Skipped Thanksgiving Because of My Family's Favoritism novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Returned Gifts

Elliot hands back Maxine's medal and Ingrid's drafts, loses his camera to Ingrid, sits through a date where Daphne texts Felix all night, and wipes the hard disk of group videos he was told to cut himself out of.

I had one day left in North City, and I spent it giving things back.

Maxine found me first, at the school gym.

She was kneeling on the floor with a drill, building a clothes rack for Felix's dorm room.

"Lower," Felix said, holding his hand at his hip. "I can't reach that high."

Maxine took the whole rack apart and built it again.

I held out her first basketball medal, the one she'd won at twelve.

She had asked me to keep it safe, because she was afraid she'd lose it.

"What's this for?" Maxine said.

"I won't be around to look after it."

She didn't ask what I meant.

She tossed the medal into a box of cords and hooks.

"Good timing," she said. "Felix needs ceiling hooks. You're strong. Come help."

I stayed where I was.

"Elliot's probably busy packing," Felix said softly.

"He packs in ten minutes," Maxine said. "He's not busy."

I left.

She never asked what day I was going.

Ingrid was at the library, so I gave her the three draft essays she'd left with me to fix.

She took them, and then she looked at the camera around my neck.

I had bought that camera at fifteen, with a year of saved allowance.

Every picture of our high school years was on it.

"Leave the camera with us," Ingrid said. "Felix is making a video of his life for orientation. He needs childhood photos of the group."

"It's my camera."

"We're borrowing it."

She waved Felix over, and he came and looked at the camera with hungry eyes.

"I only want a few pictures of everybody when we were little," he said.

"You weren't there when we were little."

Felix flinched.

Ingrid glared at me.

"Do you have to be so rude? He's sad he didn't meet us sooner."

"So you want to use my past to fix how he feels?"

Ingrid lost her patience and lifted the camera bag off the back of my chair.

It held my spare lens, my charger and my memory cards, and the camera itself stayed around my neck.

I grabbed for the bag, and she stepped out of reach.

"Daphne will get it back to you when the video's done," she said.

I looked at her for a while, and then I let go.

The pictures that mattered to me were already saved somewhere else.

Bridget caught me at the gate of our street.

She tossed a hard disk into my hands without saying hello.

"Every video we've ever shot is on there. You edit better than any of us. Cut together Felix's whole life for him."

"We don't have eighteen years of footage of Felix."

"So he uses ours," Bridget said. "Cut out every scene you're in, and put Felix in your place."

I looked at the disk.

My first bike ride was on it, and our first campout, and every one of our birthdays.

They were telling me to cut myself out of my own childhood and give it to him.

"Okay," I said.

Bridget blinked.

"You're not going to argue?"

"You always say I need a few days to get over things."

She rubbed her nose.

"Well, as long as you've thought it through."

None of them had asked when I was leaving.

That night, Daphne took me to our favorite steak place.

She answered texts the whole meal.

Felix said his dorm mattress was too hard, and she ordered him a new one on her phone.

Felix said he was scared of his roommates, and she recorded him a long voice message.

My steak went cold in front of me, and she didn't notice.

"Daphne."

"Mm?"

"Do you know what I'm doing tomorrow?"

She looked up at last.

"Packing?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

She breathed out, relieved, and pushed a dessert plate toward me.

"Cheer up. Be good out there. I said I'd visit, and I will."

She leaned across the table and kissed my forehead.

"My mom's already planning Thanksgiving. You'll fly back for it, and we'll all be together again."

I didn't tell her she was lying.

At home, I plugged the hard disk into my laptop and erased it, folder by folder.

Why would I hand Felix my eighteen years and let him call them his?

I took the empty disk out and put it in a shipping box.

I addressed it to Felix, in the dorm room he'd decorated with Maxine's hooks.

It was the last present I'd ever give them.

A clean copy of our past, with me taken out.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend