You & Me

1. so good: “So this is me holding flowers and saying
   Never again, it’s us now and has been ever
   Since I was old enough to pick up a pen
   And realized what I could do”

2. When I first saw the verse with “side piece I’m ashamed of,” I mistakenly thought you were referring to yourself as a side piece that someone won’t put first, and I had to read it more thoroughly. Good metaphor about having a hobby as a side piece that isn’t prioritized.

   You seem to read a lot of books and offer recommendations and critiques on them, so I’d like you to consider an idea for one that I’ve been framing an outline for:

   I’ve had an idea for a story that would follow a woman who becomes the side piece to a man who has left his wife while being “just friends” (according to what he told his wife) with her, and soon after the divorce, he leans even more heavily on his friend to help him cope and try to move on, and within less than 6 months of finalizing his divorce, he and this friend, “the side piece,” or other woman, get into a rebound relationship. Only the side piece doesn’t think of it in this way because he has her convinced that she is who he’s wanted all along, and it makes her want to sacrifice everything to pursue this. What compounds the betrayal of him telling his wife that she was just a friend is that this side piece woman started out as a business associate or work colleague…I haven’t decided which…but the context is that the relationship, whatever it is, started with the wife first before she moved on to getting closer with the husband.

   The side piece friend/pseudo-girlfriend becomes obsessed. She gives up everything…a good job, her family, her community, her home…and allows her life to become consumed with the focus of obtaining him and pulling him into a relationship that prioritizes her, the way he used to prioritize his wife. Secretly, even though she “won,” in that he divorced his wife and now calls her his girlfriend, she’s still envious of the wife and is troubled by the idea that he still harbors feelings for his wife, even though he denies it. She becomes increasingly insecure by the fact that despite what he tells her, he continually makes decisions that keeps him closer in proximity to his wife, even though he claims it’s for other reasons, and the reasons are legitimate enough that she can’t argue, and even though she has this nagging feeling that eats away at her that he’s making excuses for not bridging the gaps that keep them separate instead of making sacrifices and removing any obstacles in order to get them closer and deepen their newfound relationship, she doesn’t want to push him away. She wants to be the antithesis of what his wife was, because it’s the only way she knows to keep him coming back.

   The storyline twist that complicates everything and is the denouement, you might say, is that what she doesn’t know is that he had actually begun falling in love with someone else whom he felt he couldn’t have–someone who put uncomfortable mirrors in front of him and encouraged him to make choices that would make him a better person–until there’s a confrontation between her (side piece/friend) and the ex-wife who informs her that there had been someone else all along, and that they both had become the fools. When she discovers this, she unites with the wife, and they form somewhat of a bond over their common enemy. (I’m not certain about that last part…the side piece may go alone on the descent into revenge, while the wife dusts her hands off from all of it in order to move on.)

   I’m not quite sure how it ends, and this is where I’m stuck: Does the side piece/rebound continue to allow her life to become dismantled in pursuit of revenge and the obsession with winning? Or does she do a 180 and stops making choices that were motivated by selfishness and instead sets out to rebuild her life and upbuild others with various acts of kindness and genuine support of other women? Kind of like “Amelie” in a way…

   I don’t think there’s ever been a story that has the side piece woman as the central character, so I’m really torn about which way to take her story: Does she get the comeuppance that many women would feel she deserved for her sleazy backstabbing treachery? Or does she get a second chance at becoming a better human?

   Women who move in on other women’s husbands are widely considered to be among the shittiest of shitheads, so it would definitely be a challenge to make her a sympathetic character, but if done right, this story might stand out uniquely in the market place. If nothing else, she could become like an antihero character, sort of like Walter White from Breaking Bad. One final act of redemption maybe, after she’s lost almost everything else…

   I’d like your thoughts if this was a book you were reading: Where would YOU like to see this story go, and what kind of ending do you feel this fictional woman deserves?

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