The Backup Plan No More

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Ten years.

I spent ten years loving him in silence. Then, during one FaceTime call, he looked past me. He saw my roommate. And he fell. Hard.

The sickest part? He begged me to help him get her.

I swallowed the acid in my throat and played matchmaker for ten days. I thought I could handle it. I was wrong.

I pushed open the door and walked straight into a nightmare. They were devouring each other.

Harrisons voice, rough with a hunger Id never heard, vibrated through the air. "My place tonight?"

In that second, my entire decade of devotion didn't just break.

It became a joke.

Chapter 1

Harrison and Zara were kissing.

No, thats too polite. They were tangled together, mouths locked, desperate. Like they were trying to breathe the same air.

I stood there, frozen. A sharp, invisible blade sliced through my chest.

I had agreed to this. I had set the stage, fed him the lines, played the perfect wingwoman. I knew this was the endgame. But seeing it? Watching his hands grip her waist?

It felt like swallowing broken glass.

They were so lost in the friction, so consumed by the heat between them, that I was a ghost.

"My place tonight?" Harrisons voice dropped an octave. It was gravel and smoke. A sound of raw, unfiltered want.

My stomach bottomed out. The cold spread from my gut to my fingertips in a heartbeat.

Already? They were already at that stage?

Zara pulled back just an inch. She laugheda low, throaty soundand playfully shoved his chest. "In your dreams. I promised Fern I'd review her final thesis tonight."

They stayed there for a moment longer, foreheads resting against each other. The air around them crackled with static. Even with distance between their bodies, the intimacy was suffocating.

I watched her run up the stairs. Then, Harrison turned around.

His eyes landed on me. The heat vanished from his face. The hunger, the softnessgone.

"Fern?" His tone was clipped. Professional.

My neck stiffened. I couldn't look at him. If I looked at him, I would shatter. I pivoted on my heel, forcing my legs to move toward the dorms.

The image of themtangled, breathlesslooped in my brain.

Acid rose in my throat. I couldn't breathe. The jealousy wasn't just an emotion; it was a physical weight, crushing my lungs.

Ten years.

I had hovered in Harrison's orbit for a decade. I was the reliable friend. The constant. And in all that time, I had never seen him lose control.

With me, he was ice. Rational. Detached. I sometimes wondered if he even saw me as a woman, or just a genderless fixture in his life.

But tonight? Tonight I saw him unravel.

And it only took Zara ten days.

Ten days to undo my ten years.

It started back in high school. An obsession that spanned my entire youth. I didn't make the cut for his university. I bombed the applications.

I took a gap year. I studied until my eyes blurred, desperate to bridge the distance. But a screw-up with my transfer papers sent me to a campus three hundred miles away.

We barely spoke during college. Now, he was climbing the corporate ladder, a rising star in the city, and I was drowning in my final semester. The distance between us wasn't just miles anymore. It was worlds.

Every time I tried to bridge the gap, every time I offered to visit, he shut it down.

"Fern, I'm busy."

"Fern, not a good time."

Clinical. Efficient. Rejection.

Chapter 2

Sometimes, I would cave. I would FaceTime him just to catch a glimpse of his face. Usually, the connection lasted less than sixty seconds.

"I'm swamped, Fern. Gotta go." Click.

I never complained. I didn't have the title for that. In Harrison's world, I was a fixture. A piece of furniture he had owned for a decade. Reliable. Invisible.

Then came the shift.

Ten days ago, Zara borrowed my phone. She needed a mirror, but her thumb slipped. She swiped into my gallery. She paused. Her finger tapped the glass, hovering over a candid shot of Harrison.

"This guy" She tilted her head, a slow, predatory smile curling her lips. "He's gorgeous. Who is he, Fern?"

I saw the hunger in her eyes. It was immediate. I snatched the phone back, muttering some excuse, and bolted from the room.

I didn't sleep that night. Panic sat on my chest like a concrete block.

Zara wasn't just a roommate. She was the campus deity. A mix of innocence and pure, unadulterated sex appeal. She broke hearts for sport, usually out of boredom. And now, she had Harrison in her crosshairs.

