Chapter 2

I'd been kicked out of the family group chat, but I was still at Jared's birthday party, and some of the people there had been reading the chat. When they saw me, they pointed and whispered.

Their whispering didn't scare me. Going through a night like this had made a few things clear to me.

The party wasn't over yet, but I decided to leave early.

I didn't say goodbye to Kent. I'd sent him all those messages in the group, and he hadn't answered a single one. He thought he was the angry one. Nobody seemed to care that I was angry too.

When I reached the door of the banquet hall, the floor manager greeted me.

I was a regular here. Most of the Pruitt family's various parties were ones I booked.

This time was no different. Normally I paid a deposit when I made the reservation.

But after hosting a few birthday parties for my in-laws, the split Rachel had agreed to always ended up coming out of my own pocket in the end.

And the credit for it all went to Kent.

I used to not mind these things. We were family, I figured, no need to keep score. But the way Cicely and my sister-in-law Rachel behaved today truly opened my eyes.

On my way out, I told the floor manager, "For tonight's balance, just go find someone named Rachel Pruitt. It's her daughter's birthday today."

The floor manager didn't argue, and I left with an easy heart.

Back home, I took a nice long bath. It had been ages since I'd soaked in the tub, so with a bit of time on my hands today, I did.

Maybe an hour passed. When I picked up my phone again, I found over thirty missed calls and dozens of messages.

What had happened?

I opened it and looked. Plenty of people had called: Cicely, Rachel, and of course Kent, plus a few numbers I hadn't saved.

I didn't know what they wanted, calling me like this, and I had no intention of calling back.

The messages were from the same handful of people.

I opened Kent's chat and saw what he'd written: 【Anita, you didn't settle the balance for tonight's party?】

The next one: 【The floor manager came asking Rachel for it. Rachel was so angry her face went red. Hasn't Jared's birthday always been something you arranged?】

【Just because of one small thing today, you left early, and on top of that you dumped this whole mess on us. Rachel and Mom are about ready to lose it. Get back here, now.】

What a joke. Why on earth would I listen to him and go back?

What Cicely and Rachel sent was more or less the same as Kent's, all of it criticizing me, and not one of them realizing they'd done anything wrong.

They set up the mess. They could clean it up themselves.

I opened the notes app on my phone. It was full of things I needed to take care of soon.

August 22, book Dad's medical checkup appointment. August 26, take him to get his dentures replaced.

September 1, pick up Mom's blood pressure medication.

September 3, Kent's checkup.

Notes like these, I organized every month. Keeping track of these things for the family had become my daily job ever since I got married.

It even included things about Rachel's household. A lot of that, I was the one keeping track of too.

Jared got a gift from Kent every year on her birthday, and that was only because I reminded him.

Now, thinking about it, what was the point of any of it?

Do it well, and the credit was Kent's. Do it poorly, and it was my fault. There was no point at all.

I thought about it for a moment, then deleted all the notes. From now on, I'd live only for myself.

Once the notes were cleared, I cleared my shopping cart too, because I noticed there wasn't a single thing in that full cart that I'd bought for myself. There wasn't even anything for my own parents.

While I was on my phone, Kent and Cicely kept calling, over and over, but I didn't pick up any of them.