Chapter 3

3.

She was wearing a sunny yellow sundress and laughed as she threw her arms around Gavin.

"Gavin!"

Only then did she notice me.

Her eyes swept over my face before she gave me a sweet, sharp smile.

"So this is the girlfriend? She's very... quiet."

"And that outfit... it's certainly something."

She giggled, the mockery in her eyes plain as day.

I looked down, nervously smoothing the fabric of my skirt.

My face burned.

My dress had cost forty dollars, but compared to her designer labels, it looked like a rag.

Gavin naturally pulled out a chair for her, asking why she had suddenly visited.

She said she was in a bad mood because of a fight with her roommate.

That afternoon, Gavin and I were supposed to go to an art gallery.

But after hearing Carly's complaints, he turned to me.

"Let's do the gallery another time, okay? I need to take Carly out for a bit to cheer her up."

I froze for a second before nodding.

Carly immediately hooked her arm through his and stuck her tongue out at me playfully.

"Sorry, big sister! I'm borrowing your boyfriend for a while!"

Nobody noticed my humiliation, not even Gavin.

That was only the first time.

After that, it happened more and more frequently.

Carly went through a breakup and called Gavin crying in the middle of the night.

He grabbed an Uber and went to her dorm to comfort her.

Carly wanted dessert from a bakery across town, so Gavin skipped class to wait in line for her.

On Carly's birthday, Gavin threw a massive party for her, forgetting it was also our one-year anniversary.

Every time I expressed my unhappiness, Gavin would say the same things.

"She's always been like this. She's like my little sister. Don't overthink it."

"We've known each other for years. Can't you be a bit more open-minded?"

"Ivy, when did you get so petty?"

The cycle of fighting, the silent treatment, and making up continued.

Every time we fought, I would eventually see his frustrated, exhausted face and be the one to reach out first.

He would pull me into a hug and say.

"Fine, fine. You're the only one I love."

And then everything would go back to exactly how it was.

Carly would still call him whenever she wanted, and he never learned how to say no.

He even acted like my boundaries were some kind of character flaw.

Until tonight, when I saw them tangled together in that hotel room.

Every excuse I had made for him shattered into pieces.

If he's so bored of me, then I'll just leave.