Rightfully Mine

John's POV Chapter 8

Living with my choices, as I vowed to do, seemed almost laughable by the next morning.

Jenny was as obstinate and juvenile as ever. Kat was the same as she'd always been too, only now I noticed absolutely everything about her. I noticed the way she walked and the way she self-consciously held herself in large groups. I noticed the genuine and surprised smile when someone complemented her, and how she always seemed to know when one of the men needed something, whether it was a new napkin or a refill of whatever drink we had at that particular meal. I noticed that no matter how many times she shoved that one lock of hair behind her ear, it always managed to escape and fall in her eyes, and I noticed her unconscious half-smile when she listened to the men monopolize the conversation, probably never dreaming of actually doing that herself.

Mainly though, I noticed how hard it suddenly was for her to be around me. She would barely even look at me, and when she did, I saw that same hurt in her eyes that I'd seen so plainly that night in the kitchen. Only now, it seemed more pronounced.

She started avoiding me whenever possible, and she looked pained when it wasn't. That look of longing was always present when she did finally meet my eyes. Something I guessed that she did without thinking, since she would always hastily glance away after a few seconds. I knew that it probably didn't help seeing that particular feeling reflected in my eyes, but I couldn't seem to help it. She was hurting and it was all my fault, but there wasn't a thing I could do about it. More than that, I knew that if we'd just had that talk sooner, things could have been so very different. I wanted them to be different. I was realizing that I didn't just find her attractive - although I definitely did - I also loved her. And not like a sister as I always thought.

I didn't have any siblings, so maybe that's why I didn't see the difference for so long, but I knew that what I felt for Kat wasn't even close to a sibling relationship. I got to know and love Kat, long before I entertained any kind of romantic feelings for anyone, and then Jenny just sort of blindsided me. It was shallow and immature of me, but I confused my attraction for her with actual love.

I had always liked Jenny, of course, but I didn't even know her the way I knew Kat. With Jenny, it was as if I loved her in spite of who she was. All the things that were so hard to take now, didn't matter very much then. I didn't dwell on the unpleasant things because I didn't want to. But I loved Kat simply because of her qualities. Until that night in the kitchen, I hadn't even realized that I was attracted to her. But she was my best friend and probably the first person, other than my parents, who I actually loved. And after wracking my brain, I couldn't come up with even one real flaw in her that I might wish away.

With Kat, I could guess her mood just by looking in her eyes. I could tell if she was genuinely pleased by something or if she was only pretending to be. I never seemed to know what to expect with Jenny. Partially, that was because Jenny liked to shield her emotions. She liked to play games, pretending to be angry when she wasn't or acting happy when she was seething. But a large part of why she was able to confound me so often, was that I just didn't know her that well. I knew her likes and dislikes, her favorite color and flower and those kinds of things, but I was clueless about the deeper things. The important things. The things that hadn't seemed to matter before.

I realized the reason that I didn't have to wonder for more than a few seconds if things would have been easier if I'd married Kat. It was because we already had that sort of companionable relationship that I craved with Jenny now.

My first few months married to Jenny had been pure bliss for both of us. The next few, a little less so, and the next few, even less. And I didn't have to wonder why anymore. Now I knew it was because our relationship had been based mainly on the physical, and it wasn't so exciting any longer. Now, after so much time together, we were supposed to be in a more companionable stage of our marriage, but there were several things that I didn't even like about Jenny. Several things irritated me, quite frankly. And I guessed that she felt the same way.