"Most days now his loss is a part of her, an awkward weight she carries around, invisible to everyone else."

—Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind

Stories don't always start out like this. The betrayal usually comes in the middle so that it can be resolved before the end, but not mine. No, mine begins with what I like to call The Betrayal That I Never Saw Coming. Although, to be fair, I probably should have. Not because there was ever an indication that the love of my life was really into the person that I was so close to once that we'd even shared a womb, but because when it came to Katie, there was simply nothing that stood in the way of what she wanted and if I had it, she wanted it.

She didn't steal him from me if that's what you're thinking―not exactly. As my father had so uselessly pointed out, Brian and I had been broken up for about six months prior to the big announcement, but I guess to me it still felt like just yesterday.

For us regular folk, six months is hardly enough time to get over someone, let alone fall for someone else but for those who were truly blessed in the art of letting go, it was more than adequate and since Katie was involved it was obviously a no-brainer, because who'd ever choose me over sunshine Barbie.

That statement doesn't mean that I'm insecure in any way, I'm simply saying it like it is. Katie was and always will be someone who can manipulate her way into any situation and if you weren't careful you'd get sucked into the whole innocent act that she had going, but then again, those of us who really knew the real Katie, knew that she was anything but.

Growing up, I used to think that it was just impossible for anyone to dislike my sister. She was too nice, too loving—too fucking nauseating. She was the good girl, the one that was going to make our parents proud, the family doctor. Me? I was the family disappointment, of course. I don't lose any sleep over it though, I've learned to play my role just like she's learnt to exploit hers.

It was too much to stand in Katie's majestic glow of morality, so I chose to disengage all together. But I mean, who can really blame me? I wouldn't. If all that you do is try and your efforts are never rewarded then what's even the point of trying in the first place? Katie's efforts were rewarded tenfold while mine were frowned upon. I realize that I probably sound jealous, but I assure you, I most certainly am not. It's just the truth.

Do you know what it's like to know that you're the kid that would be sacrificed to save the other? I imagine that some of you know exactly how much that fucking hurts and it does― it really, freaking does. Whether it was intentional or not, our parents favored her and maybe that's where our problems essentially started.

But, on to more recent things: I've been hurt before, sure. Everyone's been hurt and let down more than once in their lives, but they learn to live with it and eventually they move on. I used to think of myself as one of those people. The type that shrugged the pain away and just said 'fuck it' and truly meant it, but apparently, I'm not. Apparently, I was the other type. The type that loved to wallow in self-pity; the type that lay awake for hours obsessing over the 'what ifs' and then cried themselves to sleep at night simply because there was no other way to actually get some peace.

I thought that I'd experienced true heartbreak before but that ache was nothing compared to what I was currently feeling. Back then I was sad and pissed all at the same time, but this time there were no words to describe my predicament and I didn't know if I was going to survive it. I wasn't sure how I'd get over all the butterflies in my stomach dying. Because that's how this breakup felt, like all the butterflies just died.

***

I sat up in bed thinking about the day that lay ahead. It had been two weeks since Katie had dropped her bombshell and even though I'd said that I was doing fine, I really wasn't. I was barely coping. Some might even call me a wreck.

Although all that I wanted to do was stay in bed for the next three months and grieve for all that I'd lost, I knew that it was an unrealistic goal. So, I set out to get myself ready to leave my sanctuary and hoped to God that I'd somehow find the strength to face the day and whatever awaited me.

I forced myself to put first one foot, then the other onto the ground and wobbled a bit the way you do when you've been in the same position for so long that your body forgets what exactly it's supposed to do now, shook my legs out and left the room.

"Hey, love," Hailey, my one true friend, in fact my only friend, said when I walked into the kitchen to get some caffeine into my system. "You're up early."

"And you're here," I said, forcing a smile as I poured myself a cup of coffee from the pot that she'd just brewed. "Why am I not surprised?"

Hailey and I were roommates in college. We'd met in our freshman year and have been practically attached at the hip since, although I've been known to have tried on numerous occasions to undo our friendship.

