Four Seats for Them. None for Me.

Chapter 4

The three of them took Lydia shopping, going from one end of the street to the other.

Their bags filled with new clothes and all kinds of snacks, all bought to cheer her up after she'd cried.

Trying to make me jealous, Vincent sent me photo after photo of himself posing close to Lydia out on the street.

I looked at them without feeling a thing. I wasn't going to waste another moment being jealous over him.

I muted him and booked a ticket for the high-speed train to Bellhaven the following evening.

Not long afterward, Vincent tagged me in the group.

Vincent: Lydia's singing in the graduation show. Her backup dancer can't make it. Bea, you'll have to fill in.

Lydia followed with a pleading sticker and a message.

Lydia: Please, Bea. We bought you a dance dress while we were shopping today.

I refused outright in the group.

Beatrice: I'm not available.

Whenever Lydia needed someone to clean up a mess or make a sacrifice for her, that person was always me.

When she'd injured her hand, Vincent had told me to wash her clothes.

When she didn't feel like going to an elective class, he'd told me to go to the classroom and sign in for her.

I'd long since had enough of him assuming I'd always put Lydia first.

No one cared how I felt. No one understood how hard all this was for me.

That evening, Vincent actually barged into my room, frowning. "Why won't you do this one little favor for Lydia?"

I gave him a helpless look. "I don't want to be her backup dancer. Why do you have to force me?"

He wanted to make Lydia happy, yet he kept making me do things I didn't want to do.

Even the fried chicken at the hospital had been spicy because she liked it. He hadn't given a thought to whether I could eat it.

Vincent looked down at me, his voice softening. "The graduation show means so much to Lydia. She's been rehearsing for 2 months. Will you help her, just this once? I'm begging you. If you don't, she'll always regret how her college years ended."

Stunned, I stared at him as a painful tightness gripped my chest.

Vincent, who'd always been so full of himself, was pleading with tears in his eyes.

For the first time, he'd swallowed his pride and begged me, his own girlfriend, for help. And it was all for another woman.

But I was leaving on the train the following evening. I truly couldn't help, so I tried to turn him down gently.

"I have plans tomorrow night. I really can't be there. Please find someone else to help her."

The pleading vanished from Vincent's face. He snatched the photograph from my desk and threatened me openly. "If you won't dance in the show, you're not getting this back."

It was the only photograph of my parents I had left after their deaths.

"Give it back!"

Panicked, I reached to grab it, but he dodged me and moved to the door.

"Bea, I don't want to force you either. Help Lydia tomorrow, and I promise I'll give it back."

Then he turned and ran.

My heart sank, and it hurt so much that tears streamed down my face.

He knew exactly how much that photograph meant to me.

Since Mom and Dad died, I'd looked at it every day and told them how much I missed them.

Now he'd taken the photograph I turned to when I missed them and used it against me. He'd hurt me so cruelly, all for Lydia.