Chapter 12 - The Guests
Not every guest laughed.
I had been too angry to notice.
Video showed:
Five people laughing.
Four smiling awkwardly.
Several silent.
Three visibly uncomfortable.
Diane leaving room before slap? Actually she had left group chat but maybe attended party? Let's say she did not attend.
One guest, Malcolm, stepped toward Margaret after first line but stopped when I spoke.
Another, Rachel, whispered:
“Don’t.”
No one physically intervened before I did.
Should they have?
Hard question.
Margaret had not yet hurt June.
A joke object.
Social uncertainty.
Then reach.
Fast.
I stopped treating entire room as complicit.
That mattered because anger loves crowds.
Rachel apologized.
Not for existing.
For knowing there would be a surprise and assuming:
“Wesley had handled it.”
Same phrase.
Everyone outsourced confrontation to the person most trained not to confront.
That was the social mechanism.
Margaret’s power did not come from being terrifying.
May you like
It came from everyone believing someone else was responsible for limiting her.
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