It wasn't that she was annoying or even that I didn't like her, I just preferred to be by myself, that way I wouldn't have to deal with the devastation that comes with losing someone that took up a huge chunk of my heart. I didn't ever want to feel that kind of pain again, but fate as usual had other plans and try as I might, Hailey and I always found our way back to each other.

She unscrewed her highlighter's cap and got to work basically coloring half her textbook before turning to me. "Well, you didn't text me back last night, what was I supposed to do?"

"Not use the key that I gave you for emergencies, to break into my house."

"It's not breaking in if I have a key, stupid," she muttered, turning another passage an ugly lime green color. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," I said, letting the lie roll off my tongue. "For the thousandth time, I really am."

I took my final sip of coffee and headed to the sink to wash the cup. I turned on the tap and let the hot water blast my hands. I should've pulled them away or tried to regulate it to something warmer, but I needed to feel a different kind of pain. I wanted to be distracted even if it was only for a minute so that my mind wouldn't have any time to wander to Brian. I was sick and tired of the way it was so one tracked that it always found a way to incorporate thoughts of him into everything.

I couldn't read a book without remembering how much he too loved reading and how we'd sometimes have our own little contests to see who had the resilience to stomach the other's favorite genre. I was more of a fantasy girl while he preferred documentaries and autobiographies. Needless to say, I usually lost those by a stretch.

I couldn't even eat without thinking of how he liked to add an extra helping of salt to his dishes just because he knew how much it pissed me off and how he'd rile me up and then took pleasure in calming me down.

He was the only person that I didn't hate fighting with, just because I knew that we'd always find a way to make it right before the night was over, because he couldn't sleep knowing that we were mad at each other―because our love was so strong, there was nothing that could have torn us apart.

But something did. One day there was no making up before the night had turned to day and the next morning the love that I'd thought was unbreakable, broke and along with it my heart.

"Dude, be careful," Hailey shouted, pulling my hands out from under the running water and me out of my reverie. "What the hell were you trying to do?"

"Nothing," I mumbled, accepting the wet hand towels that she'd run under cold water and wrapping it around each hand. "I guess I got distracted."

"You're so not fine," she accused. "Why won't you let me help you, or at least let me refer you to someone who can?"

This was an argument that I didn't care to have, so I just gave her a tight smile and rolled my eyes like it was no big deal. "You worry too much, you know that?" When she didn't return my smile, I sighed. "I've got to get ready for work."

"You shouldn't even be going to work," she chastised me as I unwrapped the towels and hung them along the sink to dry.

"It's a breakup, not the end of the world, Hails. I'll be fine."

We faced each other, me with as sincere a smile as I could muster and her with her arms crossed and a frown on her face. A strand of her fiery red locks had fallen loose and she blew on it to get it out of view. I hugged her then. "I'll be okay. I promise."

She didn't say anything, she didn't need to. She simply put her arms around me and squeezed.

I watched her warily as she returned to the four-person table that was tucked into the corner and flipped the page of her textbook, signaling the end of our conversation for now. With a sad smile, I made my way back to my bedroom.

I'd just wrapped my towel around me when I heard the landline ring. I knew that it had to be him because no-one else called that thing anymore, in fact I didn't even know why I was still paying for it. He would've called my cell if I hadn't blocked him after that first phone call after the announcement, so now he was forced to find other alternatives.

What's sad is that he's called me more times in the last two weeks than he had during those six months that we were apart. It was comical how life worked sometimes. When I had desperately wanted to hear his voice, he was too busy making other plans to even return my calls, but now that I wanted nothing to do with him, he refused to leave me alone.

The ringing stopped after a minute and then Hailey was knocking on my bedroom door. "Tay," she said when I opened the door. "You don't have to take it if you don't want to. I'd be happy to tell him off for you."

I shook my head. "He'll just keep calling." She nodded and handed the phone over to me before gently closing the door behind her.

"What is it now, Brian?" I sighed into the phone. "Another empty apology?"

It was silent for a moment before I heard a sigh that matched mine. "I don't know what else to say except that I'm sorry, Taylor. I'm so sorry for the hurt that I'm causing you―"

"No, you're not," I said, cutting him off mid-lie. "Because you wouldn't take it back if you could. You knew how much it would kill me but you did it anyway." I laughed then. "As if breaking my heart once wasn't enough for you, you had to stomp all over it too with this shit."

