Imagine this: Just a few weeks back, I poured my heart into a story for a contest, a challenge sparked by a single, piercing prompt:

“Center your story around someone who’s tired of always being second best (or second choice).”

Now, pause for a moment.

Have you ever felt the sting of being overlooked? The frustration of putting in all the effort, only to watch someone else bask in the spotlight that should have been yours? If you’ve ever been the one doing the heavy lifting, holding everything together while credit slips through your fingers, then this story is for you.

Don’t Block the Light

They say her name, and the room detonates; applause ricochets off glass, off my ribs. I clap too, because that’s the rule when you’re paid to be second.

Priscilla skims to the front, hair catching the lights like a net of gold, heels fluent as a second language. She sells my dragons like she felt their heat first, like her fingerprints are pressed into every scale. The author leans in, hungry. The publicist beams, blinding. “Brilliant,” the client breathes, and my coffee-stained notebook stays shut on my lap, warming my thigh like a secret I don’t dare open.

I hold the smile that keeps meetings smooth and credit slippery. Her perfume hits before her words do, a soft, expensive fog that coats my tongue. I listen for my name, for a glance, a nod, any thin thread. The silence has perfect posture. I swallow the word that claws its way up, “mine.”

I know this choreography: keep the pitch in the air, juggling what no one can see, while someone else steps into the light and takes the bow. My palms sting from clapping. My chest hums with the dragons I birthed and cannot name. And still, I clap.

They’re lauding her pitch when my mind rips backward. Applause smears into a gym’s roar. I’m sixteen, the air tastes like rubber and dust; the lights are cruel; the floor is a mirror for every mistake. Match point. The ball sails long; I dive—knee slams. Pain blooms white. My palm finds leather, just enough to keep it alive. I’m still on the floor when the pretty blonde rises, arm a guillotine, and hammers it home. The crowd explodes… for her.

After, the coach presses the game ball into her hands. “We did it,” she says. I nod and swallow the word we, thick, chalky, like it might scrape me raw all the way down.

The conference room snaps back into focus. Priscilla wears that practiced, cheerleader-bright glow, teeth, lashes, shine, until someone asks how she came up with the idea. A hairline crack of panic splits her face. Her eyes hunt for me; I fix my stare just past her shoulder, gifting her nothing but air.

“Jamie and I were talking about it. Do you want to tell them what we were thinking?”

We, she says. Bullshit. It was me. But I’m paid to be part of the team, not the star; the chorus, not the solo. I clear my throat. The author leans in—the publisher stills. Perfume drifts. My pulse ticks like a metronome for a song only I know. The dragons kick against my ribs.

I glance up, let the silence tighten like a net, and hold it—right before I speak.

I clear my throat. The room stills.

“Dragons are about being chosen, and choosing. Adoption is the key.”

I let that settle, let their chests open for it.

“The idea is to hatch your dragon. A fast, intimate quiz: what scares you, what do you guard, when do you burn. It matches each reader to a dragon from the book. They get a named digital egg and a keeper’s guide.”

I can feel them leaning in.

“For seven days, the egg warms. Short messages in the hero’s voice, in the dragon’s voice—belonging, anger, shame, bravery, love. The art darkens as the shell thins. Day five: a ten-second whisper. And on launch day, the egg cracks in AR. Lift your phone and your dragon unfurls across your room, leaves a scorch trail to buy, plus a dragon-type-only chapter.”

A pause. A pulse. I keep going.

“IRL: indie shops give foil ‘scale’ stickers. Show your hatch, get a scale. Collect three; a heat-ink code appears and unlocks a city map of secret roosts, murals, chalk sigils, and window clings, leading to prizes and a midnight Hatch Night projection where a dragon climbs the bookstore. Every hatch funds a school library.”

I let a smile find the edge of my mouth.

“Creators hatch early on BookTok and name theirs on camera. Tagline: Claim your fire.”

If they need the jargon, I hand it to them, palm up.

“If you prefer, call it omnichannel. I call it the click in your chest when the egg breaks and the feeling of being chosen washes over you. I understand that emotion.”

I meet the author’s eyes. Then the publisher’s.

