“He never looks at her the way he looked at me”

I have thought that of the men I have loved.

Along with “He never talks about her the way he talked about me” and “He never treats her the way he treated me”.

All thoughts bound up in love and nostalgia and memories.

But mostly, in those moments of brutal honesty, I know it’s pure ego with more than a touch of smug satisfaction. I touched those intimate parts of him, they are marked, and they are forever mine. Truly mine. And no-one else can have them.

And it may be true, or it may not be true. It doesn’t matter much.

It is more telling that I believe it, that I say those things to myself, or, perhaps, that I somehow feel I NEED to say those things to myself.

It is important to me to have those pieces, the hidden ones, the secret ones, the ones we whisper quietly in the darkness. Out of everything, I carved my name on those pieces, they are mine.

It is a shoring up of that which has been dented or broken, even though most times I was the one to end it. It is a reassurance that it all meant something.

And perhaps he does look at her differently, and I choose to see it as ‘less than’ for selfish reasons I am embarrassed to admit to.

Because if she gets more of him, or better, or even equal, to all that I had of him, I have to face that I wasn’t that special after all, that we weren’t special, that none of it was special. And my ego will root out and hold up proof that I was, glory in it, wave it around, parade it as if it matters to anyone but me.

It is a failing of mine. It is petty and small and mean-spirited.

But you know what?

He never looks at her the way he looked at me.