I Stepped Out of the Shadow of His Favor Chapter 02

I Stepped Out of the Shadow of His Favor Chapter 02

My fever broke slightly the next morning. When I walked to the entryway, I saw a new pair of pale pink soft-soled house slippers next to the shoe rack. They weren’t mine.

I opened the cabinet and found my spare shoes were pushed all the way to the back, coated with dust, while the pink slippers sat front and center.

Lane came out of the kitchen with a glass of water. He noticed me staring and explained casually.

“Chloe drops by now and then to wait for me. Hard shoes bother her bad back, so I picked these up for her. Don’t overthink it, it’s just a simple favor.”

I nodded. I didn’t ask why she felt comfortable waiting at our place, or why her things were placed alongside mine.

I went to the fridge for milk. A sticky note on the door, in Lane’s handwriting:

[Chloe’s restrictions: No cold drinks, no spicy food, lactose-free only.]

I remembered how, when I was sick the night before, he’d only told me my medicine was on the coffee table. The whole milk I always drank was gone, replaced entirely with lactose-free.

Lane stepped beside me. “Her stomach’s been acting up lately. I figured you wouldn’t mind drinking this, so I switched it over real quick.”

[After all, you can drink this, you’re healthy, and you’ve always been reasonable.]

I poured a glass of the lactose-free milk. It tasted bland, nothing like what I was used to.

Lane watched me take a sip and ruffled my hair. ” Come on. Don’t be upset with her—she’s sick.”

I gripped the glass and almost laughed. I’d been running a 102-degree fever last night, yet all he could remember was that Chloe couldn’t stand cold air.

I opened the medicine cabinet for fever reducers and only to find expired cold medicine inside. He never kept track of when my medicine went bad, but he always had Chloe’s medicine stashed in the car.

My phone pinged with a family group chat message. Lane’s mother wrote:

[Is Chloe’s neck feeling any better? Lane, remind her not to sit in the cold breeze.]

A moment later, Lane replied: [Don’t worry. I fixed the car vents for her last night.]

Other family members chimed in right away.

[Lane’s always so attentive.]

[Chloe hasn’t been feeling well, so it’s good you look after her.]

No one asked why I’d been quiet last night. No one knew I’d been burning up with fever. I squeezed my phone. It turned out that to his whole family, Chloe was practically part of the clan now Yet I, his girlfriend who was about to marry him, was just a bystander.

Lane left for work that morning. I went into the home office to gather paperwork. At the very bottom of the filing cabinet were all the SUV documents, including the down payment receipts. Sixty percent from me, forty from him.

I remembered him joking on the day we paid for the car that he’d be my personal driver for years to come. Now the memory felt bitterly ironic.

I turned on my laptop and logged every expense into a spreadsheet: the down payment, monthly installments, insurance, maintenance, parking fees, and traffic fines. I also listed every partial payment Lane had sent me over the years.

I’d never bothered tallying these things before. I’d thought love and partnership meant not keeping score. But when you finally decide to leave, you realize you can tally up every penny, but never the grievances in your heart.

Lane came back partway through the day to grab some work files. I quickly switched my screen to a blank work document. He didn’t notice and wrapped his arms around me from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder.

“You still feeling rough? Let’s grab a nice dinner out tonight.”

If it hadn’t been for how he’d fussed over Chloe’s neck pillow the night before, I might have fallen for his warmth all over again.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I have work to finish.”

He sighed softly. “You’re always pushing yourself too hard like this.”

I stared at the blank screen and didn’t turn around.

It was true. For six years, I’d bent over backward to be understanding, to accept always coming in second. But not anymore.

Once Lane left again, I reopened my banking app and scheduled an early payoff for the auto loan. The app confirmed it right away, and I chose not to add the reminder to our shared calendar.

Once upon a time, our shared calendar had been filled with plans for each other. It was the first time I had ever kept this big decision out of his loop entirely.