Five People, Four Rejections, They Voted to Erase Me, So I Erased Them novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Denied Girl

Strangers at the drugstore know her face; Corrine arrives with a hug and a spare room, and Nessa's paycheck is moved to the family fund anyway.

I did not sleep.

I watched the playlist instead, with the sound low and my shoes still on.

The oldest video was four years old.

It was titled "Will the Family Pay for Nessa's Dental Crown?"

I remembered that Sunday.

I had asked for nine hundred dollars and been told to chew on the other side.

On the screen, my twenty-two-year-old face went white, and then it crumpled.

The camera pushed in until my chin filled the frame.

Under it were forty thousand comments.

"Poor Denied Girl." "The way she tries not to cry." "Her mom looks so sad for her."

Nobody had ever written my name.

The channel called me the middle child.

The viewers called me Denied Girl.

I scrolled to the top and sorted by views.

The most-watched one had nine million.

It was called "The Winter Coat Vote."

I stopped it before I had to hear my own voice.

At seven I washed my face in the motel sink and drove to the drugstore.

The woman at the first register was a customer I had never seen before.

She stood in my line with a toddler on her hip and her phone in her hand.

"Oh my God," she said. "You're her. You're Denied Girl."

"I'm sorry?" I said.

"You got erased last night! I was crying at the part with your mom." She held up her phone. "Can I get a picture? My sister won't believe me."

I scanned her cough syrup and said, "That's eleven forty."

She took the picture anyway.

By nine, there were three more.

One of them whispered to a friend.

One of them filmed me counting pills into a bottle.

My manager came out of the back office and stood beside the pharmacy counter with his arms folded.

"We've had four phone calls this morning," he said. "People asking if you work here."

"I do work here."

"I know. I'm only telling you what the phone is doing."

I kept counting pills.

At ten, the door chimed and a hush went through the store.

Corrine walked in with a tote bag on her shoulder.

She had been crying.

Her mascara had been wiped and put back.

"Excuse me," she said to the woman filming me. "Please put that away. She's at work."

Her voice was warm and perfectly level.

The woman lowered her phone and went red.

Corrine came around the counter and put her arms around me in front of everyone.

"I couldn't sleep," she whispered. "I brought you some clothes, the soft ones you left in the hall closet. And I've got a room for you. My building has a spare. It's yours until you find a place."

I wanted to say no.

I had spent four years being the one who said no to myself.

"Why would you do that?" I asked.

"Because you're my sister," Corrine said. "Dad can be a lot."

She squeezed my hands.

On her phone, face up on the counter, a message lit the screen.

I did not read it.

I only saw that it came from a group called Ballots.

Then she turned the phone over and smiled at me.

"Go on your break," she said. "I'll wait."

In the break room, I called payroll.

I had to say my employee number twice.

"I need to change my direct deposit," I said. "From the Pfeiffer Family Fund to my own account. I'll open one today. I can bring the form."

"Oh," the payroll clerk said. "Honey. I'm so sorry. I was about to call you."

"Call me about what?"

"Your father phoned at eight this morning. He confirmed the pooled deposit stays as it is."

I put my hand flat on the lockers.

"The vote removed me from the house," I said. "Not from my pay."

"That's what he told me," the clerk said gently. "He said the vote took you out of the house, not out of the fund."

"It's my paycheck."

"I know it is. But the authorization on file is his, and yours is a joint signature." There was a pause. "He said to tell you it's still family money."

I thanked her and hung up.

Through the glass of the break room door, I could see Corrine at the counter with the tote bag on her shoulder.

She was smiling at a customer.

She looked up and waved at me.

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