The Second Star

They said I was his second love. But everyone knew — I was the one they loved more.

There was something about me, they said. Something soft, warm, familiar. People would find comfort in my laugh, in the way I asked about their day, in the way I looked at the world with curiosity instead of control. I never needed to be the loudest. I never tried to be the center. But somehow, people found me anyway.

Jay did too.

He noticed me early — I could tell. He always found a way to sit near me in lectures, always asked how I was doing even when the world around us was rushing. He listened — really listened — when I spoke about the little things. Random things. About why I thought people looked like their pets or how clouds sometimes felt like secret messengers.

He laughed. With his eyes, with his chest, like the world had softened just enough for him to breathe.

It felt like magic. Until I found her.

Her photo — tucked between a book, slightly creased like it had been held too many times. She was beautiful in a way I wasn’t. Clean, polished. Her name was Nan-young.

She had that museum look — the kind of beauty that felt curated. Long dark hair. Perfectly shaped lips. A quiet kind of grace. I stared for too long. I shouldn’t have… but I did.

And when I looked in the mirror that night, everything about me suddenly felt messy. Too loud. Too unrefined.

So I changed.

Not overnight. But slowly — painfully.

I stopped laughing so much. I combed my hair straight every morning, stopped wearing color. I wore longer skirts, quieter shoes. When Jay spoke, I’d only smile. No more interruptions, no more silly comments. I wanted to be still, like her. Graceful.

I didn’t even realize how much I was slipping away. Not until Nan-young herself invited me for brunch.

She was kind — unexpectedly. Her voice was soft when she said, “You don’t have to be me, you know.”

I just blinked. Smiled. Said nothing.

She reached across the table. “He never looked at me the way he looks at you.”

But I had already made up my mind to vanish.

Even when people told me otherwise.

Even when strangers told me I had a special light. Even when professors smiled just a little more around me. Even when Jay’s friends — and mine — whispered that I was different, better. Even when I saw how people listened to me like I mattered.

Jay noticed the shift right away.

He brought me pastries. I declined them. He touched my shoulder when I walked too far ahead. He stood too close in the elevator, just enough to say, Come back to me.

“You’re quiet lately,” he said once.

“I’m still here,” I replied.

But he knew I wasn’t.

I think it broke him more than he let on. Because I started seeing it — the way he began erasing her memory from his life without me even asking. He got rid of the books she lent him. Tossed an old hoodie I heard she gave him. I think… I think he even deleted the playlist she made.

Then, one day, he came to me. There was no preamble. No jokes.

Just his voice — low, heavy.

“Please stop,” he said. “I don’t know who you’re trying to be, but… I miss you.”

I looked at him — smiled again, that practiced little smile — but it didn’t reach my eyes. I knew it. He knew it too.

“I miss the girl who held my arm like it was hers,” he whispered. “The one who snorted when she laughed. The one who talked over me just to show me a bird in the sky.”

Silence.

Then he said something that cracked every wall I’d built:

“Why are you disappearing… for someone I forgot the moment I met you?”