Half-Month Cruise Took the Dog, Not Me; I Quit This Family

1: 1

My parents said this year was a fire-and-water year, that being around water would bring wealth and smooth sailing through life.

So they used my scholarship money to book a family cruise, half a month at sea, five spots total.

While I was packing, Mom put a hand out to stop me. "We're one spot short. You'll have to sit this one out."

I gave a bitter smile. "Mom, Dad, plus me and my sister and brother, that's exactly five people, isn't it?"

My sister threw her luggage down. "If Lucky can't go, then I'm not going either."

My brother looked at me with disgust. "Lucky's a golden retriever, a water dog. He loves the water more than anything. You're really going to fight a dog for a spot?"

Dad pressed a hundred-dollar bill into my hand. "Lucky is your sister's emotional support dog. He can't be away from her. Just stay home and amuse yourself for a few days. Stop comparing yourself to your sister over everything."

Mom wrapped an arm around my sulking sister, Dad talked down my angry brother, and the four of them and the dog left me nothing but their backs.

A few minutes later, my brother posted something pointed on social media:

【No annoying tagalong is such a relief~ What a beautiful trip.】

The house was empty. Just me.

Five chairs in the living room. Mom's and Dad's, my sister's and brother's, and Lucky's.

Every meal, I stood off to the side. Even reaching in for a bite of food got me a look for being in the way.

I opened the chat and replied to my academic advisor, the one who'd been urging me to go abroad for a classified research program.

Five years, sealed off from everything. Perfect. I wouldn't be in their sight.

1:

I didn't take the hundred. I let it drift down beside Lucky's bag of freeze-dried treats.

A memory flashed through my head, my sister cradling Lucky and cooing to a classmate on the phone:

"Right, Lucky's the whole family's darling. A two-hundred-gram bag of freeze-dried treats costs two hundred dollars. Imported beef, all of it. His food alone runs a few hundred a day."

I looked right, at the shoe rack by the door.

Packed with my brother's Nike AJs and every kind of sneaker, lined up neat and spotless.

Mom, Dad, and my sister each had their own dedicated shoe cabinet.

Only mine sat alone at the door. A single pair of slippers, and a pair of canvas shoes with the soles worn through.

The slippers had been chewed up by Lucky. Only half was left.

That had blown up into a huge fight.

Except I wasn't the one who started it. My sister came at me, swung the half slipper, and slapped it across my face.

"Deidre Fox! Did you do this on purpose? If Lucky eats your slipper and gets sick, I will end you!"

Cupping my stinging, burning cheek, I tried to explain.

"I already left the slippers by the door. You opened it to grab a delivery and didn't shut it, that's how Lucky got hold of it. And even though it broke into two pieces, they fit back together, so he probably didn't actually swallow any—"

Before I could finish, Mom reached over and pinched hard at the soft flesh at my waist.

"Talking back to your sister again? When you're wrong, you apologize, plain and simple. No excuses!"

My brother pulled a face at me too. "Shame on you, Dee. Little liar."

Under my parents' pressure, I lowered my head and apologized to my sister.

Then she demanded I bow and apologize to Lucky.

Eyes stinging, I looked at my parents. Neither of them said a word.

The moment I bent over, I saw the canvas shoes on my feet, washed pale.

My sister had bought them a size too big by mistake three years ago.

When Mom handed them to me, her tone was pure charity. "Your sister's feet are so small, only a size six. Here, you wear them."

Mom never once realized that I, a good bit shorter than my sister, wore a size five and a half.

But I said nothing. Because the moment I said something, I'd be left with nothing.

Hard to imagine, in a household pulling in a million a year, that I lived this wretchedly.

The reason was simple. I was the second child. The cream stuck between two cookies.