Chapter 2 - The Group Chat Meltdown
Aunt Sarah: Richard! What in God’s name is wrong with you?! You brought the police to Jenna’s house?!
Uncle David: This is disgusting. Madison, did you actually write 'Childcare: Jenna' on a printed schedule?!
Cousin Mark: Wait, so Jenna wasn't even invited on the trip? She’s just the nanny?
Linda: Everyone calm down! Jenna is exaggerating! She always plays the victim! She promised months ago she would help us!
I didn't reply to Linda. I turned my phone face down on the rug.
Five minutes later, heavy footsteps echoed down the exterior stairs outside my apartment window. The police officer’s cruiser pulled away, its red and blue lights flashing briefly against my living room walls.
Then came a sharp, desperate pounding on my door. But it wasn't my father this time.
It was Kyle and Madison.
“Jenna!” Madison screamed, her voice cracking with pure panic. “Open the door! Take that photo down from the group chat! Aunt Sarah just canceled her contribution for the villa rental!”
I walked to the door, leaving the heavy security chain engaged, and opened it three inches.
Madison stood in the hallway, her face white, wearing a pristine pink velour tracksuit. Behind her, Kyle was pacing back and forth, furiously typing on his phone, looking like a man whose entire world had just caught fire.
“Take it down!” Madison hissed, sticking her manicured fingers through the door crack. “My mother is on that chat! My friends are on that chat! You are making us look like monsters!”
“You are monsters,” I said calmly, looking her straight in the eye. “You left your three-year-old child in an unbuckled car seat on my floor with dried food on her face while you went to get your nails done for a Disney trip.”
“We were going to pay you!” Kyle yelled, stepping up behind his wife.
“With what, Kyle?” I asked. “With the money Dad took from my mother’s estate? Or with the money you still owe me for babysitting every weekend last summer while you two went to Napa Valley?”
“Jenna, please,” Madison wept, changing her strategy instantly, her hands folding into a desperate prayer. “The Uber is outside. If we miss this flight, we lose six thousand dollars in non-refundable tickets! Just take the kids! We’ll give you a thousand dollars when we get back! I swear!”
I looked down at the keycard in Madison’s hand, then back at her face.
“No,” I said.
“No?” Kyle roared. “They’re your niece and nephews!”
“Which is why they deserve parents who actually want them around instead of treating them like luggage to be checked at my apartment,” I said. “Take your children, Kyle. Put them in your car. Or I call Officer Hayes back right now and file an official report for child abandonment.”
Kyle stared at me like I had suddenly spoken in an alien language. For his entire life, Kyle had been the golden child. When he crashed his first car at seventeen, Dad bought him a new one and blamed the rain. When he dropped out of college, Dad gave him a managerial job at his logistics firm. When he wanted a house, Dad paid the down payment while telling me I needed to ‘learn the value of hard work’ by paying my own way through nursing school.
Kyle had never heard the word No from me in twenty-eight years.
“You’re crazy,” Kyle whispered, his eyes filled with genuine shock and hatred. “You’re actually crazy.”
“Take the kids, Kyle,” I repeated. “You have two minutes.”
I unlatched the chain, opened the door wide, and picked up Mason’s Spider-Man suitcase. I set it in the hallway. Then I took Ava by the hand and guided her out, followed by baby Ellie in her car seat.
Ava looked up at me, her big brown eyes swimming with confusion. “Aunt Jenna… aren't you coming?”
My heart broke into a thousand pieces. I knelt down, wiped a tear from her soft cheek, and kissed her forehead.
“Not this time, sweetie,” I whispered gently. “Your mommy and daddy are taking you home.”
“We’re missing the flight!” Madison screamed from the elevator, grabbing Ellie’s car seat handle violently. “We’re missing the whole damn trip because of your psychopathic sister!”
They shoved the kids into the elevator, the iron doors sliding shut between us like a vault.
I stood alone in my quiet hallway. My chest was heaving. My hands were shaking uncontrollably.
I walked back into my apartment, locked the deadbolt, clicked the heavy security chain into place, and slid down against the door until my knees touched my chest.
My phone rang.
It wasn't my family.
It was Dr. Marcus Vance—the chief of trauma at St. Mary’s Hospital, and one of the few people in Denver who knew the full truth about my life.
“Jenna,” Dr. Vance’s deep, calm voice came through the speaker. “I just saw the message you sent on the family chat. Your cousin Mark works in our radiology department and showed me.”
I choked back a sob. “Dr. Vance… I’m sorry. I shouldn't have posted that…”
“Jenna, listen to me,” Dr. Vance interrupted gently. “You have spent four years pulling seventy-hour weeks in my ER, saving lives while your family treats you like a servant. You don't owe anyone an apology.”
He paused, his voice softening. “Are you safe right now?”
“I’m safe,” I whispered.
“Good,” Dr. Vance said. “Because tomorrow morning at eight o’clock, I need you to come to the legal office on the fifth floor of the hospital. There’s someone you need to meet.”
May you like
“Who?” I asked.
“Evelyn Sinclair,” Dr. Vance replied. “She’s the head of estate law for the hospital board. And she’s been waiting three years for you to finally realize that your mother’s trust fund was stolen.”
