Tucker coaxed Kelsey into cooking with him. My brothers stood around her, laughing and chatting. Not one of them spared me a glance.
Then my phone vibrated. I looked down and saw a message from my lawyer.
[The divorce process will be completed in one week.]
I stared at that line for a few seconds, and strangely, my heart settled.
Right. Why was I still stressing over what was true or not? I was about to be divorced anyway. And I was leaving for Canada soon.
Who my brothers cared about. Who Tucker chose to be kind to. None of it had anything to do with me anymore.
As for the Severins' money, whether they wanted to give it to me or not, part of it was mine by right in the first place!
I didn’t stay for that tasteless, miserable dinner. I just took a cab back to the apartment Tucker and I shared and started packing.
In the master bedroom closet hung all the matching pajamas and lounge sets I’d picked out for us.
I stood there for a while, then packed every single piece into a box.
I was the only one who ever cared about those things anyway.
When Tucker wore them, he never cared whether they matched. He never even looked at me.
The plants in the corner of the living room—I’d picked and raised each one based on his preferences.
The racing models on the bookshelf—I’d hunted them down one by one for him.
Tucker never once asked where any of it came from.
It was like those things just naturally belonged there.
This apartment was filled with traces of me.
And yet, the things that actually belonged to me were pitifully few.
Honestly, before Kelsey showed up, I could endure a lot.
Tucker being cold—I endured it. His being bad at expressing himself—I made excuses for him.
I’d even thought that if he fell for someone else one day, I might still have a chance to pull his heart back.
But it just had to be Kelsey.
The foster sister who’d lived through those dependent, difficult years with him.
A past he could never cut away from his life.
They shared more than ten years of memories.
That kind of bond and reliance never left any room for me—not from the start.
In the month since Kelsey arrived, I saw for the first time how Tucker truly loved someone.
I knew then—he fully intended to go on loving her quietly for the rest of his life, in the name of being her brother-in-law.
But why did I have to be the one sacrificed?
I’m not some idiot who exists just to be used!