Three weeks ago, Priya added me to the wrong chat.

She meant to add me to the one where we were planning a birthday dinner. I know this because about thirty seconds after I got added, she added me to a different chat, said 'oops wrong one lol,' and I figured she just put me in some random planning thread by mistake. I didn't think anything of it. I muted it and forgot about it for two days.

Then I got bored on a Tuesday night and scrolled up.

The chat was called 'vent sesh 🙃' and it had six people in it. Me, Priya, Jonah, Sasha, Reem, and a number I didn't recognize. All people I have known for between four and nine years. All people who were in my wedding.

The first message I read was Reem saying, 'did anyone else feel like Maya made Priya's engagement dinner about herself or is it just me.'

It was not just her.

I sat there for probably an hour just reading. Not even feeling anything at first, just reading like I was studying for something. There were hundreds of messages going back eight months. Eight months of a group chat where my friends talked about me. How I'm 'a lot.' How I 'always need to be the main character.' How they love me but I'm exhausting. Jonah said, and I want to be precise here, 'she's the kind of friend you have to recover from.'

Jonah was a groomsman at my wedding. He gave a toast.

The weird thing, and I know this sounds messed up, is that some of it wasn't wrong. There was a thread about how I'd interrupted Sasha three times at dinner in October and then told the same story she was trying to tell, but funnier. I remember that dinner. I didn't realize I did that until I read it. That part didn't feel good in a different way than the rest of it.

But then there was stuff that was just mean. Reem said my job sounds made up. I'm a UX researcher. It's a real job, Reem. Priya said she'd stopped telling me things because I 'make everything a therapy session.' Jonah said he only invites me to group stuff because dropping me would be 'too much drama.'

Too much drama. The man who once cried at an Applebee's because his fantasy football team lost.

I didn't say anything. I just stayed in the chat and kept reading as new messages came in. Which is the part I'm not proud of. Because I had opportunities to say something and I didn't. I watched them make plans I wasn't invited to. I watched Sasha ask if she should tell me about a job opening and Priya say 'honestly? she'd probably take over the whole process and make it weird.' I watched the unknown number, who I eventually figured out is Jonah's girlfriend Becca, who I have met exactly four times, say 'she seems like a lot from what you guys say.'

I let it go on because I kept thinking I'd see something that would make it make sense. Like maybe there'd be a message where one of them said 'but she's a good person' or 'I feel bad talking about her like this.' I was looking for evidence that they actually liked me underneath all of it.

I found a little. Not much.

Last Thursday I sent one message into the chat. Just one. I wrote: 'hey so I've been in here since Priya accidentally added me three weeks ago. I've read everything. I'm not going to make this a whole thing, I just wanted you to know.'

Then I left the chat.

The silence lasted about four minutes. Then Priya called me. I didn't answer. Then Sasha called. Then I got a text from Jonah that said 'Maya oh my god please let us explain.'

I texted back: 'you had eight months to say any of this to my face.'

He typed for a long time. Whatever he wrote, he deleted it. He never sent anything.

It's been five days. I've talked to Priya once, briefly. She cried and said they didn't mean it the way it sounded and that the chat was just a place to decompress and that she loves me. I said I understood. I don't know if I do. I don't know how to unfeel the thing where Jonah said I'm someone people recover from.

The part I keep coming back to is the Sasha dinner. The story I told over her. I've been thinking about whether there are other times I did that and didn't notice. That part feels important and I don't know what to do with it yet.

I haven't made any big decisions. I haven't ended any friendships or sent any long messages or done anything dramatic. I know that's not the satisfying ending. But I think the honest version is that I'm just sitting with it, figuring out which parts are about them and which parts are about me, and trying not to collapse those two things together just because it hurts less to make it all their fault.

It's mostly their fault though.