In bitter ink

It came down to a letter of apology in her mailbox, a plea; I didn’t usually beg for anything, or feel much beyond fog, but this was going to be bad. It ended while I browsed through dresses at the local thrift store we both loved.

I thought about your apology, and I don’t accept it.

The horror of wedding dress shopping: I had stared her other bridesmaids in the face and only spoke to them in deadpan, clipped sentences. They were sheer perfection; if I could make them objects, they would be Marie Antoinette’s petit fours, exquisite in every layer. Their engagement rings glistened in the sunlight of the boutique like savage little smiles. I hated them, all of them.

There’s of course Isabella and her perfect life, who made my fall from grace possible. My smiles at her were darts. I didn’t speak to her at the bachelorette party I was supposed to have planned; instead of planning it, as the maid of honor, I had simply let my burn-out from work guide the lead-up to it, doing nothing to make it memorable. I pushed cake around my plate; my feelings of inferiority making me arrogant with petty blinders.

These women had everything I would never, ever have: fiances, husbands, shared apartments in the city, dream jobs that took effort to achieve and discipline to maintain.

Really, how could they? Honestly, their makeup even probably washed itself off after dark. Or, perhaps darkness is beyond them. One of them is is a therapist, helping the sad and dejected while never having experienced that herself. Before my sister loved her as a sister-in-law, we agonized over how little she must really understand her clients: her completely normal brain chemistry had never left her lying on the street corner, drop dead drunk and dirty. Dirty: another word that wouldn’t have crossed their lipstick stained, supple lips.

This is, of course, to say, I wish it had gone differently. Of course I wish I had thrown a fun, good bachelorette party. But it was beyond me to want to be anywhere near these women, and if we’re still to be honest, it’s torture just thinking about them.

Perhaps I am a terrible person, and I have certainly spent my fair share of nights wondering if I’m hopelessly, hopelessly awful.

After my sister told me she wouldn’t forgive me, I checked myself into a psychiatric facility to both cure my work burnout and hope she would see my sadness, my helplessness. She didn’t. When I checked out of the facility to go home, she didn’t return my texts that I had made it out. Neither did her fiance. They both ignored it all; everything from me was unwanted and toxic, a reminder of my selfishness.

My sister will, it’s obvious, never forgive me. I wish so badly I didn’t suffer from burnout, but that would be me pitying myself.

This sad tirade ends with Isabella requesting to follow me on social media; her likes on my pictures either just a reflection of her normal brain chemistry or forgiveness, or just sheer niceness.

I wish it had gone differently; my jealousy is a blood stain we won’t see washed off easily, a reminder that it wasn’t about me at all, it was just red and unfortunate.

This piece doesn’t make me feel good about myself, and hitting ‘publish’ makes me think of what this can contribute, but it feels good sometimes to vent; perhaps this can be a letting-go, if no one else benefits from it.