I panicked. I decided to nuke the status quo. I was going to confess.

I dialed Harrison, my palms sweating, my heart hammering against my ribs. I was ready to lay ten years of devotion at his feet. The call connected.

"Fern?"

Before I could get a word out, Zara walked past me in the background. She was just grabbing a towel, but she glanced at the screen.

Harrison stopped breathing.

Through the pixelated feed, I watched the transformation. His eyes widened. His brows lifted. The sharp, untouchable mask he wore for the worldand for mecrumbled.

He looked struck.

He wasn't looking at me. He was looking past me.

It was love at first sight. A clich. A weapon.

The next day, he called me first.

"I've never felt like this. Ever." His voice was low, vibrating with a desperate kind of hope. "Fern, please. Help me get her."

It was the first time in ten years he had ever asked me for anything. But there was no question in his tone. He didn't think I would say no. He knew he owned me.

The realization hit me in the gut. A cold, heavy stone of truth. He was so sure of my loyalty that he didn't even notice he was killing me.

What could I do? I couldn't stop him from falling. Just like I couldn't stop myself from loving him. So, like a fool, I agreed.

I became the architect of my own destruction.

I gave them the introductions. I forwarded the texts. I watched Zara smile at her phone until 3:00 AM. Harrison, the man who was always "too busy" to talk to me, took three days of vacation just to fly out here.

Today was the meet-up. And judging by the scene in the hallway, it was a done deal.

I pushed open the dorm door. Zara turned to me. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright with victory.

"Fern," she chirped. "We're together."

Chapter 3

"Oh. Thats great." The words tasted like ash on my tongue.

I forced my body to move. I sat at my desk, flipped open my laptop, and stared at my thesis. My fingers hovered over the keys. I tried to type the word "I." Delete. Retype. Delete.

My hands were shaking so hard I couldn't hit a single key.

"We owe it all to you," Zara said, her voice dripping with a smile. "Best matchmaker ever."

My hand cramped into a claw over the mouse. A sharp, physical spasm seized my heart.

She was right. I did this.

I gave him the cheat codes. I told Harrison everything she loved. I scripted his texts. I told him exactly how to win her. And I told her that he was rare. That he was loyal. That he had never looked at another woman the way he looked at her.

For ten days, I watched it happen in slow motion.

I watched Harrison melt for her. I watched Zara flush when his name lit up her phone. I lay in bed at night, burying my head under the pillow, but I couldn't block out the sound of his voice notes drifting from her side of the room.

"Go to sleep, babe. Don't stay up."

His voice. Low. Granular. So intimate it felt like a violation just hearing it. It was a tone he never used with me.

Regret hit me like a physical blow.

I should have lied. I should have told Harrison she was taken. He was proud. Arrogant. If he thought he had competition, he would have walked away. I could have stopped this.

"To say thank you" Zaras arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind. I jumped. "Harrison and I are taking you to dinner tomorrow. You can't say no."

My chest tightened. I opened my mouth to decline, but she cut me off.

"He's heading back to corporate the day after tomorrow. And once I get my diploma next month, I'm moving into his penthouse. This is well, this might be the last time the three of us hang out."

She nuzzled her face into the crook of my neck, her breath hot against my skin.

"Fern," she whispered, her voice soft, almost apologetic. "He specifically asked for this."

If I had any hope leftany pathetic, lingering delusionit died the second we sat down.

The hotpot broth bubbled and hissed in the center of the table, sending clouds of steam into the air. Harrison was peeling shrimp for her.

He sat there, head bent, focused. His long, elegant fingers snapped the shells, pulled off the tails, and laid the pristine pink meat on her plate. He was methodical. Devoted.

I stared at his hands.

Harrison had severe OCD. He was a germaphobe. The texture of raw food, the grease, the smell of seafood on his skinhe despised it. He found it repulsive.

Yet here he was. Elbow deep in it. For her.

Chapter 4

Last year. His birthday.

I endured a four-hour bus ride just to see him. I bought the cake. I cooked a feast in a kitchen I didn't know. I was clumsy, desperate to impress.

