Pretense

I guess it doesn't really matter to me anymore. This is the way things are, thanks to you, and I can't change them. I'm so sick of it. She's always before me, what she wants is so much more important than what I want--somehow it makes me feel like I don't exist in the first place. We don't buy orange juice because she can't drink it, we never have red meat, there are so many days now where there's no dinner at all, even after I've had a ten hour school day or an eight hour work day, and she's been at home doing nothing. She even interferes with things you've promised me, things I rightfully deserve. Even the dog takes precedence over me, or you wouldn't ask me to sacrifice part of my vaction to stay in Denver and watch it. I'm sick of being the last fucking thing on the totem pole. I'm not the fucking omega wolf. Not when she's so weak and I have to be so strong.
For the life of me, I can't figure out why she's more important than I am. She whines and bitches and you expect me to help around the house--why the fuck should I? She hasn't done anything all day, and the last thing I want to do when I get home from work or school is clean up her dirty kitchen or scrub your piss off the toilet stool. I don't know if she's noticed this at all, but she's more or less a housewife, and those are the things housewives are supposed to do; and if she's not even cooking dinner, what the hell is she doing?
You said she does a lot for us, but I can't see how. Maybe she does a lot for you, like in the bedroom or something, but not for me. I feel alienated and estranged by her. I feel oppressed and neglected and ignored.
I wish I could tell you all these things, so at least you'd understand how I feel, even if you can't fix it. But you just turn around and tell her everything, like a fucking middle school girl. It's like I can't trust you at all. Maybe it would be different if she were my mother, but she's not. And I'm not twelve.
I've tried so hard to get to know you, but you just mock me and tell me to get over things that are important to me. Things I need to care about. As far as I can tell, you've done your damndest to change my world view and indoctrinate me with your own ideas, which was something I never wanted. Part of me fears you've succeeded.
Whatever. It doesn't matter. You're moving away soon--you're just going to leave me, and then all my hard work will be for nothing. You're going to take her and go away, and I'll stay here and try to remember why I was so angry with you. I know I'm going to wish I'd told you all this--the reality will become grayed out in my memory, and I'll forget why I felt like I couldn't. Even more so, I'll regret not telling you this:
I don't want you to go, more than anything else, I don't want you to leave me again. After all this time, we're finally together again, and you're just going to run out on me, like you did before. I can't even tell you how much I hate that, because I'm afraid you won't care, and because I know it won't matter. Regardless of what I want, you have to go, and I have to stay.
So I wish I could tell you these things, about how I feel or how it hurts, about how I feel misunderstood and forgotten. Especially about how I feel like the last person in the world you care about. I wish I could tell you that I think she's come between us and that you've been somewhat unfair to me in order to make life comfortable for her.
But after almost two years, I think I finally know you, and I know from past experience--or rather I fear that history will repeat itself--and that you don't care very much about how I feel, and you refuse to make the needed effort to change yourself, or your life, or the way you interact with me, even for the sake of my happiness. I'm afraid you're just going to laugh at me and mock me all over again, and tell me I'm foolish and sentimental. Maybe you'll tell me to get over it.
So I don't care anymore. Put her before me. Have everything you want and leave me behind. I guess I have to come to terms with it: these other things are important to you. You have a new life, with a new woman and a new house and big, new plans, and I am part of your old life. The child of the woman you once loved. I suppose in my childishness, I believed I could become part of this new life, and that there would be room for me beside you. After all, I'm your daughter.
But I was wrong. There is no room for me. You don't miss your old life, and you don't want it back. You're going to go away and forget about me all over again, and there's not a damn thing I can do but to stay silent.
And pretend like I don't care.