From the day we met he looked at me funny. Like I wasn’t supposed to be there, you know, and I felt it, like I guess he wanted me to feel it.
He never looked at her the way he looked at me. At her he’d gaze lovingly, unquestioning of all her flaws, her many flaws, as we all have, but me, I was wrong whenever I opened my mouth.
She hated us fighting. It made her insides tender and there’d be doctors and all sorts and she blamed me. I was the one with the mouth and he was...complicated.
I wanted to like him, I really did. Hell, I wanted to love him, not like she loved him, a different love. I loved her so why wouldn’t I love him but it doesn’t work like that does it? Accumulative love. So I stopped. Stopped talking and he liked it. He felt the power she’d handed him.
I stopped seeing her as much because they were always together, and this suited him fine. I got to realise then that I needed a relationship with him more than he needed one with me. I had to rearrange my life. Re-organise. Sometimes all the things you want just don’t fit. You’re in the supermarket of existence and you’re down the emotions aisle where you’re loading up on multi-packs like its armageddon and when you get to the family aisle there’s just no more room in the trolley. I’m still me. Just because he doesn’t want me, like me, see me - wants her all to himself, I’m still me. I get a mother's day card once a year. She signs it from them both - 'love the twins.' Whatever.