“We should present it to them. We create the app. Users subscribe. If they gather enough virtual eggs, they’re rewarded with a discount code for your book. Meanwhile, participating bookstores are suddenly bustling. More feet, more hands, more heat. Tell me, what store refuses to stock the book everyone is crossing town to hatch?”

Priscilla’s smile held; her eyes cut like I’d let something loose. Heat from the lights on my face; a colder heat from her stare.

“I sketched the initial concept,” I say—five thin words. I open the old sketchbook—coffee rings, pencil ghosts—and Blair, the author, glances at me and smiles.

The publisher looks to Blair. A smile spreads, catches, multiplies. Nods land. The room clicks into yes. The deal is done. Blair and I make eye contact, a silent chord that says more than it should.

Priscilla’s glare blades across the table. Someone corrals us for a photo, shoulders touching, flash primed. The feeling of being caught doing something wrong rises from the pit of me. Did I say too much? Should I have handed it back, gift-wrapped, with her name on the tag?

The practiced smile slides on; my cheeks burn under it. The taste of pennies blooms—regret already shaping the word sorry.

I feel the apology rise, muscle memory. Give it back. Say we. Say Priscilla. Make yourself smaller; fit better. My tongue touches the word, and I swallow it hard.

I see the notebook: coffee rings, midnight sketches, the spine of the idea forming under my hands. Mine.

Her eyes say too much. My palms press together to stop the shake. Maybe this is it—finally enough to hear my name, even if only inside my own head. I hold it there, a small, stubborn ember no flashbulb can burn out.

I trailed the client into the hallway, applause still echoing like it belonged to someone else’s life. Priscilla slid past close enough for her perfume to touch my tongue, then her shoulder clipped mine—sharp, deliberate. My cup jerked. Coffee jumped. Heat slapped my white blouse and bled fast, a brown bloom across my chest.

“Sorry” rose out of habit, like I should apologize for straying into her orbit. I bit it back. She didn’t look over her shoulder. The click of her heels said everything: I’d talked too much. I’d forgotten to stay small. I wasn’t the pretty one.

Dan saw. He stopped mid-step, eyes dropping to the stain, then back to my face. The world tilted. Someone had witnessed the part where she shines, and I clean up. Heat crawled up my neck: coffee, humiliation, and something fierce that’s tired of swallowing itself.

I pressed my thumb into the cup, breathing through the bitterness. Dan’s gaze held—steady, alert. Not pity. Something worked behind his eyes, a shape he hadn’t spoken yet. He knew it wasn’t an accident. His mouth was tight, like he was holding a word between his teeth, something that could turn this into more than a stain, if I let it.

“Why don’t you take the rest of the week off?”

I didn’t know what to think, so I nodded, automatic, obedient. Maybe he knew a brown stain doesn’t just disappear. Perhaps he was offering me comp time before the cut, a soft edge to a harsh reality. Comp time before firing me. The thought flicked its switchblade open.

Her gaze lingered long enough to watch the coffee seep, the dark spreading fast across my white blouse. She grinned, a small, satisfied crescent that said I had it coming. Maybe I did. That’s a lie, I know by heart.

Dan didn’t want the odd one out. That’s what I heard in my head. The stain made me louder than I’m allowed to be. Priscilla made sure no clients were close enough to overhear; she scanned the corridor like a director protecting a brand. She was a vibrant splash of color stepping out of an advertisement, all gloss and glow, and I was the matte background that sucked in light.

Under the fluorescents, I could feel every imperfect edge of myself: the flyaway hair I’d smoothed twice, the scuffed heel on my sensible shoes, the blouse I bought on sale now wearing its stain like a name tag. I wasn’t the poster girl. I was a smudge on the poster.

Dan’s eyes lingered for a second too long, and I caught the unspoken memo: clean lines, clean faces, clean stories. I’m good at disappearing on cue. I folded my shoulders in, pressed the cup to my chest like a shield, willing the brown to stop blooming, telling myself to move, fix, be easy, anything but visible.

Before I could turn away, I caught Blair’s eyes. Brief. Bright. Not pity. A different meaning, a secret kept behind his teeth. Something like a door, neither open nor closed. A promise, or a plan. A look that said: this moment can be more than a stain, if you let it.

Priscilla’s laugh follows me down the hall, bright and hollow, like ice in a glass. I don’t have to turn to see her leaning in, voice dipped in honey, the others chiming all the right words—brilliant, inspired, visionary—like a chorus that only knows one name.