"People fall in love―"

I interrupted him again. "Don't you dare tell me about love. You of all people have no right to tell me that you fell in love with her. Maybe you get to say that you're sorry and maybe you even get to feel sorry for me, but don't you fucking dare tell me that you love her."

"I just want you to understand how―"

"I don't want to understand anything when it comes to you two," I said as calmly as I could. "All that I want is to be left alone. Do you think that you could do that for me? Can you kindly leave me the fuck alone?"

"I'm sor―" he started to say again but I hung up.

I squeezed the phone in my hand and thought about sending it crashing into the wall. I didn't even realize that I was crying until I found myself being enveloped in a hug so fierce, it cut off my circulation for a bit. "Can't. Breathe," I wheezed, pulling myself out of Hailey's embrace as my tears hit her neck.

She didn't say anything as she handed me a wad of tissues and I continued blubbering like a baby. She was still standing there silently when I finally stopped crying long enough to remember the reason that I was in the room in the first place.

After a minute of us just standing there, I patted her arm as though she was the one in need of comfort and made my way to the bathroom to wash my sadness away.

***

I was good at feeling sorry for myself, but ironically, I hated it when other people pitied me. Hailey's eyes followed me as I gathered my bag and sweater and lingered as I slipped my favorite pair of sneakers on and I'd had just about enough. "Stop it," I instructed. "You know how much I hate that look."

She cleared her throat and proceeded to gather her own things. She stuffed her books and papers into her bag and then gave me a smile as fake as a three-dollar bill. "I'm sorry, it's just weird for me to see you so shaken up. It sounds stupid but you never cry, remember? I think I'm just in shock."

I rolled my eyes and picked up my keys. It wasn't true that I never cry, I just never cry in front of others. I hated feeling weak, but since I have no choice in the matter when it comes to dealing with affairs of the heart, the least that I could do is suffer in silence and cry when I'm alone. "Come on," I said throwing my arm around her as we walked to the door. "You're already late."

I forgot to mention that Hailey was currently in med school and also worked part-time at the hospital, so her busy schedule should have made the trip to my house in the middle of the night, pretty much impossible, but she was the type of person who could do it all and still be on top. I guess she figured that making sure that I was okay was more important, but it was a stupid move if you ask me. I wasn't that off my rockers that I needed a babysitter... right?"

"I'll call you later," she promised as she unlocked her car. "Or I'll just come over."

I chuckled and got into mine. "Oh, God, please don't."

She honked once as she drove away and I sighed before heading in the other direction.

I arrived at the bookstore that I worked at with one minute to spare before I was officially dubbed as late and sprinted to the room that hardly deserved the title employee lounge. In fact, the only things that even qualified it to be one were the twin ratty, semi-comfortable sofas that took up half the room. We also had something that was once a coffee-maker but now only did its job if you hit it really hard and that was on a good day.

"You look tired," Connie, my co-worker said by way of greeting as she passed me on her way to the mini fridge.

"I'm always tired, what's your point?" I asked as I took a seat on the sofa closest to the windows. She might have replied but I didn't hear her response. I was too busy staring out into the parking lot, remembering the very first time that I'd introduced Brian to my family.

Katie wasn't there for the initial introduction but she came later and it's funny that the fact that they'd hit it off so well that day didn't strike me as worrying until now. I guess I'd probably chalked it up to the fact that they had a lot in common, they were both super smart and unlike me, they actually cared about their grades. But to be fair, I was eighteen, I wasn't thinking that three years down the road we'd be smackdab in the middle of this pickle that was our entwined love lives.

The notion that Katie and I shared the same taste in men, made me want to throw up.

If someone had told me a few years ago that we'd be in this predicament I'd have laughed in their face because there was no way in hell that I'd have ever thought I'd be into anyone that was into her. In high school, I'd specifically made sure that my taste in guys varied so far from hers that it probably gave our parents nightmares, so this whole Brian situation was really getting on my nerves.

