Never His Second Choice Chapter 03
Nina sat by the bed, eyes red and swollen. She clutched my arm and started to cry.
“Lena, let’s promise not to fight anymore, okay? I can’t stand seeing you in the hospital again.”
Ethan walked in from the hallway. When he saw I was awake, the crease between his brows softened slightly—but the first thing out of his mouth was a rebuke:
“Lena, is hurting yourself really how you throw a tantrum?”
“You’re an adult. Can you please use your head before you do something?”
He must have realized he’d gone too far. He cleared his throat and reached out automatically to smooth the mess of hair on my forehead.
I turned my head away.
His long fingers froze in mid-air. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose, resigned.
“You’re sick and you’re still causing trouble. Why can’t you be a little more like Nina—”
I cut him off. I wasn’t going to be compared again.
“Ethan. Let’s break up.”
The air froze.
Nina composed her face and leaned toward me carefully.
“Lena, don’t say that in anger. If you’re still upset about last night, I’ll make him apologize.”
Nina tugged Ethan over. He came reluctantly.
“She’s not feeling well right now. Just give in this once.”
The shock in Ethan’s eyes had already curdled into impatience.
“Why am I always the one who has to give in? We’ve spoiled her rotten. Fine—if she wants to break up, we break up. Just don’t come crying back begging to get back together in a couple of days.”
Ethan didn’t know yet.
Once I made up my mind to walk away from something, I didn’t look back.
Nina let herself be pulled out of the room. The ward went quiet.
My phone was still buzzing. In the high school alumni group chat, people were congratulating Ethan and Nina on landing offers from a top aerospace company on the West Coast.
Lurkers who never spoke were coming out of the woodwork.
“You two are literally the real-life ‘genius couple’—for the sake of humanity’s future in space, please get together already!”
“Hey, don’t forget—Ethan is famously a ‘Lena-only man.'”
Those four words hit me strangely.
I remembered how, every time SAT scores came out, Ethan was more nervous than I was, staying up late to walk me through every wrong answer.
Everyone used to say he was going to spoil me rotten, and what would I ever do without him.
Ethan would just spin his pen between his fingers, unbothered.
“I’m a card-carrying Lena-only man. We’re never breaking up.”
The IV bag above my head emptied out. Calmly, I called for the nurse.
I opened my laptop and started filtering job listings again.
They were going to Seattle. Fine—I’d go to Austin.
Just as they wanted. I wouldn’t be the eyesore anymore.
Someone in the group chat asked for job-hunting tips.
Nina thoughtfully shared a PDF.
I recognized the formatting and phrasing at a glance. Ethan had made it.
It was packed with detailed advice—more thorough, even, than the study plans he used to make for me.
The document had been created a year ago.
So they’d been planning to leave me for that long.
My fingers scrolled absently through the chat history.
I noticed that the message pushing Ethan and Nina to get together had been retracted by an admin.
And Ethan happened to be one of the admins.
I opened my laptop and started reworking my resume.
After three straight days of applications and interviews, I got an offer from a company in Austin. Decent salary, decent benefits.
They wanted me on-site within two weeks.
I broke my lease, shipped most of my things ahead, and left with just a carry-on and a backpack.
At the airport check-in counter, my arms ached from the weight of the luggage.
As I looked up to wipe the sweat from my forehead, I saw Nina—wearing a new sundress, small crossbody bag bouncing—skipping happily up ahead. Behind her, Ethan pushed two enormous suitcases, an easy indulgence on his face.
Our eyes met. Ethan pressed his lips together. The emotions in his eyes were too tangled for me to read.