No Longer His Second Choice

2: 2

My stomach heaved. I made it to the bathroom and retched for a long time, but nothing came up.

I'd disliked Vivian since we were kids, for one simple reason: her mother was the mistress who tore my family apart.

My parents divorced the year I turned six. Less than two months later, my father brought a new woman into the house, and holding her hand was Vivian, only four months younger than me.

From that day on, I became invisible in my own home.

My father and stepmother never mistreated me. But their eyes only ever saw Vivian.

From middle school on, I lived at boarding school, because I was the extra one in that house and I didn't want to be treated like empty air.

Even my mother grew sick of me after my father's affair. After she remarried, she rarely came to see me.

The year I finished high school, I wanted to apply to a school abroad I'd always dreamed of. I knew that studying overseas wasn't an unreasonable request given what my family could afford.

I offered to take a part-time job to ease the burden. In the end, all it took was one sentence from my father to make me give it up: "We don't have that kind of money to waste on you."

But when Vivian did poorly on her SATs and threw a fit at home for a few days, my father offered to send her abroad without a second thought.

"Go do your bachelor's first. If you want a few more years after that, apply for a master's, a doctorate, whatever you like. Your father earns money so you can enjoy your life."

Favoritism. It was the one thing I'd always ached for.

Until I met Austin. I thought he was the exception.

I pinned every hope I had about love on him, and what I got in return was this laughable.

My father chose divorce over my mother for another woman, and I was only Austin's second choice, the settle-for after he couldn't have Vivian.

It came back to me all at once. There was a night I got drunk and poured everything out to Austin.

I told him I was always the one overlooked at home, the one given up on, that everything good went to Vivian.

Back then I never noticed the relief in his eyes when I told him how happily Vivian had grown up.

The man I thought loved me above everyone had only ever seen me as her stand-in, and I'd still been begging him for love.

The comments were split. Some people were shipping them; plenty of others were tearing them apart.

"No, seriously, dragging it out before was one thing, but flirting like this while you've got a new girlfriend? Do you not find yourself disgusting?"

"Your sister's got the worst luck, stuck with a sister and a boyfriend like you two. She should run."

"Gross. I'm going to stick around just to watch you two crash and burn."

Vivian ignored all of it. Austin, though, replied to them one by one.

"It's all one-sided on my end. I have no feelings for my current girlfriend. Stop attacking her."

"If she were willing, I wouldn't choose anyone else. I'd only ever be with her."

"She has her own dreams to chase. She could never give up her studies and her whole life for me, and I understand that."

The insults below kept coming.

"Did anyone force you to be with your girlfriend? If you can't let go, then lock it down already. Why ruin someone else in the process?"

"Eating what's in your bowl while eyeing what's in the pot, and then setting yourself up as some devoted lover on top of it. You've really got the whole game figured out."

"If you loved her that much, why didn't you wait for her to come home? Would a long-distance relationship have killed you?"

Austin kept replying: "It was me drinking poison to quench my thirst. I love her too much. I can't accept a life without her, not even a shadow of her. Call me a scumbag all you want, but don't attack her."

"She wants to keep studying, and she might stay abroad to work later. She was thinking of me when she suggested we break up. From start to finish, I was the one who couldn't let her go."

"I didn't eat from my bowl while eyeing the pot. My current girlfriend and I have never done anything. The only person I've ever loved is her. Please stop attacking her."

Austin wasn't lying. He and I really had never done anything.

Even holding hands only happened the few times I reached for him first and he didn't pull away. I'd been foolish enough to think it was because he respected me too much.

Now I understood. If you truly loved someone, how could you hold yourself back?

Because of what Austin wrote, the arguments in the comments died down, and even more people started shipping them.

By now Vivian's account had gained a fair number of followers, and no one cared that behind those sweet-looking little moments was the wounding of one innocent person.

Back in the room, Austin lay drunk on the bed.

When he saw me come in, he suddenly sat up and stared into my eyes for a long time.

Then he pulled me in and kissed me.

Something we'd never once done in three years.

I froze. But before I could react, I heard the name that came out of his mouth.

"Vivian, don't go."