They Said She Was Strong So They Never Had To Choose Her Chapter 05
The day they finally realized I was gone, I was at a stargazing event for new students.
The school sat on high plateau country, where the days and nights swung wildly apart in temperature.
The afternoon had been clear and bright, but once night fell, the wind swept over the slopes carrying a real bite of cold.
I pulled my jacket tighter and helped my roommate set up the telescope.
The moment my phone came back on, dozens of missed calls flooded in at once.
My mother. Grayson. Ethan. Julian.
The messages in the group chat of five had shifted from irritation to full-blown panic.
Grayson wanted to know where I was hiding.
Ethan said if I was just throwing a tantrum, it wasn’t too late to come back.
Julian sent only one line.
【Send me the address.】
His tone still sounded like an order.
As if all he had to do was say the word, and I would go back to laying out every detail of my schedule, my feelings, and every secret I had for him to hold.
I left the group chat and deleted all three of them.
A few seconds later, my mother’s call came through again.
I hesitated, then picked up.
“Chloe Sinclair, where the hell are you?”
Her voice was frantic and furious, with people arguing in the background.
“At school.”
The other end went quiet for a beat.
“What school?”
I told her the name.
She sounded like she hadn’t heard me right. It took her a while to get out the next question.
“How did you end up somewhere that far away? You applied to the school right down the road, didn’t you?”
“I never applied there.”
“But Mia and the others said you’d all agreed on it.”
I looked down at the little pebbles scattered near my feet.
“They agreed among themselves. The four of them. It had nothing to do with me.”
Her breathing got noticeably faster.
“Changing your applications is a huge decision. Why didn’t you talk to me about it?”
“Did you ever ask?”
The line went completely silent.
During application season, my mother had gone with Mia to see the college counselor three separate times. She had pulled admissions data on more than a dozen schools.
She had helped Mia think through majors, compare rankings, and even asked the counselor to review Mia’s personal statement.
Meanwhile, I sat at the same kitchen table and worked through my Common App alone.
When my mother walked past, she glanced at my laptop and told me not to hog it, because Mia needed to look things up too.
It wasn’t that she didn’t understand how important college applications were.
She just didn’t think mine mattered.
“Chloe, Mom’s been so busy. I know I’ve been neglecting you. But you can’t throw away your future just to make a point.”
“I’m not making a point.”
I looked toward the observatory in the distance.
“This school has one of the best observation programs in the country. It’s where I’ve always wanted to be.”
She seemed to remember, only then, that I had loved astronomy as a child.
When I was little, I’d nagged her to buy me a telescope.
Then Mia moved in next door, said pictures of the universe scared her, and the telescope got shoved into the garage.
Eventually, it got sold off with the rest of the old stuff.
She had no idea that from that point on, I had saved up every dollar of allowance and bought a used one myself.
“But how are you supposed to survive out there alone? Who’s going to take care of you?”
“I’m eighteen. I can take care of myself.”
“You still can’t just up and disappear. We spent the whole morning looking for you. We were about to call the police.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’ve been gone a month.”
The other end fell silent, save for her heavy breathing.
Their so-called morning of searching just meant that the second they needed me to show up, they realized I wasn’t where they had left me.
Her voice softened.
“Come home first. We’ll figure something out. Worst case, we’ll see if you can transfer back.”
“There’s no worst case. And no need.”
“Chloe Sinclair!”
For the first time, I didn’t go quiet when she raised her voice at me.
“Mom, my class is about to start.”
“Whatever it is, we can talk about it over winter break.”
I hung up and switched my phone to silent.
Nina waved me over.
“Chloe, come on. The instructor says we’ll be able to see Jupiter tonight.”
I jogged over and pressed my eye to the eyepiece.
Through the lens, Jupiter’s bands were crisp and clear, and a few of its moons glimmered like tiny points of light circling around it.
At sixteen, when I got stranded in the mountains, it was because I had gone looking for a spot with no light pollution to watch a meteor shower.
The three of them had found me in the pouring rain and said they would never leave me alone again.
But now, standing here, I finally understood.
Being alone isn’t the scary part.
The scary part is being surrounded by a crowd, and still waiting for anyone in it to actually see you.
When the event ended, Julian texted me from an unknown number.
【I already bought a ticket for tomorrow.】
【Chloe, wait for me.】
I read it, then turned my phone off.
He probably didn’t know yet.
This time, I wasn’t going to stand in one place and wait for anyone.