The Group Chat

For the first week, nobody worried.

Bo had been busy with his uncle's farm. He had told the group, in late June, that he was going to spend most of July helping. The farm had bad reception. Bo's last message, on the 4th of July, had been: signal is bad up here, will check in when I can. Have a good summer everyone, see you in August.

The group — Marek, Esme, Lina, and Pim — had said good luck back. They had not, after that, worried about Bo's silence. It was a known thing. Bo went off-grid sometimes. He always came back.

By the end of the first week of August, Bo had still not been in touch.

On the 12th of August, Bo's mother called Marek's mother. Marek had been listening from the kitchen, the way he had listened, when smaller, to other phone calls he was not officially in.

He heard his mother say: "Yes. Yes, I understand. No, none of the children have heard from him in over a month. — He told them he was at the farm. — Yes. Of course. Of course, Mrs Vogel. I am so — yes. Yes."

His mother put the phone down. She came into the kitchen. Her face had a particular shape Marek had not seen before.

"Marek. Bo was not at the farm."

"What?"

"He told his parents he was at the farm. He told you he was at the farm. He was not at the farm. His uncle has been on holiday in Italy since the end of June. The farm has been empty. Bo has been — somewhere else. For five and a halfweeks. His parents have just realised. They are at the police station now."

Marek stared at his mother.

"Mum. He told us he had bad reception."

"He told you what he had been telling his parents."

"Where has he been?"

"Marek. They don't know."

That night, the group chat — which had been quiet for five weeks — exploded. Esme messaged: what do you mean he wasn't at the farm. Lina messaged: I just got the call from his mum, what is going on. Pim messaged: I cannot believe this.

Marek did not, immediately, message back. He was, instead, doing something he had not done before in the four years the group chat had existed.

He was scrolling backwards.

He scrolled past the last six weeks of nothing. He scrolled past the good luck at the farm messages from late June. He scrolled past the May messages, the April messages, the March messages. He scrolled all the way back to January.

He read every message Bo had sent the group, all year.

By two in the morning, he had read everything. He had also opened a new document on his laptop and had started typing things he had noticed.

He had a list, by three in the morning, of seven small inconsistencies.

They were small. Each one, on its own, could be nothing. Together, they were — Marek thought — a pattern.

In one March message, Bo had said he had been at the gig in town with my cousin. Bo had told Marek directly, that same week, that his cousin was on a school trip in France. Both could not be true.

In a May message, Bo had said his phone had been broken for two days, sorry. Marek's older brother, who knew Bo's family, had mentioned offhand that he had seen Bo using his phone outside the bakery on one of those two days.

In late June, Bo had — Marek noticed for the first time — used a phrase he had never used before.