Connie groaned as she plopped herself down beside me. She propped her feet up on the rickety coffee table and opened a can of soda. "All I've had for breakfast is coffee and Plan B, I am so hungry, Tay."

I grunted in response. Normally I wasn't an active participant in Connie's rants so I treated this one the same and as usual she didn't even notice that she was basically having a conversation with herself.

"Mmm," she said in between sips. "Have you heard the good news?"

I sighed and shook my head, wishing that I was at home right now instead of slacking off in the breakroom. I was already wary of this one-sided conversation but Connie didn't get the memo. I wasn't even interested in whatever the 'good news' was.

I'd learned a long time ago that good news for someone else didn't necessarily mean that it was going to be good news for me, too. Like the time that our parents' idea of good news was that we were going to be spending the summer on our uncle's farm. Katie was overjoyed at the prospect of sucking up to a new household for three glorious months, while I was horrified at just the thought of it. Even though we were only eleven at the time, I already knew that that's what the rest of my life held.

Connie poked me and gave me a bright smile. "Millie's finally found a replacement for Nina."

I raised my brow but didn't return her smile. Nina's position was a part-time one, she'd quit about two months back for reasons that I didn't care enough to ask about and it was high time that we had a little more help around the bookstore. Although, now that I think about it, we didn't have that much to do on a daily basis to begin with.

"God, I hope he's hot," she said, sighing dreamily.

I rolled my eyes and this time a smile actually made its way onto my face. "Me too, Con. Me too."

"I'm not paying you two to sit around on your asses all day!" our boss Millie screeched from the doorway a minute later. I groaned but got up anyway to head to the front. "Hang back a minute, Evans," she said to me as I passed her.

"Mhmm," I said after Connie had left and we were alone. I had a feeling I knew where our conversation was headed and I was already preparing myself for the anger that it would cause.

"How are you?" She was looking at me with pity in her eyes and a sad smile on her lips. "I can't imagine that it's easy for you dealing with all this shit," she continued when it became apparent that I wasn't going to grace her with a response.

I've lost count of how many times in the last two weeks I've had to avoid that conversation. Even strangers felt the need to weigh in on our tangled web of deceit and that was perhaps the worst injustice of them all.

People were careless and just never thought about who might be listening while they publicly discussed our mess. Most times it was me standing behind them in the checkout line while they gossiped about what an unfortunate situation it was, but also how much of a better fit Katie was for him.

The first time that it happened, it'd felt like I'd had the wind knocked out of me and it had taken everything in me not to react after the initial apologies upon realizing that the subject of their conversation was standing right there. After the third time, I gave up completely on going anywhere that I might run into anyone. With the exception of work, I stayed my little ass at home and suffered in silence without the added bonus of the village idiot telling the second runner up how great Katie was.

Maybe they didn't mean to be insensitive assholes, but their words still cut as deep as a double-edged knife would and I was still bleeding.

"Anyway," Mille said with a slight eye roll because there was absolutely nothing genuine in her prying. "I've got someone here who'll be filling Nina's old spot and I'd like you to meet him."

"Why me?" I asked, hating that I sounded whiny. "I think greeting people is more of Connie's thing than mine, don't you think?"

"You're the most senior one here besides me, so no, it's not Connie's thing today." She sighed and reached out to touch my arm. "I know that you've got a lot going on but can you please try to let out a little of that sunshine that I know you have in you? First impressions are everything."

I fixed a smile so wide, it threatened to break my face and nodded. She looked to the ceiling and then ushered me through the adjoining door that housed her office.

There was a guy sitting in one of the desk chairs, holding the morning paper up so that it obscured his face. He was dressed in faded blue jeans, a gray t-shirt that hugged his body and sneakers with so much character, they could probably tell you his life story. I raised my brow and waited for Millie to announce my arrival.

She cleared her throat and he lowered the paper, sporting a grin that made me wince.

"No fucking way," I swore under my breath. Seated before me was the reason that I was even on the road the night that I'd met Brian, my first real and most important heartbreak; Jamie O'Connor.

"Hello, beautiful," he greeted me with a smile that made me want to pick up the nearest object and chuck it at his head. "It's been way too long."

"Oh, fuck my life."