We Grew Back Together

3: It's not stalking if its not private

Harper held her phone up and scrolled through her Instagram. Looking through Alice's profile, she turned over onto her stomach with her elbows propping up her phone from the mattress.

Raising an eyebrow she hummed to herself, seeing no evidence of the group. Sure trying to find them on Instagram after just hanging out was a bit stalkery but she wanted to know more about them. She had already found Liam and Evans. There was no sign of Nic, but Stella and Jay were there.

Even though there was little to no evidence of them as a group anywhere on Alice's account, they seemed so close and comfortable with each other.

Nic was essentially a ghost so far, which shocked Harper for some reason. She didn't look like the type to be very adverse to social media. The Lettie she knew wasn't shy. She was friends with everyone back then.

While looking through the tagged, Harper saw a post from Stella. It was her graduation post.

Finally we're getting somewhere... she thought to herself as she flipped through the pictures. Stella had a lot of pictures with a lot of people.

The first one was with Nic.

And the second.

Her curiosity drove her to hit the tag over Nic in the first picture, and it took her to Nics account.

There were only three posts.

Harper nearly audibly groaned with disappointment. How could someone so outgoing only have three posts on their Instagram?

One was prom, the other looked was some photoshoot, and the latest was just a photo from a party and somehow had no incriminating details.

She decided to look in the tagged. There she found what she wanted. Even though Nic was a ghost on her own page, she appeared in many other posts.

Harper found posts from her friends at her college from things like photo dumps, Halloween, birthday parties, and even her school's club lacrosse account.

Going even further back, Harper found posts from her highschool sports and old friends. She appeared in a few posts with Stella and three other girls but those posts stopped somewhere in senior year since she wasn't in their graduation posts, or prom.

Some part of her was curious. Did it have any correlation with the group from tonight?

A few days later at work, it was still on Harpers mind. It was a relatively quiet day which gave her mind time to wander.

"Hey Alice?" Harper asked, watching Alice mindlessly scribble on a post-it.

"Yeah?"

She looked at her hands and fidgeted with her rings, "I was looking around on Instagram after hanging out... the group from the other night... there's like nothing of you guys together."

Alice chuckled, "you stalked us?"

Harper felt heat rise to her face, she practically jumped out of her seat to defend herself, "It's not stalking if it's not private!"

"I guess that's true," Alice shrugged. "We started hanging out in the later parts of senior year but we all knew each other before. We all have other friends but we do like to hang out. Why?"

"I don't know," Harper glanced at the door as the bell rang, "you guys just seemed so close."

"Yeah, it's a nice dynamic-" Alice stopped as the lady who came in stopped at the desk.

"I'm here for my 2:30 with Victoria," she said.

"Alright," Alice smiled and checked her in on the computer, "She'll be right with you, thank you!"

The lady smiled back and went over to the wanting area.

"No yeah, it is a great dynamic. We know we don't have the most history but it's fun. It's just a group of kids who know each other and just wanna vibe."

Harper nodded. It was fun, and it didn't feel fake. They all really just seem to be a group who gets along despite not having a long history.

"Jay and I go where majority of our highschool goes so it doesn't feel too far off from that, so we have pretty much the same friends as we did. Out of all of us, Stella and Nic probably have the most change of scenery from highschool to college."

"Change of scenery?"

"Friend group stuff. Senior year wasn't nice to them. But they have each other. They're really close."

Harper nodded. She did notice how Stella had her pictures with Nic at the front of the graduation and prom posts. I'm general most of Nics tagged were from Stella.

And those two other girls.

It was nice, knowing Harper wasn't missing a lot of history but at the same time she still felt like the group had so much more prior to her being let in the other night. She liked hanging out with them though.

If they all had history with each other but not as a group... she technically did fit in since she knew Nic.

Nic was a completely different person than she was then. It's weird, she has the same name and probably still has the memories, yet Harper feels like she's a complete stranger.

——-

Hi!
Thanks for reading this far lol

I wanted to have the first three parts out right from the start since I HATE when I start things that only have ONE PART OUT T^T
For some reason it's just not enough to make me want to keep reading it I read the one part and I'm kinda like "eh okay whatever" and just don't stick around for more.

But I will not leave you hanging I promise, I'm currently two or three parts ahead and have an outline of it all lol