No dignity.
No posture.
No beautiful-pageant-girl composure.
Just pain.
“But I chose you,” I whisper, crying now in earnest, too far gone to stop it. “After. I stayed because I wanted you.”
That one hits him.
I see it.
For one aching second I think maybe—maybe that matters enough to tip something.
Then his gaze shifts.
To Stella.
And I know I’ve already lost.
It happens before he says it.
Before he breathes it.
Before he chooses himself in that cold, brutal way that somehow still isn’t the clean choice I need it to be.
He looks at her like there’s still an entire war sitting under his skin where she’s concerned.
She looks back like she knows it.
And suddenly I’m not a girl at a table anymore.
I’m collateral.
He says something to her about not flipping a switch.
About her walking away and coming back like he still belongs to her.
About choosing himself.
It hurts.
All of it hurts.
Because even in his anger, even in his refusal, there’s too much feeling in the way he speaks to her.
More than he ever gave me.
More than I wanted to admit while he was kissing me and walking me to class and building T&T out of routine and almosts.
Then he says it, that he’s choosing himself.
Taking a page from her book.
‘Thank you for showing me how.’
And then he leaves.
