Chapter 2
1410 Words
I felt the sting like a slap, like a rejection delivered with surgical precision. I wanted to argue, to scream that nothing was ever just anything in our world, not with the stakes getting higher every season and the pack politics growing bloodier by the week. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and demand to know when I'd stopped being enough, when he'd decided I wasn't worth the effort.
But I'd already lost the thread, and he was looking past me again, this time to the door, where new arrivals were filtering in. Searching for her. Always searching for her.
Mary swept into the room with all the quiet subtlety of a comet, and I felt my heart sink into my stomach, felt the familiar dread wash over me like ice water. Even from here, I could hear her laughter. It was bright, confident, everything I wasn't. She effortlessly bent the crowd's attention around her like gravity around a star.
I tried not to notice the way Shane's posture changed, how he straightened, squared his shoulders, how the tiredness seemed to fall away from his face like he'd been holding his breath and could finally exhale. How he came alive for her in a way he never did for me anymore.
The contrast was devastating. I was exhausting. She was exhilarating.
I picked up my glass, just for something to do with my hands, to stop them from trembling. "If you want to go talk to her, you can." The words came out hollow, defeated. An offering of surrender.
Shane's eyes snapped back to me, guilt flashing in the green like lightning in a storm. "What? No, I'm right here."
But he wasn't. Not really. He was sitting beside me, but every part of him that mattered was already halfway across the room, pulled toward Mary like a moth to a flame that would burn me alive. I could feel him slipping away with every word, every polite smile that didn't quite reach the places it used to. It wasn't new. It wasn't even surprising. But it hurt all the same. It was a constant, grinding ache that I'd learned to live with, because leaving would hurt more.
I took a long drink, letting the burn drag out the moment, giving myself something to focus on besides the way my chest was caving in. "She's got some new strategy planned, I'm sure. She always does."
Shane grinned, and there it was … the old spark returning for a brief second, but not for me. Never for me anymore. For the idea of Mary, for the anticipation of her. "Yeah. She's relentless. I bet she's already got tomorrow mapped out, down to the last blade of grass."
The admiration in his voice was like poison in my veins. I knew that tone. I used to inspire that tone. Now I was just the placeholder, the warm body keeping this seat until someone better arrived.
"I'm just hoping she lets us have breakfast first," I said, and was rewarded with a laugh—real this time, warm enough to make me remember why I'd been so desperate to impress him in the first place. Why I'd stayed long past the point when I should have walked away. Why I kept setting myself on fire just to keep him warm.
For a few seconds, it felt like we might make it through the conversation intact. Like maybe I was wrong, maybe I was being paranoid, maybe he really did still care. But then the crowd parted and Mary locked eyes with us, her face lighting up with a calculated delight that made me want to claw at the table, at my own skin, at anything to make this feeling stop.
Shane waved, more enthusiastic than he'd been all night. More animated in that single gesture than in thirty minutes of sitting beside me.
"She's coming over," I said, mostly to myself, my voice barely above a whisper. Preparing for the inevitable.
"Yeah," he replied, and then, almost sheepish but not quite ashamed enough, "You don't mind, do you?"
Yes. Yes, I mind. I mind that you light up for her. I mind that I've become invisible. I mind that I'm losing you to my own sister, and there's nothing I can do about it because she's better than me in every way that matters, and we both know it.
"Of course not," I lied, and tried to brace myself for the collision I knew was coming. The moment I became invisible ... again. The moment I stopped existing as anything but an obstacle between them.
Mary reached us in a matter of seconds, trailed by a flock of admirers and a haze of expensive perfume that made me feel shabby and small by comparison. She greeted Shane first—of course she did—her hand resting on his arm just a second too long, her touch proprietary and confident. Then she turned to me, and I saw the flash of something in her eyes. Pity? Victory? Maybe both.
"Leah," she said, voice syrupy and bright, laced with false warmth. "I see you've kept our future champion company."
Our. Not your fiance . Not even Shane. Just... ours. Like he was communal property she was graciously letting me borrow.
I mustered a smile that felt like it might crack my face. "Someone has to keep him out of trouble."
Mary laughed—that perfect, tinkling laugh that made everyone around her smile—and slid onto the bench beside Shane. Between us, even though there was barely room. Inserting herself into the space I'd been desperately trying to fill, claiming it effortlessly.
The two of them fell into conversation so smoothly it was like they'd been rehearsing it for weeks, their words flowing like water while I sat there, a stone in the current. I faded, my presence reduced to a background hum as they volleyed stories and plans back and forth. Inside jokes I wasn't part of. References I didn't understand. A whole relationship I wasn't invited to.
I watched the way Shane leaned toward her, how his face relaxed, how he laughed—really laughed—at her jokes in a way that made something inside me shrivel and die. Every time I tried to interject, my words felt small and brittle, shattering before they hit the air. They didn't even notice when I spoke. Or maybe they did, and just didn't care.
After a while, I gave up on the conversation entirely and just sat there, staring into my glass, watching the foam dissolve like my hopes. I felt invisible, untethered, like a ghost watching her own funeral. This was it. This was what it had come to. Sitting beside my fiance while he fell in love with my sister, pretending I didn't notice, pretending it didn't kill me a little more each time.
Nobody noticed when I stopped talking. Nobody cared when I slipped out a few minutes later, letting the door close behind me with a soft, final click that echoed in the empty corridor.
I made it three steps before my knees buckled and I had to brace myself against the wall, pressing my forehead against the cold stone as the tears finally came. Silent, hot, furious tears that I'd been holding back all night. All month. Maybe longer.
I was losing him. No—I'd already lost him. I just hadn't been brave enough to admit it yet. We were engaged by name only. Something in him shifted and it felt like the harder I tried to hold on the farther he slipped from me.
And the worst part? I didn't know how to let go. Didn't know how to walk away from someone who'd stopped holding on months ago. Didn't know how to stop loving someone who'd already chosen someone else. I wanted to have that complete family again so bad that I continued to lie to myself. I continue to let myself be disrespected and mistreated. When was it enough?
The door opened behind me, spilling light and laughter into the corridor, and I quickly wiped my face, straightened my spine. Someone passed without looking, and I was grateful for the mercy of their indifference.
I stood there in the darkness, alone, and wondered how much longer I could keep doing this. Keep pretending. Keep breaking.
Keep being invisible.
- Writer