I hit the side door with my shoulder. The metal bar is cold; the air beyond it is hotter, heavy with exhaust and summer. The door thuds shut behind me, cutting off the performance mid-applause. My blouse has dried into a stiff shell where the coffee hit, a brown, uneven blotch blooming over my chest.

Out in the parking lot, my brain does what it always does to keep me from crying—it writes.

A kids’ book, simple enough for small hands to hold without it hurting too much. A girl with black pigtails, me, really in a too-starched uniform, knees scuffed, shoes half-size too big. She carries hot chocolate instead of coffee, careful as a tightrope walker. And a glossy-haired princess swings a backpack just wide enough to tip the cup.

The cocoa blooms brown on white. That high, tinkly laugh names you second before anyone votes. Teachers don’t look. The girls shrug. You stare at the stain and decide you’re the mess.

In your room, there’s a corkboard of second-place ribbons like a constellation you never asked for, chocolate rings ghosting the corners of worksheets, and you practicing small—shoulders tucked, breath quiet. The book gives you what I didn’t have: a voice that doesn’t apologize. You’re not the spill, kid. You’re the one who keeps getting up.

The mean girls? Peacocks in cardboard crowns, noise and shimmer that only gleam in borrowed shadow. You learn to steady your cup when they bump you, to wear the stain like a map that says I was here. Don’t shrink to be their wind. You’re the eagle, spread your wings. Hot chocolate in both hands. A real smile, not because the room demanded it, but because you know you don’t have to disappear to matter.

Out in the sultry parking lot, the only cheering is the rattle of the HVAC and a distant car alarm. I stood on oil-slicked concrete and let myself breathe, the taste of her perfume finally lifting off my tongue.

Inside, she’s winning them. I’m the echo that left the room, so no one had to hear it. I tell myself I’m getting fresh air. Mostly, I’m getting out of their way. And I can already see Monday: my things in little brown boxes, stacked neatly, the whole of me slid into the back of my car like I was never here at all.

I don’t sleep. Instead, I rehearse losing my job. Every time I close my eyes, I see Dan’s mouth flatten, hear myself saying too much, watch Priscilla’s smile slice four a.m. to ribbons. By then, I’m at the kitchen table in yesterday’s blouse, scrubbing at the ghost of coffee like I could scrub the night out of my head.

The rest of the week plays the same loop. I circle job listings in the paper with a dull pen while I polish my resume, swapping verbs, sanding edges. I tell myself I’m better than this, better than office politics, and repeat it until the words go tinny in my mouth.

On Monday, I arrive early. The office is a hush, the empty halls a place I can hide in. The garage hums; rain ghosts the air, threading itself through the thick smell of oil. My hatchback exhales into its familiar, sunbaked spot. I walk past the RESERVED placards like a gallery of names I don’t belong to, eyes down, counting steps, averting my gaze until the end of the row.

Her space was empty.

No red sports car gleaming under the soft lights like a trophy. No wink of vanity plates. Just a clean rectangle of concrete and a painted sign above it—Reserved—MVP—staring back like a punchline missing its laugh.

I stopped breathing. Such a small thing, a gap where she should be. But it felt like standing in front of a mirror and not seeing the person who always takes center stage. Late? Sick? Called in early to be crowned again? Fired, a wild part of me whispered, and hope flared so fast it scared me. I don’t think that way, not really.

I pressed my palm to the cool pillar until the heat in my face drained off. Don’t be stupid, I told myself. Empty doesn’t mean anything. Titles shift. People are late. I’m the one who gets fired in this story, remember?

Still, as I walked toward the elevator, the garage sounded different. The quiet didn’t echo with her. For the first time since last week, my chest loosened enough to let a full breath in. I slipped into the elevator before the feeling could notice and run.

Turning the corner, the long hall humming with tired fluorescents, I was already rehearsing how to make myself small. Then I saw it, right there on my desk—a clear glass vase. A single red rose lit up like a stoplight in the gray of morning, its stem needled with thorns, its bloom loud as a heart.

WTF. For a beat, I think I’ve wandered to the wrong workstation. My chair. My mug. My stack of marked-up briefs—and then the rose, impossibly bright, siren-red in a clear glass vase. A folded card leans against it. My name is on the front. My name.

