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I keep talking, although there isn’t much point anymore. She’s not listening. She’s already turned away from me to him. Locking me out. Her eyes seek out his and they have an entire conversation in that single glance, and there’s no room for me in it.
They do this all the time, even more than I think they realize. Sometimes it’s easy to tell what they’re saying; the times when she’s promising to kick his ass and he’s teasing her about wanting to touch it. Those are the conversations when I don’t feel left out or excluded.
This isn’t one of those conversations.
They turn back to me, their faces blank, and now they’re leaving to go deal with whatever it is she can talk to him about but not to me. She’ll drop by later, maybe tonight but probably not until tomorrow, and try to explain whatever it is. And I’ll try to understand, I really will, but it’s hard when all she gives me are garbled explanations and mumbled half-truths.
I hate him for it.
I’m not a man given to hate. It’s too violent, too hot an emotion. But I hate this. I hate that he’s so like her. I hate that he knows her so well, even when she doesn’t want him to. I hate that she turns to him and not to me. Mostly I hate being the “ordinary” on the periphery of her life. I hate that he’s stolen my place without even trying, and I hate that she let him.
I don’t believe her when she calls him every insult she can think of. Because when it matters, when it’s family, I’m not the one she turns to. He’s not the one she hides herself from.
The door clicks softly shut behind them. Once again, mine is the only voice in the room. “I hate you,” I whisper, and not even I know which one of the three of us I mean.