They Rejected My Daughter novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Group Chat

I read all forty replies standing at the counter with Ruby's head under my arm.

Most of them were hearts and prayer hands.

A father wrote: Those people always think the rules don't apply to them.

A mother wrote: I heard she barged into the principal's office and made a scene.

Another said: Single mom, no wonder. Poor kid.

Ruby's shoulders went tight against my side.

"I didn't barge," I said, to nobody. "I knocked three times."

"Mom," Ruby whispered. "Can I answer them?"

"With what?"

"With the score report. With the real list. I have all of it."

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

I set the phone face down on the counter.

"Because they're not asking for the truth," I said. "They're asking Mrs. Staniforth how to feel. If you hand them a score report tonight, she will have an answer for it by breakfast."

"You think she'd say it was fake."

"I think she would say you were a gifted girl who needed to be handled gently, and she'd say it with a hug."

Ruby's mouth went flat.

She had her father's mouth, the straight one that went flat when she was thinking.

"So we just let them?"

"We let them say everything," I said. "People say more when they think no one's counting."

My ordinary phone buzzed in my hand.

A private message from a number I did not know: I am so sorry about all of this. My son was cut two years ago. I never said anything. Please don't tell anyone I wrote.

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