The Three of Us

by Ore Agbaje-Williams

I’d never met someone my age who already knew who she was and didn’t shape herself around other people’s opinions.

My parents wanted perfection without complaint.

Your parents don’t want you to be great, she would say, they want you to be like everyone else.

You have a degree and no job. A house but no children. You’re like an empty fridge. Expensive to run and yet completely useless.

usually red ends in disaster,

Thats so true!

It was a unique kind of incest.

I had aspirations of looking up into my husband’s eyes, not down.)

I’d assumed would decrease over time as she came to understand the unspoken boundaries of a marriage she was not in, and the intimacy that she should not be a party to.

but a woman with only one university degree

because in reality, happiness is an unachievable concept designed to keep people unhappy and spending money on things they don’t need.

Confirmation that rich people really are the cheapest people on earth.

To know how it feels to ghost a man and feel the power of rejecting someone pulsing through their veins, to try on strength and outspokenness for size and realise that it fits them perfectly.

They serve a purpose and then they expire,

realise that having someone, someone to love and share your life with, is a nice thing to have.

She opened my eyes entirely to the idea that living for yourself was the only way to even come close to being satisfied.

I don’t turn my head to look at him because energy is a valuable resource,

being true to yourself, and then of course being honest and upfront is absolutely key to any relationship.