Unsent Letter [Hugh Wallace]

So we had to write an epistolary piece and I chose to write it from the perspective of my “sweary Scottish guy”. So warnings for swearing and general poor life choices.

Well, I’ve pure f**ked up. You ken it well enough when your wee brother is greeting on your shoulder, half-eaten cheeseburger in his hand. It’s then you know, right down to your feet that you’ve done wrong. I never meant to split them up. It was a fair enough question. “Why him?” Why not me, I’ve loved you forever, cherished you always. Even when Artie was taking Da’s house from under us. After everything he’s done.  You still chose him. With his constipated emotions, hollow affection, ulterior motives. I’ve been ringside for all of your fights, seen punches to the gut, wrenching sobs. “It’s me, not him.” Darling, it was always him… him and his… his… s**t. So why is he that one that is fated? Did cupid fly his bare arse all the way down to shoot you through the head instead of through the heart? Mind… it was only a question. Why did you have to get so angry, so upset? Why did you have to hurt me too?
Anyway, Artie pleaded stress, quit the field of battle and now there’s just you and me and… that. That wedding ring about my throat and the weight of all the bodies I’ve lain with, trying to erase the quietness of you. Lack of you. You are loud only in your hate. We seethe bitterness, to placate the sorrow in our hearts. Every conversation is a pitched battle, where no one wins. We’re locked in stalemate. You, aloft, claiming you don’t love me, that you were never mine. And I, carrying my brother’s misery around my chest.
It could have been anyone, anyone else that you loved and yet it’s him. Am I meant to quietly swallow bitter truth? Say nothing when he takes the last of me away? Artie’s already had my house, my livelihood, now he wants you too. All those years that you were ‘never mine’ are weighed against your feather-light guilt. Yet, I’m the problem. I’m the villain in your perfect fairy-tale.
Fine.
You’re welcome to one another. If that’s what you really want.
Maybe this was never about you and me. Maybe it was about me and him. It’s always been about me and him. From the moment he was born screaming his head off, right until this moment, this letter I’m writing. If he hadn’t been so… If we weren’t so… Ma told me to look after him though, make sure he was all right, even when he was being a little s**t. So. F**k it. I give him to you; or you to him. Whoever, to whoever. Marry each other, for all I care.
Just don’t invite me to the wedding. I want nothing to do with it. I want as little to do with it, as you want to do, with me.
It wasn’t ever as though you were mine anyway. There was always someone else. Even if it wasn’t Artie it was Toni or… someone. Someone other than me. Anyone other than me. I knew that when I decided to be your friend instead of your husband I was going to have to accept that there was no hope for us to be together again. I could have given you my blessing… if it had just been anyone else.
This is hopeless.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry for… everything. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you everything that he can. I wish things were different, that I hadn’t become so bitter. That we hadn’t fought. That I could have kept pretending, smiling through it all.
In the end, I’m never going to send you this letter.
In the end I’m going to be a coward and let my brother weep and you hate.
I just wish you knew how sorry I am.
Always yours,
Hugh.

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