I Smile Back – by Abigail Arunga

There’s a chunk of my finger in the potato salad. Only because everyone at this bloody party needs more me in them. Maybe it’ll remove the electricity pole in their arses. For example. That’s Jane – the one he’s sleeping with. She’s just like me but sober. I don’t even feel it any more when he beats me, because there’s blood in my Valium.

I don’t know if it’s because she’s always box ready. Perfectly coiffed life and manicure, dripping salon bills and entitlement with a slight stench of pretentious adultery. You know the stench. Of The Other Woman who self righteously thinks she’s saving him from an ogre of a wife.

How do they do it, these perfect women? In their perfect lives with their perfect schedules and wardrobe and colour coded curtains that match their perfect children. Where’s the time, and how are they not alcoholics?

I guess you could ask what my excuse is, because my curtains are far from colour coded.

Maybe it’s that she doesn’t let him do anal. Maybe I gave too much. At the beginning, in my just-married 23 year old head, commitment meant giving more than what you’re entirely comfortable with. Sacrifice, and all that jazz. But a man like Allan needs you to say no to him sometimes, or he’ll find someone who will. You’re damned if you do it, and if you don’t, he’ll keep asking, like a child, as if it is something he actually wants, but again, like a child, he doesn’t exactly know what he wants.

Allan and Jane. Jane and Allan. It even sounds right, doesn’t it. Like Bonnie and Clyde. PB and J. Moonshine and Rihanna. High blood pressure and traffic. Our names never sounded like that. It should have been the first sign.

Image Credit