The dismissive laugh echoed in the tight space of the Aston Martin, and a wave of nausea rolled through Ava's stomach. The jet lag, the emotional shock—it was all churning into a bitter cocktail. The color drained from her face.
She pressed a hand to her mouth, the leather of the seat feeling cold and slick against her skin. "I think I'd just like to go home, Ethan. I'm not feeling well." It was a plea, a desperate attempt to escape the inevitable collision course he had set them on.
Ethan's brow furrowed in annoyance. "We're almost there. Just wait a few minutes." His tone was final, dismissing her discomfort as a minor inconvenience.
He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out another bottle of water, this one with a small, pink, fluffy keychain attached to the cap. He thrust it at her without looking. "Here."
Ava stared at the keychain. It was a physical manifestation of the other woman, a fluffy pink piece of evidence of her own foolishness. The sight of it made the nausea worse. She shook her head, unable to speak, and turned to stare out the window at the blurred lights of SoHo.
He pulled the car over to the curb. A moment later, a woman with bright blonde hair and a body poured into a designer dress was tapping on the window. Morgan Stone.
The moment the door unlocked, she slid into the back seat, leaned over the console, and captured Ethan's mouth in a searing kiss. "Baby, you're finally here!" she cooed, her voice dripping with possessiveness.
Her eyes, sharp and assessing, then landed on Ava in the passenger seat. She looked Ava up and down, a flicker of something—triumph? pity?—in her gaze. The casual intimacy of the nickname, "Baby," felt like another deliberate cut.
Ethan gently pushed her back, a faint blush on his cheeks. "Don't be crazy, Morgan. This is Ava." The reprimand was soft, laced with affection.
Morgan's expression instantly shifted to one of cloying sweetness. She extended a perfectly manicured hand over the seat. "Oh, you must be the sister Ethan talks about!" She didn't say his sister. Just the sister. A title. A category.
Before Ava could react, Morgan leaned forward again, cupping Ethan's face in her hands and planting another firm kiss on his lips, her eyes locked on Ava the entire time. It was a performance. A declaration of ownership.
Ava felt the last fragile thread of her hope snap. The Tiffany necklace Ethan had sent for her graduation, the one she was wearing under her sweater, suddenly felt like a cheap trinket, a thoughtless gesture.
"So, where did you just get back from?" Morgan asked, her tone bright and condescending. "London? Paris?"
"London," Ava managed to say, her voice a dry rasp.
"That's so fun," Morgan said, settling back into her seat. "Ethan and I have been together for almost a year now. We went skiing in Aspen last Christmas. You should have seen him on the slopes."
Almost a year.
The words detonated in Ava's mind. A year of weekly calls. A year of carefully chosen gifts. A year of her meticulously planning her return, her future, while he was building another one with someone else. It wasn't a misunderstanding. It was a lie.
Her stomach convulsed violently. She fumbled with the door handle, shoved the heavy door open, and stumbled out onto the sidewalk, bending over as her body tried to expel the poison of the last hour. Nothing came up but bitter bile.
The sounds of the city—honking cars, distant sirens, the chatter of passersby—faded into a dull roar. She was vaguely aware of people staring, their faces a blur of curiosity and concern. Humiliation burned hotter than the nausea.
Leaning against the cold brick of a building, she took a shaky sip from the water bottle she'd brought from the plane, rinsing her mouth. She looked up. Through the car's windshield, she could see the silhouette of Ethan turned toward the back, his hand reaching out to comfort Morgan. Protecting her from the scene his "sister" was making.
In that moment, something inside her went cold and still. The love, the years of devotion, curdled into a hard, bitter knot of disillusionment. He had promised to wait. He had said he'd be there in a few minutes. Both were lies.
She pulled out her phone, her fingers surprisingly steady as she opened the Uber app.
Morgan's voice, laced with false concern, floated from the car. "Ava, are you okay? Why don't you wait for Ethan to take you home?" It was the voice of a victor, offering charity to the vanquished.
Ava didn't look back. She saw Ethan's plan with perfect, painful clarity. He wasn't just picking her up. He was fitting her into his schedule, a quick stop on the way to his real life. She was an errand.
A dry, mirthless laugh escaped her lips. She was a fool.
"No, thank you," she said, her voice flat and empty.
She pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head, a flimsy shield against the world, and walked towards the corner to meet her ride, leaving Ethan, Morgan, and the wreckage of her five—year—long dream behind her on the glittering, indifferent streets of New York.
