
Someone else: "Tegan would cry if she saw how much we drink."
Then Beckett: "Tegan would alphabetize the beer."
Fourteen people liked it.
I scanned the names. Eight members, and seven of them had been at my birthday dinner in May.
I had picked up that check.
The shower was still running.
I took my own phone out of the pocket of his shirt and photographed the screen.
I took the member list, then the pinned photo, then every message I had read, one at a time, with my thumb steady.
In the bathroom, the water kept going.
My phone buzzed in my hand.
It was Bailey, on my phone, at the same minute she was writing about me on his.
"Good morning!! I got you the good tea bags. Don't forget your coat, it's freezing. Love you."
I looked at the message for a while.
Then I scrolled the chat all the way up, to the very first line.
It took a long time, because it was three years of them.
At the top there was a small gray note.
Bailey created the group "Good Times Without Tegan."
The date was March 14.
I read the date again.
The water shut off.
I heard the shower curtain rattle and Santino's voice through the door, cheerful. "Babe? Is that coffee I smell?"
I set his phone down exactly where it had been, face up, six inches from the mug.
I picked up my bag from the chair.
I took my laptop, my charger and Gran's blue cardigan off the hook.
It was the only thing of hers I had left, because her lake house was sold the spring she died.
Santino had handled the paperwork so I wouldn't have to.
I didn't take anything of his.
"Babe?" he called again. "Did you hear me?"
I stood in the hallway with my hand on the door.
I could have stayed. I could have screamed at him in a towel and let him cry, and let Bailey come down with her soup and tell me it was only a joke.
I had four years of reasons to stay in that apartment.
I had one reason to leave, and it was already on my phone.
So I stepped out.
I closed the door quietly, and I heard him shout my name once through the wood.
On the landing I opened my photos and found the last one I had taken before the shower stopped.
I made it bigger.
The first message in the chat was from Santino, 7:12 that morning, three years ago.
"Funeral is at noon. Bring beer to mine at three. She'll be with the old ladies till dark."
March 14 was the day I buried Gran.
He had held my hand through the whole service.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend