I Refused To Be His Second Best Chapter 06

I Refused To Be His Second Best Chapter 06

That night, Stellan called me seven or eight times and sent over a dozen WhatsApp messages.

He kept promising to pay for me to go on the self-funded exchange program instead.

I didn’t reply.

I blocked him.

Three days after the list went up, I got a call from the school.

Ronan had withdrawn from the exchange program for personal reasons.

The spot went to me-next in line.

I stared at my phone for a long time after hanging up.

I called Ronan and asked why.

He said, “I couldn’t stand the way it was handled.”

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll go self-funded.”

He said it like it was nothing.

But I knew what he was doing.

He was giving me back something that should’ve been mine.

The same words-self-funded-had sounded like charity coming from Stellan.

From Ronan, they were just a quiet reassurance.

“Ronan.”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“If you really want to thank me, buy me dinner sometime,”

he said, his voice soft.

My eyes burned.

“Okay,” I said, voice cracking. “Anywhere you want.”

Ronan had confessed to me once.

Good-looking. Smart.

Both parents professors.

He and Stellan had been the two names everyone talked about since freshman year.

The girls who liked them could’ve lined up from the lecture halls to the cafeteria.

That year, the school forum ran a poll for campus king.

Ronan and Stellan were neck and neck.

Faye showed me her phone, certain.

“I voted for Ronan! No contest. Handsome and smart.”

She talked about him all the time.

Her eyes lit up every time his name came up.

That’s how I knew she really liked him.

She confessed in our freshman year.

He turned her down.

She cried all night in the dorm, and I stayed with her.

A few days later, Ronan confessed to me.

I said no without thinking.

He was blunt. “Is it because of Faye?”

She was part of it.

She liked him, so he was never going to be an option for me.

But that wasn’t the real reason.

I shook my head. “I like someone else.”

He smiled bitterly and didn’t press.

At the door, he turned and said, “Then I hope you get what you’re wishing for.”

So when Stellan finally told me he liked me, I thought-finally.

I’d gotten my wish.