Second Place in His Heart

My boyfriend peeled the first shrimp for my best friend. Only when hers was done did the second one go on my plate. It wasn't the first time.

Whatever he gave me, she got first pick of. Whatever he promised me got pushed back for her. Across the table, she laughed and told him he'd done well tonight.

He grumbled about it, then soothed her with the ease of long practice: "If I don't keep your mouth busy, you'll start trying to break us up again." Nobody noticed that the plate I'd held out had been hanging there in the air for a long time.

I looked down at the shrimp that came after hers, and all at once I didn't want to keep making excuses for the two of them. I didn't want to be second in line for him anymore.

Chapter 1 I put the shrimp back on Harrison's plate. I thought he'd at least ask why I wasn't eating. The question never came.

When I looked up, he was busy trading jabs with Gigi, my best friend. The two of them went back and forth, and neither of them noticed me.

By the end of the meal, Gigi said she was full and told Harrison to go settle the check.

Harrison let out a longsuffering sigh. "You are going to be the death of me." Then he picked up the check anyway and carried it to the register at the front of the restaurant.

From start to finish, not once did anyone ask whether I'd had enough to eat. The clerk at the register was pushing a limitedtime anniversary promotion.

Buy a thousanddollar gift card, get a Founders Card good for fifty percent off for a full year. Harrison bought the thousanddollar gift card.

When the clerk asked whose name the account should go under, Harrison gave Gigi's phone number without hesitating. He handed the first Founders Card straight to her.

She tucked it into her purse, delighted. When he turned around to buy one for me too, the clerk cut in, apologetic. "I'm so sorry, sir. The promotion ended at eight tonight.

It's 8:01 now. You're welcome to wait for our next one." One minute late, and a lot of things are already too late. Harrison turned back and took my hand. "It's fine.

Next time you can just use hers." I slid my hand out of his without letting anything show. Waiting for a shrimp doesn't take long.

Waiting for the next anniversary promotion isn't hard either. But we'd been together two years, so why was I always the one doing the waiting?

We left the restaurant and passed a Hermès boutique on the way out. Harrison's mother was inside, trying a bag on her shoulder in front of the mirror.

Harrison had been walking beside me. Without even thinking about it, he put a step of distance between us and moved over next to Gigi.

His mother caught the two of them in the mirror and turned around, beaming. "Out on another date, are we?

At this rate I should go pick out a dress for the wedding." Harrison didn't deny it. Neither did Gigi. I had seen this before.

The first time I went to his house, his mother had taken Gigi's hand the same familiar way. "Oh, it's Gigi.

And here I was worried he'd bring home some smalltown girl from out of state. You and Harry grew up on the same street.

If the two of you ended up together, you'd have my blessing." Gigi started to say something, but one look from Harrison stopped her. Harrison came from money.

His father was a wellknown businessman, and his uncle was the dean of our college. My family was ordinary, and I came from a small town in the Midwest.

Gigi was their kind of people. I wasn't. There was never any question which of us his mother preferred.

I was holding a tin of rare singleorigin coffee beans that had cost me half a month's living expenses.

I stood there in the big house in their gated suburb, not sure what to do with myself. They talked about when they were kids, and I had nothing to add.

That day, Harrison introduced me only as a friend of his and Gigi's. When his mother took the tin from me, she waved the housekeeper over. "Lorraine, use these for everyday.

They're just taking up space in the cabinet." Chapter 2 Then Harrison's mother had the housekeeper brew the singleestate beans Gigi had brought.

She took one sip and her whole face lit up. "Trust Gigi to know how to pick something out.

This coffee smells wonderful." After we dropped Gigi off, we went back to the apartment we shared.

The door had barely shut before Harrison wrapped his arms around me from behind. "You didn't say a word the whole ride. Are you mad? Hm?

You know Gigi and I are only putting on a show for my mother.

Otherwise she'd start lining up her friends' daughters for me, one after another." I stood quietly just inside the door and didn't move. "Harrison, how much longer do you want me to wait?

