I stopped several feet away. "How did you find my building?"
Khloe answered before Marissa could. "That's not the point. Marissa is falling apart, and you're refusing to be reasonable."
"How did you find my building?" I repeated.
Finn spread his hands. "Dude, everybody knows you moved across town. Stop acting like a secret agent."
I looked at Marissa. "I didn't invite you here."
Her expression sharpened. "You don't get to disappear and ignore everyone. We're adults, Ethan. We can talk this through like adults."
"We talked before I left. I wrote you a letter. I'm not changing my decision."
She shook her head and glanced back at the group, and I could see how familiar the arrangement was to her. When the group agreed, she felt steadier; when someone hesitated, she looked for another voice to replace the uncertainty. I had once admired the way they supported each other, but support had become difficult to distinguish from an agreement that the group should always win. Standing on the sidewalk, I felt as though I had walked into the final stage of a meeting whose agenda I'd never approved.
Adrien stepped forward with his hands open. He said nobody wanted a fight and suggested we all sit down somewhere with coffee. I told him that if Marissa needed support, he was welcome to give it, but I wasn't going to sit with five people to justify ending a relationship that only two of us had been in. He looked uncomfortable, and for a second I thought he might recognize what I meant. Then Finn cut across the space between us with a louder voice.
"You're being selfish," he said. "Do you know how much you're hurting her? How much you're hurting all of us?"
I stared at him. "What exactly have I done to you?"
Finn seemed genuinely surprised that I would ask. He said I'd been part of the family for two years and couldn't abandon everybody because I was upset about one night out. He spoke as though the group had adopted me and I was breaking a contract by leaving. I wanted to ask whether any of them had considered how often Marissa was absent from the parts of my life that had mattered most, but I knew the answer would lead to another argument about loyalty.
Khloe began crying. She said the squad had always been there for one another and that I was tearing something apart because I didn't understand the meaning of friendship. Tasha raised her phone and began recording, announcing that she wanted proof of how I was treating them. Marissa stood in the middle, nodding as the others spoke, looking at me as if this display of solidarity might finally convince me how unreasonable I had been.