Piglet

by Lottie Hazell

The women laughed and began to speak louder and louder, competing to tell their own anecdotes, about the time, once, when they were disgusting.

“I need all the practise I can get for tomorrow,” he said, and Piglet noticed the shake in his voice. “To our little Duck: While tomorrow, you will no longer officially be one of the clan, you will still always be our girl. It doesn’t matter how old you are”—he smiled—“or how successful; if you ever need us, we will always be there for you.” He raised his bottle higher. “Because we’re your family, and you’re our Piglet.” He had tears in his eyes, she noticed, and the pain that had been in her chest receded, melted, as her shoulders sank, her lips trembled. “Our Piglet,” her father said, raising his voice, his bottle.

She looked up at Margot, this woman who was someone between friend and family.

For a moment she was shocked, scared at the sight of her creation destroyed, desecrated on the lawn, before she remembered that she had chosen this ruin over the one she had been living.

“Really?” she said, and her heart broke at the size of Margot’s.

“I can’t believe you made her,” Piglet said, looking at them both across the table. Sasha nodded, sipping coffee, and Margot beamed, her eyes filling with tears.

Although she was safe here, and she was loved, this was not her home, this was not her life.