Until you and Gigi get married?" "Come on, sweetheart, don't be dramatic.

You know exactly what she is to me." He turned my face toward him and brushed the tears away, his voice going soft. "Just wait a little longer.

You really want to watch my mother march me around to meet those people?" I never had the heart for that, so I waited, and then I waited some more.

And all that waiting only ever left me standing on the outside of the two of them. This year, for my birthday, Harrison had agreed, for once, to spend it with just me.

I came home after class that day. Harrison wasn't there yet. I walked into the living room and saw that someone had gone to real trouble. Pink balloons covered the entire floor.

An enormous bouquet of pink roses stood in the middle of them. There was a cake waiting on the dining table.

Looking at a whole room of pink, everything I'd been swallowing suddenly seemed very, very small. I have never wanted much.

Only a birthday surprise that someone actually put thought into. Only one evening with just the two of us. Only a heart that put me first.

As long as he kept me in his heart, I could talk myself back around. Harrison had said he'd be back by seven. As it got close, I seared two steaks and sat down to wait for him.

Outside the window the sky went dark and the city lights came on block by block. I checked my phone. Eight o'clock, and Harrison still wasn't home. I called him. No answer.

I called again, and still no answer. I hesitated, then called Gigi. It rang and rang, and finally cut off.

By the time both steaks on the table had gone completely cold, my phone rang. Harrison's voice on the other end was worn thin with exhaustion. "Gigi has appendicitis.

She's in surgery. I'm sorry, I don't think I'm going to make it back. You…" He never finished. Somewhere behind him a nurse was calling for him.

He got out a quick "Get some rest" and hung up. I stood there holding my phone in a room full of pink balloons for a long time. In the end I threw both cold steaks away.

It was nine the next morning when Harrison came back. He stopped short at the sight of me wheeling a suitcase out of the bedroom.

As I moved past him, he caught my wrist, and only then did I look up at him.

His face was worn out, there was blueblack stubble along his jaw, and his eyes were shot through with red. I had waited for him in that apartment all night.

He had sat outside Gigi's hospital room all night. How had I managed to forget?

He and Gigi grew up on the same street, twenty years of history between them, and two years with me was never going to stand next to that.

In his heart she was a mountain I was never going to get over. So it was time to stop kidding myself.

I pulled my hand free, and decided to pull myself free of the whole relationship. "Harrison, let's break up." He buried his face against my shoulder, his voice low and hoarse. "I'm so tired.

Don't be dramatic with me right now, okay? If you want to be dramatic, can it at least wait until I've slept?" And then, out of nowhere, I laughed.

Chapter 3 Harrison was always so certain. Certain that I would wait for him forever.

Even when we fought, even when I said I wanted out, he still expected me to wait. "Go to sleep, then.

I won't be dramatic with you anymore." He straightened up slowly, and what was left of the sleepiness went out of his eyes. "…What is that supposed to mean?" I didn't answer.

He got irritable all of a sudden, and his voice dropped a few degrees. "It's not like I didn't explain what happened last night. What more do you want? It's just a birthday.

You get one every year. And Gigi is your best friend too. Was I supposed to leave her there alone?" I pushed him away, laughing until I cried.

My birthday comes every year, so it doesn't matter. There is only one Gigi, so she is worth more than I am. He'd had any number of ways to handle it.

He could have called Gigi's family. He could have called her other friends. But he had to be the one sitting there himself.

Anything that had to do with Gigi always came before me, always mattered more than me.

I thought I would still be hurting, still be unwilling to let it go, still want to argue it out with him.

But somewhere in all those countless hours of waiting, I had used up every expectation I had.

My heart was empty, and so I was calmer than I had ever been in my life. "I don't want anything more.

I just want to break up." I moved back into a dorm on campus, and once I was settled, I still went to the hospital to see Gigi.

I hadn't expected to walk straight into Harrison in her room. He gave me one flat look and turned away.

