I can’t stand the way you say it.

His name, I mean. I hate the way it starts in your throat, like a purr, then rolls off your lips and hangs in the air. You say it like you cherish it, like it’s a gift- like you can fucking taste it in your mouth. With that little half-smirk, half-sappy-grin, your blue eyes twinkling and laughter bubbling in your stomach. That sense that you are getting the ultimate pleasure from just saying his name.

And I hate the fact that he can do that to you with just his name.

Because it’s supposed to be my name that makes you smile like that, my name that’s supposed to bring that look into your eyes. Not his. Oh, God, JC, not his.

You never realized, did you, how much I love you? Every one passes me off as the slut- the girl out to get the money, the fame. That was never how it was. I love you. I always did. And once, long ago, you loved me too.

Sometimes I wonder when I stopped being enough for you. When what I had to offer stopped being interesting- when my love, my fucking soul stopped being enough. When he suddenly became everything you wanted- everything I wanted to give you but couldn’t.

And I can’t even hate him.

More than not being able to hate him, I can see why you love him, why you chose him over me. Because he’s beautiful, inside and out, and because he’s golden- a pop angel, a glitzy seraph with wings of iridescent innocence and eyes made of emerald sunlight.

And it’s not just the way you say his name to me, either. It’s the way you say it at night- at night, when you know I can hear you, because his room is right next to ours.

You don’t even bother to wait till I’m asleep to leave- you just lean over, kiss me on the forehead and whisper goodnight in my ear, and then you go through the adjoining door and vanish into his room, his life.

And you leave me behind, weeping in a bed too big for one person and the smell of your cologne on your pillow and the memory of your cool blue eyes burning in my mind, your words a smoldering echo in my subconscious.

Do you think I’m asleep, JC? Do you think I don’t hear you?

Oh, God, it hurts, to hear you with him- to hear your name on his lips, in that rich, rolling bass you love.

It hurts to hear you sob his name, your sweet voice- the voice that used to sing me to sleep- rising and falling in pitch, honey-filled and saturated with paradise.

And I can just picture you two in the morning, disheveled, tanned limbs entwined, so close that you can’t tell where one starts and the other ends, so perfect together that it makes me sick. The fucking golden couple, wrapped in each other’s arms and fragrance and fucking essence, soaked in your love for each other.

So my question is why I’m still here, why you keep me by your side, why I follow you like an adoring puppy dog.

I know why I follow you, why I’m still here after the nights I lie awake and listen to you with him, listen to the creaking of the bed and the slamming of the headboard and your voices, blending, soaring in harmony.

Because I love you, and I always will- because I can’t imagine a life without you. Because in spite of everything I cling to the hope that one day you will love me again, one day you will take my face in your hands and tell me that you made a mistake, that you always loved me.

But I know that will never happen.

And I know that you love him. And that I’m only hear as your cover, your safety.

And I’m happy for you, really, I am. Because I all I ever wanted was for you to be happy.

I just wish you could have been happy with me.

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