The Summer I Was Nobody’s Choice Chapter 05

The Summer I Was Nobody’s Choice Chapter 05

In a private room at a restaurant, Dad frowned at his phone, swiping up again and again.

No new messages.

“Dad, what are you looking at?”

Chloe poked at her salad, bored. She’d already forgotten the argument.

She was the baby of the family. She did whatever she wanted.

Even if she tore the roof off, Mom and Dad would tell her she’d done it beautifully.

Fighting with her quiet older sister was nothing.

“Nora hasn’t replied.”

Dad’s gut told him something was off.

His brow was furrowed, his fingers tapping the table in a rhythm.

I wasn’t acting like myself.

The old Nora would’ve explained, maybe even cried.

This time, she’d said nothing and ignored the opening he’d given her.

“Ugh, Dad, why do you care?”

Chloe rolled her eyes, chewing a lettuce leaf.

“The fridge is full of stuff she bought. She won’t starve.”

She snorted.

“Look at all that fruit in there. Mangoes, grapes, all of it high-sugar. Nora really spoils herself.”

“She should see how heavy she’s getting.”

The truth was, I was five foot seven and weighed less than a hundred pounds.

Nowhere near heavy.

Clack.

Mom set her fork down hard.

“Chloe.”

“She’s your older sister. Show some respect.”

Chloe rolled her eyes again, her resentment toward me growing.

My brother sat beside her and glanced at the flush on her neck.

“That’s enough. You really went too far today.”

“Whatever else she is, she’s still family. We have to live together.”

“Apologize when we get home.”

Mom nodded approvingly.

She and Dad had always competed, but at least Ryan and Chloe got along.

Still, when she thought of my face-always shadowed with resentment-a flicker of irritation crossed her

eyes.

Nora was nothing like her. She skulked around like a little gray mouse.

She’d asked herself a hundred times why the child she’d carried in her own body had turned out so ordinary.

But she never once thought about how she and Dad had poured every ounce of their energy into Ryan and

Chloe.

There was nothing left for me.

Barren soil doesn’t bloom without water.

When I was little, every holiday, Dad took Ryan to Grandma Miller’s house, and Mom took Chloe to Grandma

Brooks’s house.

I was the leftover.

No one wanted the extra kid.

Relatives whispered and shot them strange looks.

Why did one child have a different last name?

Was there something no one was talking about?

So, to keep things fair, my parents invented the wheel.

Who I’d stay with? Spin it.

Who’d go to parent-teacher conferences? Spin it.

Who’d drive me to school? Spin it.

Of course, those rules only applied when Ryan and Chloe didn’t need anything.

The moment one of them did, the wheel disappeared.

And I was left alone again.

A child who grows up overlooked eventually learns how to disappear.

I didn’t reply to a single message all through dinner.

Dad didn’t think about it again. He turned away and forgot.

On the drive home, Chloe sang happily in the car.

She was in such a good mood she talked the whole family into going out for dessert.

They didn’t get home until after midnight.

Usually, no matter how late they came back, I left a light on in the living room.

Tonight, the house was pitch black.

Chloe tripped over the trash can and fell hard.

She let out a shriek so loud it set off the motion-sensor lights on the stairs.

The light switch wasn’t by the door. It took my brother a moment to find it.

Click.

The lights came on, and the living room looked impossibly empty.