Chapter 16

Ameline: What are you doing this summer?

Gabe: I'm working at a private practice as a receptionist and nurse assistant, while getting my EMT certificate.

Ameline: Is nurse assistant a thing?

Gabe: Nah, it's more like I'm their bitch. They send me to fetch coffee, clean things, and file. I like to call myself the nurse assistant.

Ameline: :laughing: emoji

Ameline: Aren't you starting med school?

Gabe: Yep. This is my way to convince Aunt Aspen that I might be a good pediatrician. :wink: emoji

Ameline: So this is like your job interview, even when you won't start for another ten years?

Gabe: Something like that.

Ameline: You're a very strange person. Who finishes high school at sixteen? At twenty-one you're about to start med school and have two degrees.

Gabe: An associate degree and a college degree. It's different. But that doesn't matter. Like you, I have to fill out some prerequisites for my parents before I start living my life.

Ameline: You're going to be a pediatrician?

Gabe: I'm undecided, but that might be my field. How's your summer camp?

Ameline: I hate it, but at least being a counselor means I get to have some fun despite my stepmother's rules.

Gabe: She has rules?

Ameline: I'm not supposed to party.

Gabe: Somehow I think she's going to miss bossing you around when you leave your house.

Ameline: You know what Izzy told me the other day?

Gabe: What?

Ameline: Helen wanted children and Dad told her I was the only minor she'd have, so to enjoy it while I was at home. Izzy thinks that's why she's so obsessed with being like a mother to me.

Gabe: She's done a pretty crappy job at that.

Ameline: If her plan was to have children I don't understand why she would marry Dad.

Gabe: She probably thought he'd change his mind.

Ameline: But he had a vasectomy a long time ago. Now I feel a little bad for her. That doesn't justify the way she does things, though. It's crazy at best.

Gabe: I won't judge her then.

Ameline: While you pretend not to judge her, I'm going back to work, my lunch break is over. Wish me luck.

Gabe: Good luck. :shamrock: emoji