"Do you know what it felt like?" he growled loudly, trying his best to keep his composure, "To be totally and utterly alone, all the time? To have everyone expecting so much from you, but never there to support you?"
He turned his back to her, gripping his hands at his sides. He had not meant to raise his voice. But he couldn't help it. She had no idea how it felt. He pinched his eyes closed, as if in some strange way if he tensed every muscle in his body, the building anger would have no way of coming out.
"This great progeny, everyone expects me to do the impossible. I am not allowed to struggle, I'm not allowed to fail. While everyone simply coasts along, it is up to me shoulder everything. Alone. You have no idea what I have been through. People think I'm lucky, but I would trade this curse away if given the change."
"You don't think I don't understand that?" she replied. Her voice was low and held the tone of injury. Her words were slow, like the weight of them cause them to roll of her tongue slower.
"You think you were alone because I chose for it to be that way. But I didn't. I wanted to be there for you, but I couldn't."
"What do you mean you couldn't?" he said, whirling around, "How hard was it for you..."
"...because I wasn't good enough," she replied, interrupting him before he got started back up on his tirade again, "I always knew you better, faster, sharper. I just never knew by how much. One moment we were the same and the next you were out of my reach. And the moment after that, you were gone."
She sat down on the edge of his bed, shoulders slumped forward. Her hands limply fell onto her knees. Even her head was bowed downwards.
"I tried everything in my power to become your equal, but nothing I did was good enough. The gap between us just kept getting wider and wider."
She clenched at the cloth underneath her hands, words still tumbling like leaden weights from her mouth, "I never wanted you to be alone, but I was only going to hold you back from doing what is beyond the wildest dream for most of us. Do you think it was easy, watching you drift away, knowing that you were heading a place that I would never be able to follow you?"
He did not know what else to say. He was angry that she had not followed him. She was sad that he had left her behind. He sat on the bed next to her and let her head fall on his shoulders. It should have felt like it used to, back when they had swore they would always be at each other's side. But it didn't. The distance between them was firmly fixed now, and neither of them knew how to find the other.
"It is always going to be like this, isn't it?" she replied, inching closer to him, seeking some semblance of what it used to be.
"Most likely," he replied, gently snaking his arm around her waist and letting his cheek rest on the top of her head, "It is the one thing I have no idea how to fix."
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