Chapter 3: The Third Choice

Before I came home yesterday, I had asked him three times.

Should we finally tell my parents about us?

He’d just given me that lazy, infuriating smile.

“You that desperate for me to meet your parents?”

I’d swatted at him, pretending to be annoyed.

He caught my hand, pulling me into his arms.

“Relax. When the time is right, I’ll tell them myself.”

For five years, I had been waiting for that day.

I wanted the whole world to know that Elara Ricci was Zane Vale’s girlfriend.

The only reason I didn’t make a scene was because I refused to make things any uglier than they already were.

And I would not let my parents become the subject of neighborhood gossip because of me.

“Zane, Mom’s stomach is acting up. She asked me to get her medicine.”

Sofia’s voice cut through the evening air. She walked out of the building with my mother on her arm.

“I don’t know which kind she takes. Can you come with me?”

Her smile was perfectly natural.

When she called my mother “Mom,” it sounded so practiced, so familiar.

Zane’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. He just left with her.

My mother watched them go, then sighed.

“I always thought you and Zane might end up together. I never imagined Sofia was the one he liked.”

She shook her head. “Good thing I never pushed it. It would be so awkward for everyone now.”

I pressed my lips together, saying nothing.

She continued, her voice thoughtful.

“When you do start dating again, you should take a page from Sofia’s book.”

“No matter how busy Zane gets, whenever her family needs anything, he takes leave and comes right back for her.”

She looked at me, a hint of frustration in her eyes. “And then there’s you. I still have no idea who this mystery man of yours was.”

“Every year, I begged you to bring him home for one meal, and every year he had a ‘mission.’”

I couldn’t really hear what she said after that.

A hollow feeling opened up inside me.

Every holiday, I’d asked Zane to come home with me.

He always had an excuse.

“Elara, I just got promoted. Things are crazy with the team.”

“I’ll come with you next time, I promise.”

He had missions. Training. Exercises.

I believed every word.

I had never doubted him.

But now I knew.

Every time he’d said no to me, it was so he could say yes to someone else.

“Mom,” I asked, my voice tight, “do they come back together often?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Just last month, on your birthday, Sofia’s mother fell down the stairs.”

“Zane came back just to help out.”

She nodded. “He got her the best orthopedic surgeon at the naval hospital and stayed at their house for days to make sure she was okay.”

Her words hit me like a physical blow. I remembered my birthday last month.

Zane had taken a call, then shoved a gift box into my hands.

“Emergency with the team. I have to go in. Might be gone a few days.”

He’d kissed my forehead. “Don’t be mad. I’ll make it up to you when I get back.”

Before he left, I had asked him, half-joking, half-serious.

“What’s more important, the mission or me?”

He’d looked at me, his expression unreadable.

“Elara, we’re both soldiers. You know better than to ask that kind of question.”

I had thought his only choice was between his duty and me.

Now I finally understood.

There had always been a third option: Sofia.