They Left Me Out of Their Group So I'll Leave Them Out of My Life novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Left-Behind Phone
Corina reads a family chat on her cousin's phone that plans a celebration dinner for her brother and calls her petty. She films it, walks into the restaurant, cancels the $1,400 monthly tuition transfer at the table, and gets a text that the tuition account will lock Friday.
My cousin left her phone face up on my couch and went to take a shower.
It buzzed twice while I was folding towels next to it.
I only meant to slide it out of my way.
The screen said: Dinner at the steakhouse tonight, 7 o'clock. We're toasting Colby's grades!
Colby is my little brother.
Nobody had said a word to me about a dinner.
My cousin never locked her phone, so I opened the message.
It was a group chat with four people in it: my dad, my mom, Colby and her.
I was not in the chat.
The first message on the screen was from Colby: "Just us tonight. Don't tell Corina."
Under it, my mom had written: "Of course not. She works so hard, let's give her a quiet night."
Then: "She's so petty. Remember the apple?"
I remembered the apple.
I was nine and Keely was eight, and she took one bite out of every apple in Grandma's fruit bowl and put them all back.
I took the bowl away from her.
She screamed, and for eighteen years my family has called that a fight.
My cousin Keely had written: "I've got her home till 6:30. Movie night, Thai food, she's thrilled lol."
That part was true.
Keely had asked me this morning if I would stay in with her tonight, her treat, because I work too hard.
My dad had written: "Table's booked. I'll get the check."
My mom answered: "No, Russ, I've got it. It's handled."
I held up my own phone and filmed the screen while I scrolled to the top.
The chat was two years old.
It had started in July.
The shower stopped.
I put Keely's phone back exactly where it had been, screen up.
She came out in a towel turban, smelling like my shampoo, and smiled at me.
"Did you eat?" she said. "I'm ordering Thai. My treat."
This week she had already fixed my cabinet hinge and alphabetized my spice rack.
"Your phone buzzed," I said.
She glanced at it and turned it over.
"Oh, that's just my yoga group. Aunt Bernice keeps asking about you, you know. She misses you. Call her Sunday."
"I'm going out for a minute," I said.
"I can go! Stay, I'll get the movie ready for 6:30."
"I'll be right back."
I took my keys and my coat and left her standing in my kitchen.
Lindell's Steakhouse has a long front window, and my family had the table in the middle of it.
My dad was laughing with his whole chest.
My mom was straightening Colby's collar.
On the table sat a small cake with blue frosting that said Congrats Colby.
I stood on the sidewalk for a minute.
Then I went in.
The hostess smiled and asked if I had a reservation.
"I'm with them," I said, and I walked past her.
My mom saw me first.
Her face didn't change at all.
She stood up with her arms already open.
"Corina! Sweetheart. We were just about to call you."
"Pull up a chair, kiddo," my dad said. "They do a ribeye here that'll change your life."
Colby looked at the bread basket.
"I read the chat," I said.
My mom put her hand on my arm.
"Honey, sit down. Whatever you think you saw, we can talk about it over dinner."
"Congratulations, Colby," I said.
"Thanks," he told the bread.
The couple at the next table had stopped eating.
I took out my phone and opened my bank app.
Every month for two years, fourteen hundred dollars of Grandma's money had gone to the account my mom opened for Colby's tuition.
I tapped the transfer and pressed cancel.
The app asked me if I was sure.
I was sure.
"That was the last one," I said.
My mom's smile stayed exactly where it was.
"Corina, you're upsetting your father."
My dad was looking at the cake.
So I stepped out.
I walked back through the restaurant with every table watching me and sat in my car with the engine off.
My phone lit up on the passenger seat.
It was a text from my mom: "Put it back tonight, honey. Colby's tuition account locks on Friday."
I read it twice.
In two years I had never seen the school's website or the account itself, only the photos of the receipts she sent me, taken on her kitchen table.
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