I burned my hand. Badly. The skin on the back of my hand was angry, swollen, and throbbing with heat.

Harrison looked at it. His expression was a mess of things I couldn't read. "Fern," he said, his voice flat. "If you can't cook, don't force it."

But then, he reached out. He gripped my wrist. He uncapped a tube of ointment and applied it to the burn. His touch was clinical, yet careful. It was the softest he had ever been with me.

I felt lightheaded. Maybe it was the pain, maybe it was him. I stared at the plate of boiled shrimp on the table.

"My hand hurts," I whispered, testing the waters. "Could you peel them for me?"

The temperature in the room plummeted. Harrison frowned. He pulled back as if I had asked him to touch toxic waste.

"Fern. You know about my OCD."

Rejection. Instant. Unapologetic.

One sentence, and the fragile bubble between us burst. On any other day, I would have nodded. I would have understood. But that day? Tears welled up. Hot, humiliating tears that spilled over before I could stop them.

I didn't argue. Instead, I reached for a shrimp.

I peeled it. Then another. And another. The salty juice seeped into my fresh burn. It felt like holding my hand over an open flame.

I peeled the entire plate. Harrison just sat there. Watching. Silent.

Snap back to the present.

Harrison placed the pristine, shell-less shrimp on Zaras plate. He picked up a wet wipe. He cleaned his fingers. Methodical. Thorough.

Then, slowly, he lifted his eyes. He looked straight at me. The contact was physical. A punch to the gut.

I understood. He wasn't just being a doting boyfriend.

This was a performance. And I was the only audience member that mattered.

He was taking that old scarthe memory of my burned hand and his refusaland ripping it wide open. He was pouring salt directly into the wound.

He knew. He had always known.

He knew I didn't just see him as a friend. He knew I had been waiting. This was his way of killing that hope. He was peeling shrimp for her to tell me: Stop. Give up. Get out of my life.

A sharp spasm seized my heart. A physical contraction so painful I almost gasped. I dropped my gaze. My hand trembled. The chopsticks clicked against the bowl, betraying me.

The meal was a slow-motion execution.

I kept my head down. I focused on breathing. In. Out.

Suddenly, a burst of noise broke the tension. I looked up. A guy was standing at our table, his face bright red.

"Man, I am so sorry," he stammered, looking at Harrison.

It was Wyatt. Just some college kid from a nearby table.

"It was a dare," Wyatt explained, gesturing vaguely behind him. "My buddies they dared me to get the number of the hottest girl in the place. I didn't realize she was taken."

Harrisons jaw tightened. A muscle feathered in his cheek. He was furious. Territorial. But he couldn't cause a scene here.

Wyatt muttered another apology, looking like he wanted the floor to swallow him whole, and scrambled away.

I turned my head. I looked at Zara.

Chapter 5

Zara loved hotpot, but the spice didn't love her back.

Her skin was glowing, flushed a deep rose from the heat. Beads of sweat clung to her forehead like diamonds. Her lips were swollen, a glossy, inviting red.

She looked edible.

And every guy in the restaurant knew it. I could feel the weight of their stares, heavy and hungry, dragging across our table.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement. A tall silhouette. Broad shoulders. Moving with purpose.

I smirked. The knot of tension in my chest loosened just a fraction.

Young guys. So brave. So stupid. Even after seeing Wyatt crash and burn, this new contender wanted to try his luck with the queen.

I glanced at Harrison. Predictable. His face had darkened. A storm was brewing behind his eyes.

I leaned back, crossing my arms. I was ready for the show. I wanted to see him squirm. I wanted him to feel a fraction of the jealousy that was eating me alive.

The guy closed the distance. He reached the table. Then, he did something impossible.

He didn't stop at Zara. He didn't even look at her.

He side-stepped her chair and planted himself directly in front of me.

I flinched.

He was staring right at me. His eyes were bright, intense, burning with a nervous energy that made the air hum. He looked slightly terrified, but his smile was clean. Genuine.

"Miss," he said, his voice steady despite the flush creeping up his neck. "Can I pursue you?"

The world tilted on its axis. My brain stalled