I glance over my shoulder, expecting a camera crew or Priscilla’s laugh snapping shut around me. Nothing; just the copier grinding itself awake somewhere down the corridor. My fingers tremble as I slide a nail beneath the fold and open the note.

“Jamie, it was clear that you were the brainchild behind the campaign for my book after you left. I look forward to working with you, even if your teammates don’t appreciate you, I do.” — Blair Thomas

I read it twice. A third time. As if the ink might evaporate if I blink too hard. The paper is heavy, expensive, like proof you can hold. Heat climbs my throat, the kind that warns tears are loading whether I’ve granted permission or not. I press my thumb hard into the card’s edge until the sting steadies me.

Someone finally saw me. Not a coworker doing damage control, the author, the prize they were courting, while I ghosted through the side exit, coffee bleeding through my white blouse, sliding warm over my ribs toward my belly.

Inside me, the girl with hot chocolate and scuffed knees stands up a little. She squares her shoulders. She lets the smile happen, not because the room asked for it, but because it turns out my name sounds different when I say it to myself and believe it.

My first instinct was to hide it. I slid the card half under my keyboard, pulled it back out, then tucked it into my planner like a secret I wasn’t ready to let the light touch for long. I could already hear the spin if this got around. I could already see Priscilla’s mouth curdle at the edges. But for once, the fear didn’t sweep the table clean. It just sat beside the rose and made room.

I leaned in and breathed the rose. It smelled like something I couldn’t name—like a door opening. The empty spot in the garage flashed through my mind. The way Dan’s eyes had held mine. The hours I’d spent rehearsing the script where I was told I was too much.

Maybe I was. Maybe too much is exactly what it takes to finally be seen.

I straightened the vase, smoothed the corner of the note, and sat down. The chair felt different under me, as if it had been mine all along and I was only now letting myself believe it.

By noon, certainty unraveled. The rose looked like a mistake again; the note read like a fever dream. Then Dan pinged: “Got a minute?” My stomach did the trapdoor thing. I followed him past the bullpen, past the glass where I usually catch my small reflection, down the hush of the executive row. He stopped at the empty office next to his—the one everyone called the waiting room for gods.

The lock chirped. He opened the door and held out a keycard. “You’ll need this.”

The thin plastic was heavier than it should have been. It lay on my palm like a new word I wasn’t sure I was allowed to say yet. My pulse climbed into my throat. The rose’s red burned in my periphery, a stoplight turned green. I didn’t ask what for. I just felt the floor of my old story tilt, and the next one open.

I waited for the after, for the neat sentence that would put me back where I belong. Instead, he said, “Blair’s publisher called at eight. They want to scale your concept across their list. We’re building a dedicated group to do author campaigns. I want you to lead it.”

For a second, all I could hear was gym noise from another life. Match point. My knee hitting the floor. The cheer going to someone else. My mouth went dry. “Me?” It came out small and hoarse, a kid asking if the grown-ups mean it.

“You,” he said, like it was obvious. Like it had always been obvious.

He walked me through the space—where my team would sit, the whiteboard we’d crowd with ideas, the budget I’d sign off on. I nodded like I knew how to carry a room with my name on the door. Inside, the girl with the pigtails stared at the keycard in my hand and didn’t dare blink.

An hour later, Facilities emailed: Parking Reassignment. I took the elevator down just to prove it wasn’t a joke. The MVP spot wasn’t an empty rectangle anymore. A temporary placard was taped over the old sign. My name. Spelled right. I touched the paper like it might smudge, like names only belong to other people.

Back upstairs, I sat in my new office with the door half-open, the rose on the windowsill, the note tucked where I could see it if I needed proof. The publisher liked my idea. We were expanding. I’d be the one steering now—not just keeping the ball in play while someone else took the bow.

I didn’t feel triumphant. I felt careful, like holding something warm and alive that might choose me back if I didn’t flinch. I let my name be loud in my head for once. I let the chair take my weight. And for the first time, being second wasn’t the ending I was braced for. It was just a story. I didn’t have to keep telling.

I hope you enjoyed this story.  Yes, sharing my stories is part of a marketing campaign, which, if you’re an author, you might try.  

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