Done Being His Second Choice

When the acute gastritis hit, I called Blake Sanchez and asked him to take me to the hospital.

All he said was:

"Bianca Whitman's running a little fever, and she just moved to Southport and lives alone with no one to look after her. I need to get her some medicine first. Just tough it out on your own."

She was always Blake's one exception.

For three years I'd taught myself, again and again, to step aside.

Dinners with my family and friends.

He'd leave early, halfway through, because Bianca said she was feeling down and needed company.

Even the anniversary date we'd spent so long planning could be cut short by a single call from her asking for help.

I kept thinking all my patience would eventually earn me a sliver of Blake's favor.

With no other choice, I went to the hospital alone, holding the pain in by myself.

The IV drip left me nothing to do, so I idly refreshed my feed.

The newest post was Bianca's.

A photo of the warm oatmeal Blake had made for her, with the caption:

【Always caught by him, always the one he loves best.】

The wind off the street carried its chill in through the window, and at last my head cleared.

I didn't want to keep guarding this one-sided drain of a relationship, torturing myself.

I switched over and opened my email.

I pulled up the job offer the Northgate recruiter had sent.

……

There were only a scattered few people in the infusion hall.

At the care station diagonally across from me, a couple leaned into each other.

The man cupped the girl's wrist where the needle went in, blew on a cup of hot water until it cooled, then handed it to her.

I watched from a distance, and my nose stung all at once, so I looked away.

I opened my phone. The feed I hadn't gotten around to swiping past was still sitting on Bianca's post.

Bianca was the poor junior from his college that Blake had been sponsoring all along.

Blake always treated her fragility as a responsibility he had to cover.

And he was in the habit of overlooking me, who was carrying just as much.

The cramping that had seized me at two in the morning surfaced again, sharp and clear.

I'd been pulling overtime for half a month straight on a project, still running nonstop through the final push, and my stomach had been aching faintly for a while.

Before I left on a business trip last week, I'd deliberately pulled Blake over, pointed at the medicine box, and told him to restock the everyday stomach medicine when he got a chance.

He'd been bent over his phone, replying to Bianca.

He'd tossed off an "Mm," agreeing quick and clean.

But at dawn today, hurting so much I couldn't stand, I stumbled through and dug out the whole cabinet.

Every last pill was expired. Not one of them any use.

Three years of living together, and the household supplies and medicine were always bought and organized by me, in whatever spare time I could find.

Blake could never keep the laundry detergent brand straight, couldn't even tell cold medicine from fever medicine.

As if keeping this little home running had always been mine alone to carry.

With a shaking hand, I dialed Blake.

The instant the line connected, I still held on to a thread of hope.

But he didn't even ask, "Does it hurt bad?"

"Bianca just moved to Southport and lives alone, she's got a bit of a cold now, and there's no one there to take care of her."

"I need to run her some medicine first. Hold out on your own, can't you just wait it out till morning and go to the hospital then?"

The pain broke my words into pieces as I forced myself to reason with him.

"I can't hold out anymore. Drop off her medicine and then come to the hospital, okay? I'm really scared, being here by myself."

What I got back was his open impatience:

"She's just a young girl living alone on a high floor. Getting sick at night, that's dangerous for her."

"You're an adult, at least. What's going to happen if you just grab a cab to the hospital yourself? Don't be so difficult."

Does being an adult mean you deserve to bear a splitting midnight pain alone?

I gripped the burning-hot phone, and my chest went colder than the cramping in my stomach.