Who's going to speak now?

We were all just sitting there, the silence stretching a little too long. Everyone was looking at their drink or the table, hoping someone else would volunteer first. I was tired, my brain felt fuzzy, and the last thing I wanted was to be the one to stand up and talk.

The quiet hope someone else would step up

I remember glancing around the circle. My friend Sarah was fiddling with her phone, and Mark was staring intently at a crack in the wall. We’d been talking for hours, and the energy had just sort of… drained away. It wasn't that we didn't care, we were just spent.There was this unspoken agreement hanging in the air. Nobody wanted to be the one to make the call, to point a finger. It felt weirdly heavy, this simple decision of who should speak next. We were all friends, but in that moment, it felt like a burden.

Letting something else decide for us

That's when someone, I think it was Alex, just sighed and pulled out their phone. "Let's just spin a wheel or something," they said. It wasn't a grand solution, but it was a release valve. The relief was almost physical.We quickly threw some names together. It wasn't about who was best or most prepared. It was just about taking the weight off our own shoulders. The act of making the list itself was easier than the staring contest we'd been having.

The spin itself

Watching the wheel spin felt oddly ceremonial. It was out of our hands now.

And the name it landed on

It landed on Jamie. They just nodded, took a breath, and started talking. And you know what? It was fine.

Fairness was the whole point

Afterwards, I realized it didn't really matter who spoke. What mattered was that no one felt singled out or put on the spot by the group. The wheel did the pointing, so none of us had to.It was a small thing, but it preserved the mood. There was no resentment, no "why me?" looks. We all accepted it because the process felt neutral. In the end, that sense of fairness was more important than whatever was actually said.