Not Your Second Choice Anymore

At dinner, Ethan peeled one of the shrimp I loved.

Without thinking, I held out my plate.

His hand passed right over it.

He dropped the shrimp into Lena's bowl instead.

Lena smiled as if he had finally met her standards. "Look at you. You can be trained."

Ethan snorted. "If I don't keep your mouth busy, you'll spend the night trying to break Flora and me up again."

Only after he peeled a second shrimp did he put one on my plate.

Throughout our two-year relationship, whatever Ethan gave me came after Lena. I thought I had learned how to wait without letting it hurt.

But staring at that second shrimp, I suddenly didn't want to be his second choice anymore.

I picked it up and returned it to his bowl.

Some small, foolish part of me expected him to ask why I wasn't eating it. He didn't notice. He and Lena were already trading insults across the table, smiling with the ease of people who had shared twenty years of private history.

When we finished, Lena leaned back and announced that she was full. Then she pushed the check toward Ethan.

"Go pay."

He sighed. "You're impossible."

But he took the check.

Neither of them asked whether I had eaten enough.

At the register, the hostess told Ethan the restaurant was running an anniversary promotion. Put a thousand dollars on an account before eight, and you got a half-price dining card for the whole year.

Ethan paid without blinking.

"What phone number should I attach it to?" the hostess asked.

He recited Lena's.

She accepted the membership card with a delighted little gasp and slipped it into her purse.

Then Ethan looked at me, as though remembering there were three of us. "I'll open one for Flora too."

The hostess checked the clock and winced. "I'm sorry. The promotion ended at eight. It's eight-oh-one now."

"Can't you make an exception?"

"The system closed it automatically. She'll have to wait for the next promotion."

One minute late, and the chance was gone.

Ethan came back and reached for my hand. "It's fine. Next time, just use Lena's account."

I slid my hand out of his.

Waiting for a second shrimp wasn't difficult. Neither was waiting for another sale.

But after two years, why was I always the one being told to wait?

Outside, Lena looped her arm through Ethan's as though the membership card were a prize they had won together. She was already talking about coming back the following weekend.

"Flora can come too," she added. "We'll use my discount."

Lena meant it to sound generous, and that made it worse. The card was supposed to be for both of us. Now it was hers, and I was expected to be grateful when she let me borrow it.

Ethan opened the passenger door for her because her heels hurt. I stood beside the rear door with my hand on the handle.

He finally noticed. "What's wrong with you tonight?"

Lena laughed. "She's jealous because I got the first shrimp."

"Don't start," Ethan told her, but he was smiling.

That was how it always worked. Lena turned every hurt into a joke. Ethan brushed it off because it sounded petty. And if I said it mattered, I was the unreasonable one.

I climbed into the back seat and watched their reflections while they argued over music. For the first time, I did not try to join in.