They Were the Stars, I Was Just in Their Orbit Chapter 01
While we were out shopping, I crouched down to tie my shoe.
When I looked up again, my boyfriend and my best friend were already thirty feet ahead of me.
I had just started to catch up when I realized the space beside him that used to be mine was slowly closing.
The two of them had fallen into step shoulder to shoulder, still talking about things I could never join in on, as if there had never been a third person between them at all.
Back in school, Ethan Brooks and Nina Parker had been the school’s two rising stars.
After they started working, Ethan and Nina became the youngest attending surgeons at the hospital.
No matter how hard I tried, I could only trail behind them as an ordinary nurse.
Ethan always liked to pat my head and say, “Being a little slow is cute, too.”
Then he would turn around and work with Nina in perfect sync, completing one difficult surgery after another.
Watching their backs, I suddenly felt exhausted.
I did not want to keep walking down this road, forever chasing after Ethan.
***
After they turned the corner, Ethan and Nina disappeared from sight completely.
From beginning to end, neither of them looked back to check whether I had kept up.
I stood there quietly for a while, then turned and left.
When I returned to the hospital, a coworker raised an eyebrow and leaned closer. “Didn’t you switch shifts to go on a date? It ended that fast?”
“Yeah. It ended.”
I changed back into my scrubs and returned to the nurses’ station.
Hospital work was always busy. In an entire year, Ethan and I went on fewer than ten actual dates.
He had finally gotten a day off today, so I had asked a coworker in advance to switch shifts with me.
I had thought that even if we only held hands and wandered around for a while, that would be enough.
But Nina’s sudden arrival ruined every plan.
Before we left, I kept a straight face and reminded them over and over that they were not allowed to talk about work.
They each pinched one of my cheeks and nodded again and again. “Okay, okay. We get it.”
But halfway through the meal, one of them brought up a case, and soon they were going back and forth about medical cases again.
I was left sitting off to the side, silently poking at my food.
I could not even remember when the check had been paid.
Then the desk phone rang.
I snapped back to attention as my coworker answered it.
There had been a crash on North Loop Road, and several injured patients were being sent to the ER.
I was just about to remind Ethan when his text came first.
Ethan: [We have patients coming in. Nina and I are heading back to the hospital first.]
I turned off the screen and stared blankly ahead.
Even now, he still had not asked where I was.
After the last surgery of the day, I ran into Ethan in the hallway. His face was drawn withexhaustion.
I kept my eyes straight ahead and no longer hovered around him like I used to, fussing over whether he was tired or how he felt.
But just as we brushed past each other, someone grabbed my wrist.
Ethan pulled me close with practiced ease and buried his face in the curve of my neck.
“What? You don’t recognize your boyfriend anymore?”
Every time we came home from work, he loved doing this. He said it helped him “recharge.”
My head told me to push him away, but my chest tightened with a strange, aching heaviness.
It had taken me three years to go from having a crush on Ethan to finally standing by his side.
The day we got together, our classmates started placing bets on how long our relationship would last.
After all, the gap between us was too big.
Ethan had been at the top of the class year after year.
As for me, all the way back in elementary school, a teacher had yelled at me to my face and called me an idiot.
When my eyes went red from fear and I did not dare make a sound, it was Nina who spread her arms and shielded me behind her.
I knew I was never exactly smart. I always needed my boyfriend and my best friend to tolerate me and reassure me.
That was why, even though I had clearly made up my mind, the moment Ethan leaned close, all the resentment I had built up began to fade little by little.
We sat in an empty stairwell, finally getting a rare moment alone.
In the silence, Ethan suddenly spoke.
“April.”
“Yeah?”
“Can you be a little more mature about things from now on?”
I froze.
After a long moment, I turned to look at him in a daze. “What?”
His eyes were closed, and his tone was flat, as if he were talking about the weather.
“This afternoon, you disappeared without saying a word. Nina and I were worried about you.”
“We finally got a day off. Even if you couldn’t be considerate of me, you should have thought about Nina. She isn’t your babysitter.”
After hearing that, I sat there without moving.
But it felt as if a hole had opened up in my body and cold wind was pouring through it.
They were worried about me? Then why was there not a single missed call or text from them on my phone?
Were they really worried, or were they just annoyed that I had ruined the mood?
“Look at you. I say a couple of words, and you start crying.”
Ethan looked utterly helpless.
The way he looked at me was like he was looking at a child who would never grow up.
I lowered my head as my tears darkened a patch of my clothes.
“Okay. It won’t happen again.”
He sighed and patted my head. “Then head home on your own first. I still need to discuss a treatment plan with Nina.”
After Ethan left, my phone rang.
It was my dad.
“Sweetheart, didn’t you say you were bringing your boyfriend home for dinner? Are you still at work?”
I clamped a hand over my mouth, refusing to let myself sob out loud.
“Sweetheart? April?”
It took me a long while to calm down.
“Dad, he’s not coming.”