Never His Second Choice Chapter 09
I waved my hands frantically.
“He’s not trying to win me back. He’s just—having some kind of meltdown, I don’t even know…”
Owen laughed and shook his head.
“Lena. You still don’t understand men. You’re too good. He lost you. And when he realizes it, he’s going to come back fighting to get you back.”
He slowed the car to a stop and turned toward me. His face came closer.
The streetlight caught in his dark eyes, warm. His gaze lingered on my lips for a beat, then rose slowly to meet my eyes.
“So promise me. No matter what he says, don’t turn back easily. Okay?”
My face went red in an instant. My brain lagged a full beat before I nodded, dumbly.
He laughed softly, unbuckled his seatbelt, and walked me to my building. Then, ever the gentleman, he left.
I typed in my door code—and found the lights in my living room already on. Ethan was sitting on my couch, one leg crossed over the other, glancing at his watch.
“How did you get in here?! How do you even know where I live?!”
“Lena, I told you—you trust people too easily. Your password is always your birthday. Not hard to guess.”
Ethan’s mouth twisted upward slightly. He stood and walked toward me.
“It’s twenty minutes from your office to your apartment. This time, it took you thirty.”
He came closer. That familiar scent of his—warm and woody—wrapped around me.
“That extra ten minutes… what were you doing?”
I took two steps back, until my spine hit the cold wall. There was nowhere left to go.
I lifted my chin and forced my voice steady:
“That’s none of your business. You’re not welcome here. Please leave.”
“Then who is welcome?”
Ethan yanked me into his arms and locked me there, tight.
“The man who drove you home?”
I shoved him off with everything I had.
He didn’t get angry. Instead, he lowered his head, pressing his forehead against my neck. His voice came out hoarse and exhausted:
“Lena, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have been so stubborn about my pride. I don’t want to break up with you…”
My body trembled. I flinched away from him instinctively.
“Broken up is broken up. I’m not getting back together with you.”
Ethan’s eyes went red. There was even a note of hurt in his voice:
“But I only said it because you drove me crazy! You throw around ‘let’s break up’ at the drop of a hat—am I not allowed some time to cool off?”
I stared at him. Something inside me twisted into a bitter, ironic laugh.
“Ethan. Do you still think, even now, that I’m just throwing a tantrum?”
He didn’t say anything—but the flicker in his eyes told me that yes, that was exactly what he thought.
I smiled, and tears started sliding down my face without permission.
“Ethan, do you have a heart? For four years, you saw only Nina. You never once cared about what I felt. You already emotionally cheated on me—so how could you stand on some moral high ground and blame me?”
Ethan’s face drained white. His voice cracked as he tried to defend himself:
“Nina and I are really just friends…”
“Stop lying to yourself!”
I shoved him again.
“My anger didn’t come out of nowhere. I held it in for so, so long! She shared her daily life with you and you were never annoyed by her. She got to go to Seattle with you—all I got was ‘go back home.’ Every single one of these things, you’re going to swear to me you never once felt anything for her?!”
Ethan stood there, at a total loss. His words came out tangled:
“Lena, I admit… I admit I was attracted to her. But you have to believe me—I still love you the most…”
The tears stopped. I wiped my cheeks and pulled open the apartment door.
“Ethan, you disgust me. Please get out. Don’t come after me again. Don’t make me hate you completely.”
Ethan’s shoulders sagged. He walked out with heavy, dragging steps.
He stayed in Austin for three days. I refused to see him for any of them.
In the end, he had no choice. He flew back to Seattle.
The first thing he did when he got home was move out of the apartment he’d been sharing with Nina.
Nina stood helplessly in the doorway, watching him pack.
“Why so suddenly? What am I supposed to do without you?”
Ethan packed a few clothes and his laptop, then zipped his suitcase closed.
When he looked at Nina, his eyes were cold and clear in a way they had never been before.
“Nina. I was a fool. Are you going to keep being a fool along with me? Lena’s your best friend. I don’t believe you didn’t notice her pain, not for a single one of those four years. Both of us—we’re both disgusting.”
Nina flinched back two steps at the bluntness of it. Her face was ashen.
Ethan slammed the door behind him.
He took a job at a smaller company, trying to start over.
But he kept remembering the way I’d looked at him at the end—that pure, undiluted revulsion in my eyes.
He started drinking to numb himself. Little by little, his work suffered. Eventually, the company let him go.
With nowhere else to turn, he moved back home to Ohio, taking a dead-end clerical job at a manufacturing plant.
Ethan drifted through the days in a haze—until one afternoon, his mother mentioned in passing that I was about to get married.
He sat on the couch through the entire night.
The next day, he bought a plane ticket to Austin.
The wedding was held at a vineyard nestled in the hills—grand and warm all at once.
I stood there in a white gown, glowing under everyone’s blessings, my smile radiant and sure.
That smile was exactly the one he had once, at eighteen, sworn to protect for the rest of her life.
But the man standing beside me wasn’t him anymore.
Ethan stood far in the back of the crowd, then sank to a crouch on the ground, sobbing helplessly like a child.
A little boy in a small tuxedo walked past. Seeing him cry so hard, the boy hesitated, then toddled over on his short legs and held out a piece of wedding candy wrapped in gold foil.
“Mommy says if you eat something sweet, you won’t feel like crying anymore. Here, mister.”
Ethan took the candy, peeled off the wrapper, and put it in his mouth.
There was sweetness. There was the salt of tears.
And at the very end, an aftertaste as bitter as coffee.
He stood up. He looked, one last time, at the happy figure exchanging vows at the altar—then turned and walked, unsteadily, toward the exit.
After that, no one ever knew where he went.
(The End)