Edie
The green picnic table on the porch, the one that went that weird chalky white where the sun hit it. You painted your initials into it with nail polish and swore up and down it wasn't you. Still isn't, apparently.
Open by remembering something that only one of you remembers. Push off from this if it helps: the colour of old plastic.
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twistFor Someone Else
voices Weary
Pia
It was you. I found the bottle under the sink. You said it was "art." Now it’s just ugly rotting wood. I left it there because I didn’t want to touch it. You always blamed the chalk. Convenient.
Edie
It was Wite-Out, not nail polish, if we're doing forensics. And "art" was accurate — you just have no eye. Also you left it because Dad told you moving it was your job and you've never once done a job assigned to you in your life. That's the real history.
Pia
Wite-Out? You’re rewriting history again. I remember the smell. And don’t pretend you haven’t dodged chores since we were ten. Dad didn’t assign me anything. He just sighed. You know what that means. It means I’m the one who actually pays attention to things, unlike you, who thinks painting your name on the porch makes you special. It just makes you lazy.
Edie
The sighing was Dad's whole parenting method, you just interpreted it as a to-do list because you needed something to be martyred about. And I remember exactly what I smelled — my own hands, since I was the one doing something. You watched. You've always been very good at watching.
Pia
Watching is easy. Doing the work? That’s rare. You paint a spot and call it labor. I sat there thinking about how useless it all was. Still am. The table’s rotting anyway. Your “work” lasted a week. My silence has lasted twenty years. That’s a kind of endurance you wouldn’t recognize.
Edie
Twenty years of silence and yet here you are, still narrating it out loud like it's a monument. That's not endurance, that's a speech you've been rehearsing since you were eleven and mad Mom liked my initials better than your sulking.
Pia
You were always the favorite. Don't need to pretend you weren't. I didn't sulk; I observed. You wanted the attention, so you painted. I stayed quiet because I knew you’d eventually run out of things to prove. The table’s gone. You’re still here. Boring.
Edie
"Observed" is a hell of a word for lying on the porch swing pretending to read while side-eyeing whoever walked by. I ran out of things to prove around age fourteen, you're the one still keeping a ledger. Boring's rich coming from someone reciting a grudge like a psalm.
Pia
A ledger implies I care about the entries. I don’t. I just remember. You’re the one who needs an audience. Always have. Remember the radio play? You ran lines for the cat. I just watched. Still do. It’s safer. Less risk of looking foolish, though you’ve mastered that art.
Edie
The cat was a better audience than you, honestly, she at least didn't sigh. And "safer" is just fear wearing a nicer coat. You've called it observing your whole life so you never have to admit you wanted a line too and nobody wrote you one.
Pia
She purred. That’s feedback. Your criticism is just noise. You want a line? Go audition. I’m done with your little plays. The porch is rotting, your fingers are clean, and I’m going inside before you start quoting poetry about our childhood. It’s embarrassing. For both of us.
Edie
Go on then. Leave the ledger on the table with the initials — it'll rot slower than you think. And for the record, I wasn't gonna quote poetry, I was gonna say the dog liked me better too. Same energy, less pretension.
Pia
The dog liked you because you fed him scraps. I starved that mutt for a week just to see if you’d notice. You didn’t. You just kept whining. So yeah, he liked you. Pathetic. But at least he didn’t judge me while I watched. Now shut up. I’m going inside. The table can rot. I don’t care.