Page 27 - WTP Vol. VIII #3

toise died, for example, or when your football team were knocked out the league. Perhaps it’s the only part I half-like about you; your innocence, and your ability to snap back into your infantile habits. I’ll be waiting in the wings, ready to swoop in and take full advantage of your state.
I suppose a lot of our problems stem back to me. There. I said it. I know I’ve been lying and you’re bound to be shocked when you find out. I don’t like to call it lying, as such, just very slight alterations of the truth—all for your own benefit, of course. I wouldn’t want to hurt you. Could I do it? Could I walk away? I’ve been such a good actress.
We are settled here. What would I tell our children? It’d be completely out of the blue. Would they want to leave the comfort of their village school? Their jewellery-making clubs? Their strawberry-picking days during the summer months?
I once voiced my concerns about our relationship to my own mother. ‘If you can find a problem with everything, Samantha,’ she began, ‘it is likely you are the problem.’ I took from our brief conversation the understanding that you and I were just going through a rough patch, and that my fiery temper and stub- born ways were to blame for our differences.
Surely I should be allowed to live my life to its full, wined and dined by someone who meets my stan- dards and goes way beyond them; someone who recognises my worth. In your self-obsessed bubble, you’re unable to satisfy me—everything has and will always be about you.
But no. This time, I’m putting myself first. I should take a bow for my excellent performance. Your moth- er is expecting you this weekend. She’s cleared out the spare bedroom for you, and I’ve left your suitcase at the bottom of the staircase.
I’ve always been here to pick up your pieces, but who’s there to put me back together when I fall apart?
Oakeby is an eighteen-year-old fiction and freelance writer from the United Kingdom. An aspiring criminal lawyer, she has a passion for literature and languages. Her work is published in multiple overseas publications, including the Cosumnes River Journal, Gordon Square Review, The Haloscope Review, The Daily Positive, LoveNotHate and LiveWriteThrive. She was awarded a GSR 2019 Editorial Men- torship and has read for 805 Lit.
“If only I’d pursued the advances of
a past lover, I could be holidaying in Greece with some handsome man, his golden body carved by the gods.”
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