At my engagement dinner, I pushed both passes across the table to my sister.
I kept neither.
One was a VIP pass that granted access to the main hall.
The other was a plastic wristband that only got you into the side room to watch a livestream.
When my fiancé laid them out, he’d told me to choose.
I really did choose the VIP pass.
He took it from me at once and hung it around my sister’s neck with his own hands.
“She’s representing the young scholars. She has to be at the main table.”
“You like quiet,” he’d added, turning to me. “The wristband suits you better.”
I looked at my now-empty hand and suddenly found the whole thing ridiculous.
If the outcome was already decided, why ask me to choose at all?
Because they liked watching me reach for the better thing.
Then watching it be given to my sister.
And in the end, I was supposed to take the lesser option and say it was fine.
I’d been through that kind of choice too many times.
When we were kids, they put two summer camp brochures in front of us.
My sister chose Switzerland, so I had to stay at a camp nearby.
When it was time to apply to college, everyone encouraged her to aim for the best school she could get into.
The moment I mentioned my dream school, they persuaded me to choose a safer state university instead.
Even love had worked the same way.
My fiancé had always been close to my sister.
It was only after she left for Oxford that he started seeking me out.
When he proposed, he told me the past was over.
I believed him.
I even thought that getting engaged meant that, for once, I had finally been chosen without hesitation.
But here we were at my own engagement dinner, and he was still thinking first about where my sister should sit.
As for me, the fiancée, I was only fit to watch my own engagement party on a screen in the overflow room.
My sister held the VIP pass and said softly that she really needed it.
I didn’t fight her for it.
But I didn’t take the wristband the way I always had before.
I pushed both items toward her.
“You can have them both.”
“I’m not choosing anymore.”
Maybe they thought I was being mature again, stepping aside with grace.
Only I knew the truth.
What I shoved away this time wasn’t just two passes.
He Chose Her Over Me So I Chose Myself Chapter 43 There was no Mercer name beneath it, and no story about luck. Only my signature. On the first day of class, Eli’s brother handed out materials. He placed blue, red, and gold glass into separate little boxes and let each child choose for themselves.
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He Chose Her Over Me So I Chose Myself Chapter 42 A year later, the storefront next to the studio became available. The landlord set two keys on the table in front of me. One led to the current studio. The other led to the space that could become an expanded weekend classroom. “June, which
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He Chose Her Over Me So I Chose Myself Chapter 41 Before moving out, he opened his computer and looked at the vows one last time. Every “June” still bore the scars of Find and Replace. He didn’t edit the document again. He simply deleted it. Those were never vows for June. At last, even
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He Chose Her Over Me So I Chose Myself Chapter 40 After the foundation scandal, the Mercer family all but disappeared from the media. The board abandoned family-image-centered publicity entirely, and every charitable project was shifted to independent review teams. My adoptive parents remained donors, but they could no longer stand in front of cameras
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He Chose Her Over Me So I Chose Myself Chapter 39 I looked at that neat row of color, warmth spreading through my chest. “Okay.” Footsteps sounded outside. My adoptive parents stood at the far end of the lobby. My mother had grown thinner. My father was still dressed in an impeccable dark overcoat. They
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He Chose Her Over Me So I Chose Myself Chapter 38 The stained-glass installation took two full months. When I fitted the final piece into place, Eli stood below the ladder with his hands at my waist to steady me. “A little to the left.” “Are you sure?” “Not at all.” He looked up at
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He Chose Her Over Me So I Chose Myself Chapter 37 The day before the submission deadline, Camille came to see me. She stood outside the studio and, unlike last time, didn’t push the door open herself. “Can I come in?” I set down my glass cutter. “If you need something, you can say it
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He Chose Her Over Me So I Chose Myself Chapter 36 The theme for the library’s stained-glass competition was *Home*. I sat at my workbench for three days without making a single cut. My old home had been a very large house. My photographs hung on the foundation’s publicity wall. My name was printed on
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He Chose Her Over Me So I Chose Myself Chapter 35 He spoke slowly, as if every word scraped his throat. “I treated your love like something that would never expire.” “It expired.” “I know.” Grant lowered his head. “The Beacon Hill house is back on the market. I never gave Camille the key to
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He Chose Her Over Me So I Chose Myself Chapter 34 On the day the correction notice went live, Grant came to my studio. He didn’t bring jewelry. He didn’t bring property papers. All he had was an old cardboard tube tucked under one arm. “These are the design sketches you left at Beacon Hill.”
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