EVERYTHING FELT SO wrong, and she wanted to crawl out of her own skin. Skin that, suddenly, felt even less right, compared to the version of her who, apparently, was unbreakable. She felt empty next to this other one; she’d carved herself clean and hollow, giving every GOOD bit of herself to everyone. — And then, she’d buried all of those good parts in the ground, six feet down in pine.
Her faith had gone down with her mother, and her confidence with her father. Optimism had been buried with one sister, and then the next. Any color, or hope had filled up her brother’s empty casket. And this one had lost all the same and yet someone had looked at her and decided to fill her back up.
She felt sick, and jealous, and so far from enough that she could barely get another angry word out.
“I ca—“ she lost her breath for a moment, bright eyes lost and darting. There was a weight on her chest and shoulders, bearing down. “I can’t. I can’t just walk in on some version of Steve who doesn’t know me and watch him measure me, pitying the OTHER HIM who doesn’t have YOU.”
At the admission, she wanted to scrub herself raw. All she had done was WALK THROUGH A DOOR and she had been faced with every inch of her inferiority. Every part of her that FELL SHORT was thrown into her face. She was weak — this her couldn’t die. She was graceless and struck out when she was mad, and preferred to be angry over sad or disappointed.
And she’d never liked herself. She could barely stand to see a version of herself who had managed to allow herself to be loved. TWICE, apparently.
“I can’t. This has nothing to do with you. Just go home, and I’ll be gone again before you know it.”