He Treated Me As Her, I Chose His Brother

Rowan Shaw and I had been married for three years to the day. I went out that morning and picked out a Ragdoll kitten myself. It was the promise we made back when we first fell for each other. We would raise a kitten together. I still remembered the way his eyes smiled at me, the small beauty mark just beneath one of them catching the sun. "I want to build a home with you, Evie." Instead, I was the one standing outside that door, hearing every word he said on the other side. "Zoey's still in the hospital. You expect me to sit around here and wait? Get out of my way!" "Rowan, come on. Today is your third anniversary with Evelyn, and you bailed on the first two already. This is a bad look." Rowan let out a short, ugly laugh. "Anniversary. As if that marriage ever meant anything. Zoey is the only one I have ever wanted, and if Evelyn hadn't latched onto me and refused to let go, Zoey and I would've been together years ago." "Quit blocking the door. Evelyn isn't family. She's Rowan's lapdog and nothing else." Someone else picked up the thread from across the room. "Exactly. Rowan never wanted Evelyn to begin with, and even if he had, three years is long enough to get bored of anyone." Footsteps came closer, and then Rowan shoved the door open and walked out. Seeing me standing there stalled him for maybe a second. Then he squared his shoulders like he had every right to say what came next. "We can do the anniversary any day of the week. Zoey is sick. Be reasonable for once and let me go take care of her." I didn't argue with him. I only nodded. He tore out of the house. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen Rowan move that fast for anything. His friends drifted out after him, one or two at a time. I caught pieces of their conversation as they passed me. "Zoey nicked her hand. That's the whole emergency. And Rowan goes flying out of here like it's a code blue?" "You don't get it. Zoey is the one that got away. The woman he actually married, Mrs. Sh... Evelyn, she's just a stand-in." So that was all I had ever been to him, a stand-in. That night, the dinner I had spent hours on went warm and then cold, the flowers in the vase folded in on themselves, and I sat there until the sky turned gray. Rowan never came home.