They Left Me Out of Their Group So I'll Leave Them Out of My Life novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Not Petty

Corina's dad phones with a cover story and her mother retells the apple fight on speaker. Corina asks for the tuition login and gets a casserole offer instead, then her brother texts: please don't stop this month.

I left Keely asleep on my couch and was at Riverside Animal Clinic by ten past seven.

I hadn't slept.

Dr. Nate Ebersole was already in the back, writing on a whiteboard.

He owns the clinic, and for four years he has been the first person I see every morning and the last one I say goodnight to.

He looked at me once and put a coffee on the counter without saying anything.

"Thanks," I said.

"The cat's been asking for you."

Ledger, the clinic's gray cat, was sitting on the scale.

I scratched his ears until my hands stopped shaking.

At nine we had a beagle with an ear infection and a retriever who needed his nails done.

I held the retriever and told him he was brave.

That was the whole morning, and I was grateful for every minute of it.

My phone rang at 10:40 while I was washing my hands.

It was my dad.

"Corina!" he said, loud and warm. "Your mother says you stormed out of Lindell's."

"I didn't storm."

"Okay, you left fast. Listen, kiddo, I'm putting you on speaker. We're in the kitchen. Your aunt's here."

My aunt is my mom's sister.

She said hello cheerfully.

"Honey," my mom said, and I could hear the kettle behind her. "I think there's been a misunderstanding."

"I read the chat, Mom."

"I know you did. And I know how it looked."

She sighed, a small tender sigh.

"The dinner was a rehearsal, sweetheart. Your birthday is Saturday. We wanted to practice the toast on Colby first, and then you walked in and ruined the surprise."

"The chat said you called me petty."

"Oh, Corina."

"It said I'd make it about myself."

My dad laughed, uncomfortable.

"Your mother says things. She was joking. You've got to learn to take a joke."

"She said it in front of Colby, and Keely, and you."

"And you've always been sensitive," my mom said. "Tell her about the apple, sis."

My aunt laughed in the kitchen.

"The apple! She'd have fought a bear over that apple. Nine years old, and she took the whole bowl away from poor Keely."

"Keely took a bite out of every one," I said.

"See?" my mom said gently. "She remembers it so exactly. She's held on to it for eighteen years."

Down the hall, a dog barked in the exam room.

I stood in the clinic hallway with my wet hands dripping onto the floor.

For a second I could feel the old habit rising in me, the one that says apologize and make it easy.

I had done it so many times that it didn't even feel like a choice.

"Mom," I said. "I want the login for Colby's tuition account."

There was a short quiet on the line.

"The login?"

"The school's website. I'd like to look at it myself."

"Honey, it's all in my name. The bursar's office is a mess, you wouldn't believe the hold music. I'll bring you a casserole and we'll sit down and go over everything."

"I don't want a casserole. I want the login."

"We'll talk Sunday," she said. "We'll all talk Sunday. Russ, tell her we're all going to talk Sunday."

"Sunday," my dad said. "Come for dinner. Your mother's making the pot roast."

I looked at the whiteboard down the hall.

Nate had written the day's surgeries on it in square, careful letters.

"I'll think about it," I said.

"Don't be petty about it," my mom said, very kindly, and the line went dead.

I stood there for a moment.

Nate had come out of the supply room with a box of gauze.

The walls in our clinic are thin, and he had heard enough.

"Do you want the afternoon off?" he asked.

"No."

"Do you want the cat?"

"Yes."

He put Ledger in my arms and went back to work.

I carried the cat through the lunch hour.

At 3:15 my phone buzzed on the break room table.

It was a text from my brother.

Colby hadn't sent me anything but a thumbs-up in a month.

It said: "Please don't stop this month. I'll explain Friday."

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