Steam Attack

a friend of mine stopped answering the group chat for a while. at first we joked about it, "they're in their villain era," a gif of someone disappearing into a hedge. then the jokes stopped and the chat just moved on, the way water closes over a stone when they came back, they made one comment about feeling "kind of underwater lately." three people reacted with a heart. nobody replied. the next message was someone asking who had the charger they left at the bar i was one of the hearts that's the part people don't say out loud. we're great at caring about sadness in general. we share the posts, we know the hotline number, we say "check on your strong friends." but an actual sad person is slower than the conversation. they don't bounce back the joke. they answer "how are you" honestly, and it's awkward, and we don't know what to do with our hands so we tap a heart. it feels like doing something. it's the exact amount of effort it takes to leave the room without walking out the friend is mostly fine now. they told me later the heart was the worst part, because it meant we'd all seen it