Guilt

I have become mean to you and you don’t know why.

I don’t reply to your calls or text’s as frequently as I used to allowing you to wallow in your self-doubt, picking at your self-esteem.

I cavort with your hated cousin, you know, the one your entire family despise.

I talk about you behind your back hoping you’ll hear about it.

You presided over your friends and lovers like a modern-day Empress Wu; tyrannical, capricious and we hated you for it but that isn’t why I did what I did.

It’s just an excuse, a case I built up in my unsettled mind to protect myself against your wrath.

I turn up at events; ones that you tried to invite me to, with the said cousin just to rile you.

Cool Kim; she never calls first and makes another feel inferior has been replaced with a bewildered, irrational Kim.

How does it feel Kim, tell me, how does it feel.

Any other time I would enjoy seeing you out of your throne but this is all a smoke screen for what I have done.

I am cold because I cannot bear talking to you.

I shun communication not because I am a scheming heartless bitch but rather, I can barely contain the overwhelming shame that clouds my thoughts, darkens my moods, dries my throat and flushes my face every time I hear your voice.

I’m scared I will blurt something out. Something you don’t want to hear, something that will upset the foundations of our friendship.

I tolerated the narcissistic and insipid Samantha just because you disliked her and by default, I hoped you would turn against me.

At the party, I saw the hurt in your usually unemotional face the few times I threw glances your way. I remember that night; I acted like I didn’t have a care in the world. Dancing, laughing with your friends while you sat in the shadows like a pre-Victorian punished child: ignored and sullen.

You should be me and I should be you.

When I started sleeping with your fiancé, I admit I was going through a difficult period in my life.

My mother had just died.

My days and night were dark. I entertained thoughts of death and the devil.

I would stay in bed: hair matted, curtains drawn, barely speaking to anyone and not going to work.

Your unemployed fiancé would come to check up on me on your command while you were busy protecting megalomaniac celebrities against invasion of privacy.

Sometimes my controlled mind will slip allowing the secret to hit me.

A revolving door of emotions, it always blindsided me, what I have done to you and your son, really it does.

I know you won’t believe me but I never intended to hurt you. I was a different person then.

You and everyone always knew me as the meek and mild Grace, always smiling, sunny and a little shy. We made a good team you and I.

You were the aggressor and my protector while I was the shy beauty everyone warmed to.

And as I write this email to you I am tired.

I am tired of carrying this burden around with me.

I am tired of smiling in your son’s face when I see him at football practice.

He will grow up to be handsome and a good man. You will be proud of him.

I am tired of lying to you.

And I am tired of the self-disgust that consumes me, the heavy heart I carry, the regret.

Oh God the regret that eats away at my soul Kim. I have to live with it day in day out.

Please forgive me for I have sinned.

Grace