Gigi picked up on whatever was in the air between us. "Jojo, are you and Harry giving each other the silent treatment again? Is it about your birthday yesterday?

It's my fault, going and getting a stomachache on your birthday of all days.

Do it as a favor to me — forgive him this once, okay?" I reached over to tuck the blanket in around her. "We're not giving each other the silent treatment.

I broke up with him." She got worked up and shifted too fast, and my elbow accidentally caught the incision on her stomach. She hissed and clapped a hand over her belly.

Before I could get a word out, Harrison came at me with a face like a storm and shoved me aside. "She just had surgery.

Can you be a little more careful?" The shove sent me back two steps, and my side hit the corner of the table.

A dull pain spread out from it, and I sucked in a breath without meaning to.

By the time the pain eased and I looked up, he was already sitting on the edge of the bed with his brows drawn, checking on Gigi.

Not once, from start to finish, did he look at me. "I'm sorry," I said, and my voice came out rough. "I didn't do it on purpose." Gigi kept her hand on her stomach.

Her face had gone a little pale, but she still gave me a smile. "It's okay… it'll stop hurting in a minute." She reached out and patted Harrison's arm. "Don't be so hard on her.

Jojo didn't mean it." I didn't stay long. I made an excuse and let myself out. The voices carried faintly through the door. Gigi was pushing him to come after me.

Then I heard Harrison say, "If she wants out, let her go. You don't have to beg her for me." A week later the school posted the list for the exchange program.

Gigi and I had both been going after those two fully funded spots to study abroad. When the results came out, one name was Miles. The other was Gigi. Mine wasn't there.

I stood in front of the bulletin board and read the sheet through three times. Miles deserved it, since his ranking in our major was higher than mine. But Gigi was on it too.

I had seen her GPA and her whole application. I was ahead of her on every single line. It shouldn't have been her.

Chapter 4 I stared at that name for a long time, until Miles's voice came from beside me. "At the review, you came out of the first round ranked number one to begin with." He was standing next to me, his eyes on the board too.

Miles was in my year and my major, the same as Gigi. We ran in enough of the same circles that we got along well.

His mother was a professor at our school, and she was on the review committee this time.

I turned to look at him. "Isn't the second round an anonymous vote?" He seemed to hesitate, and when he answered he had dropped his voice. "The dean put in a word for Gigi before the second round, privately.

Then a few of the professors changed their votes." A gust of wind came through, and the trees behind us rattled. Miles didn't say anything more. And then it came to me.

Harrison's uncle was the dean of our college. I waited for Harrison outside the building where he had class.

When he saw me, his eyes lit up, and he didn't get the chance to put that away before I went straight at him about the exchange spot. "Was it because Gigi wanted to go to the same school as Miles?

Is that why you had my spot taken away and handed to her?" Everyone knew Gigi liked Miles. He was quiet for a beat, then changed the subject. "It's one spot.

If you didn't get picked, pay your own way to the other school next time. I'll cover it." Next time. Always next time. What gave him the right to say it that easily?

He knew exactly how much I had put into that spot, how many allnighters it had taken me to get this far. And one word from him handed it to somebody else. What gave him the right!

Everything I had been holding in finally broke loose. "Harrison, I can wait for a shrimp. I can wait for the next anniversary promotion. I can even wait for your mother to like me!

But we have been together two years, so why is it always me doing the waiting? "You know exactly what kind of family I come from.

My parents went without so they could put me through school, and they never let me carry a single dollar of student loans!

Do you know my tuition came out of the two of them getting up before dawn to mix dough at that little breakfast place?

I can wait for anything, but you do not get to make me wait for my future! You don't have that right!

Nobody does!" Seeing how worked up I was, he couldn't keep the sneer out of his voice. "You two weren't the only people who applied.

What made you so sure it was going to land in your lap?

Or were you with me for the shortcut all along?" My face was streaming and I threw it right back at him. "If someone was better than me, fine.

I'd take that. "But can you tell me with a clear conscience that you never had a word with your uncle?" He didn't say anything