Second Best-Part 3
1170 Words
The hallway to the groom’s chamber was silent.
Emily walked alone.
Her heels echoed faintly against the polished ivory floors of the Veligrad Imperial Hotel, but inside, everything was louder—memories, regrets, fragments of a story that had never quite become hers.
She hadn’t imagined it this way.
Fifteen years ago, she believed in the kind of love that bloomed in libraries. A soft look across the stacks. Fingers brushing while flipping the same textbook. The quiet thrill of being chosen—not because you were convenient, but because you were enough.
She had even pictured the dress. Ivory silk and lace. Hugging her ribs like a promise.
But the man standing at the end of this hallway wasn’t Daniel.
And that changed everything.
Daniel had been her best friend. Her anchor. Her safe place. The first person who ever made her feel worthy of being protected, not used.
She had loved him. First like a girl, with silent hope and scribbled initials.
Then like a woman—cautiously, reverently, completely.
But he had always loved someone else.
Sarah.
The girl from another city. The one with golden curls and a laugh like summer rain. The kind of history Emily couldn’t compete with—even if she’d tried.
So she didn’t.
She stayed close.
She stayed kind.
She stayed invisible.
When Daniel left for college in the States, she smiled through her heartbreak.
He was going to study economics, follow in his father’s footsteps. She stayed behind in Veligrad, enrolled in the national engineering program. They promised to keep in touch.
They meant it. Until they didn’t.
Three years later, Sarah died in a car crash.
Daniel vanished.
He returned only for the trial. Quietly. Didn’t tell anyone. Emily found out through someone else, and when she finally reached him, he wasn’t Daniel anymore. He was wreckage in a suit.
“They let the bastard walk free,” he had said. “The judge looked me in the face and said, ‘It’s not fair, but it’s the law. If you want real justice, go kill him yourself.’”
She remembered freezing at those words.
“This world is hell for the weak and the good, Emily,” he said. “To protect them, someone has to become strong. Someone has to become bad.”
That night, he asked her to leave.
“You can’t do anything for me here.”
So she left.
Because she always did.
⸻
Four months passed.
Then one message: I’m in Veligrad. Want to meet?
They met at a rooftop café near the Sarienne ferry port. He looked calmer. Sharper. But there was something else too—a guarded light in his eyes.
“I met someone,” he said. “Emma. Two years below us at school. You might remember her.”
Emily had nodded.
“She’s beautiful. Kind. Unexpected. We just… clicked.”
Her heart had cracked cleanly. But she smiled like a soldier saluting the battlefield that buried her.
“I hope she makes you happy,” she had said. “You deserve it.”
That was the last honest conversation they had for eight years.
⸻
She watched him from afar.
His wedding photos. His daughter, Lily. Emma’s hand on his chest in every frame.
She told herself she was fine.
Until the high school reunion. The first time she’d seen him in years.
Emma was gone.
“She left me,” he said simply.
“What happened?”
“I tried to build a life where everything was possible. But in the end, I lost her.”
Emily didn’t push. She never did.
But later that night, Brian slid into the seat beside her at the bar.
Polished. Predatory. The teenage menace in a man’s frame.
“Don’t you want to know the truth?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“Your little hero? He played the market with someone else’s name. Crashed a hedge fund. Took the fall with Emma’s signature.”
Emily’s glass slipped from her fingers.
Her brain whispered Daniel’s words like a warning:
You have to be bad to protect the good.
⸻
That same night, she found him again.
“Is it true?” she asked.
He didn’t pretend. “Probably.”
“You’re not that man,” she whispered.
“I am,” he said. “Maybe you just finally grew up.”
She should’ve walked away.
Instead, she looked him dead in the eye and said:
“I like you, Daniel.”
His expression cracked.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I’m tired of pretending I don’t. I’ve always liked you. Through high school. Through college. Through every version of you I had to watch from a distance.”
He didn’t answer.
“I waited,” she continued. “I respected your grief. I respected your silence. But I’m thirty-two. I’m done being quiet about it.”
She paused. “Can we try?”
He hesitated. Then nodded.
“Let’s try.”
⸻
They tried.
Four months of shared dinners and muted laughter.
Of quiet s*x in her apartment and him leaving before morning.
Of Emily memorizing the curve of his shoulders but never touching his heart.
There was no fire. But there was something steady. Predictable. Safe.
Until it wasn’t.
One night, she called him for dinner. Found him in her study, holding a photo of his wedding day.
He was crying.
She stepped back without a word. Waited.
Twenty minutes later, he emerged from the shadows.
“I have to go,” he said. “Something came up.”
At the door, he paused. “I thought I could do this. But I’m still in love with Emma.”
Tears stung her eyes. “I know. I always knew. But I can’t be second best.”
He nodded. “You deserve more.”
She smiled. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Daniel.”
⸻
Now, standing in this hallway, memories clung to her like lace soaked in rain.
She wasn’t walking toward love.
She was walking toward a decision she made when she was tired of losing.
The groom’s chamber was just ahead.
The door opened before she could knock.
Brian stood there. Tall. Self-satisfied. His dark eyes gleaming with something she didn’t want to name.
He scanned her from head to toe.
“You look better than usual,” he said. “Good job. At least you managed to look like someone who belongs beside me.”
Her chest tightened.
She didn’t argue.
She didn’t blink.
Instead, she whispered: “Shall we go?”
He offered his arm with that familiar, hollow grin.
“Let’s,” he said.
⸻
And together, they walked into whatever came next.
But this time, Emily didn’t pretend.
She wasn’t the girl who waited.
She wasn’t the girl who begged to be loved.
She was the woman who made a choice.
And for once, it wasn’t about being right.
It was about being done.
⸻
- Writer
