Chapter Twenty-One: A Piece of Furniture
Sophia packed like she was running from a fire.
Clothes flew from the bed into her suitcase—sweaters half-folded, jeans shoved in sideways, books stacked without care. Her movements were sharp, restless, nothing like her usual messy-but-happy chaos. Even her breathing felt off, quick and shallow.
"I don't get this," she muttered, stuffing a philosophy book between two sweaters. "Midterms are next week. I literally have an essay due. Why do I have to leave now?"
She didn't look at me when she said it, but I heard what she wasn't saying.
I stood by the door, arms wrapped around myself, feeling small in my own body. I knew why. Even if no one had explained it to me, I knew. The air had been wrong for days—tight, heavy, full of unspoken warnings.
Lucas's sudden concern.
Rowan's silence.
The way people looked at Sophia lately, like they were counting time.
They were pulling her out. Pulling her away. To safety.
Her safety.
And I was being left behind.
I didn't say anything. I just watched her pack, memorizing the way she moved, the sound of her voice, as if my heart already understood this goodbye was bigger than she was admitting.
Then—
He was there.
The door was open, and suddenly the room felt smaller, colder, like all the warmth had been sucked out at once.
Rowan filled the doorway.
He didn't knock. He didn't hesitate. He just stood there, tall and solid, dressed in black, his presence heavy and commanding. His face was unreadable—no anger, no softness, no trace of what we used to be. His eyes moved through the room quickly, sharp and assessing.
They landed on Sophia.
Not on me.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
His voice was flat. Professional. Like he was talking to a colleague, not his sister.
Sophia shot him a glare. "Almost," she snapped, yanking the zipper on her suitcase. "You could help instead of standing there like a gargoyle."
He didn't react. Didn't smile. Didn't argue.
He didn't move toward her.
His gaze flicked around the room again—over the bed, the desk, the chair by the window. Over the vase of moon lilies that had started to wilt, their white petals curling inward.
Then his eyes passed over me.
Not deliberately. Not cruelly.
Just… past me.
Like I wasn't there at all.
Like I was part of the furniture.
Something inside my chest collapsed.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't dramatic. It was quiet and total, like the moment you realize something precious has already slipped from your hands and shattered on the ground.
I stopped breathing for a second.
He didn't look back.
No anger.
No regret.
No recognition.
Nothing.
That was what hurt the most.
Not hatred. Not rejection spoken aloud.
But absence.
I had once lived in his attention. Once mattered enough for his eyes to soften when they found me. Now, standing three feet away, I might as well have been a chair. A bookshelf. An object that belonged to the room, not to him.
Am I disposable to him now?
The question didn't feel like doubt. It felt like confirmation.
I was the thing he had used and no longer needed. The shelter from a storm he'd already walked out of. The silence before something more important claimed his focus.
The distance before had hurt.
This was worse.
Sophia zipped her suitcase hard. "Okay. I'm ready."
She finally turned toward me.
Her brave face cracked.
Just for a moment—but I saw it.
She crossed the room in three quick steps and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into her warmth like she was afraid I might disappear if she let go.
"I'll call you," she whispered, her voice thick, shaky. "This is stupid. I'll be back in a few days. I swear."
I tried to answer.
I couldn't.
My throat closed, my words trapped behind a wall of feeling too heavy to move. I hugged her back, holding on like she was the last solid thing in the room. Like she was the last proof that I wasn't invisible to everyone.
She smelled like her shampoo and comfort and home.
When she pulled away, Rowan had already turned.
He picked up her suitcase and walked into the hallway without a word. He didn't wait for her. He didn't look back.
Sophia squeezed my hand one last time, hard. "This isn't about you," she whispered quickly, like she was trying to patch a wound she knew she couldn't heal. "Okay? It's not."
Then she followed him.
The door closed behind them.
The sound echoed.
I stood there, alone in the middle of the room that suddenly felt too big, too empty. The silence was thick and absolute, pressing in on me from all sides.
Their footsteps faded down the hall.
Each step felt like something being taken away.
He had come.
He had stood so close I could have reached out and touched him.
He had taken the person I loved most in this world away—for her protection.
And he had looked straight through me.
That was the answer.
I wasn't just disposable.
I was already erased.
The pain didn't scream anymore. It didn't claw or burn. It settled. Deep. Cold. Heavy. Like frost sinking into the ground, claiming it inch by inch.
He hadn't just walked away from me.
He had entered my space—my safe place—and shown me exactly where I stood in his world.
Nowhere.
The worst cruelty isn't anger.
It isn't hatred.
It's dismissal.
It's treating someone like they never mattered enough to deserve even a glance.
I sank onto the edge of the bed, my hands limp in my lap, staring at the spot where Sophia had been standing moments ago. The moon lilies by the window drooped further, their petals falling silently onto the sill.
I felt hollow.
Like something essential had been removed, leaving only shape behind.
I wasn't crying.
I wasn't shaking.
I was empty.
And the most devastating part was this—
He had made sure I felt it.
Every ounce of my nothingness.
Every quiet, invisible second of it.