Strings of Fate: The First Loop

chapter 36 : the ghost in the byline

the invites i sent sat untouched, like unopened letters in a ghost town mailbox.
it’s almost funny, in a cruel, bitter kind of way, how attention can feel like a currency and I’ve gone broke waiting for the atm to work again.

i scrolled up, further and further, watching the tone of our conversations shift like a slow death. from comfort to coldness. from constant to convenient. from intimate to invisible.

i held the phone tight, like it might explain itself.

instead, my mind did what it always does, turned on itself.

you’re being dramatic.
people drift.
he’s busy.
you’re making this about you again.

but underneath all of that noise, the quiet voice whispered a deeper fear: you’ve been replaced. you just haven’t signed the papers yet.

and still, i wait.

like some dog, preconditioned to sit still and wag its tail until the bell rings. hoping for the next treat. the next crumb of affection. the next “hey” or “missed you” like a bone thrown across the fence.

god, i hate freud.

i throw my phone onto the bed and bury my face into the pillows.
the silence presses against my skull.

it’s not even about James anymore. Not entirely.

it’s about the version of me i became around him. the one who listened. who stayed. who remembered his secrets, his music, the way he used to hum when he thought no one could hear. that version of me is sitting in a corner now, patient and punished, for caring too much too long.

and i don’t know how to untrain her.

a soft knock pulls me out of the silence.

"olive?" my mom’s voice, muffled but gentle. then the door creaks open before i even say anything. she never really waits for permission. she just walks in, slow, careful steps, as if she knows she’s entering a world mid-collapse.

Marjorie Reyes.
i look at her and think, this is what second place looks like.
not bitter. not loud. just… quietly enduring.

the kind of woman who has spent her life learning how to be content with almost. my father’s secret lover, then his secret partner, then his secret family. and maybe that’s the worst part. that we are both just secrets dressed in civility.

and i wonder, is that all I am?
second to his heart.
second to Betty.
second to everything i’ve ever wanted to be first in.

“what’s wrong?” she asks, her eyes soft, but wary.

i sit up slowly, burying the scream I don’t have the strength to let out. “mom…” my voice cracks. “does it really hurt? to not be chosen?”

she doesn’t flinch. she walks over and sits beside me on the bed, resting her hand on my back like she’s done since i was a little girl with a scraped knee and no language for heartbreak yet.

“yes,” she says. no sugar-coating. “yes, baby. it hurts in a way that nothing else quite does.”

i nod, not sure if i want to cry or bite my tongue until i bleed. “so what do you do? when you’re not picked?”

she exhales slowly, and for a second, her face is someone else’s, a girl my age, maybe younger, learning to swallow her pride for someone who never made her a promise.