She hates it when he looks away from her face while they laugh.
She knows that he doesn't want her, Tawni Hart-Cooper; he wants her, Sonny Munroe.
Tawni's gotten used to being second place now.
It doesn't hurt as much now as it used to when he whispers Sonny's name in his sleep.
It barely bothers her anymore when he looks at Sonny's pictures.
It never even crosses her mind to tell him that Sonny's dead when he says he'll be alright back but she knows that it's just to visit the old prop house and to relive memories.
Only sometimes does it cross her mind to think that she's lying.
She simply lives with a ghost hanging over the both of them.
The ghost of Sonny Munroe isn't talked about, but it is there all the same.
It hangs over her marriage, her life, and hell; it even hangs over her fucking children.
Some days she won't say anything to him, she'll just walk out the door because he's particularly depressed for a reason she pretends she doesn't know (it's the date of his and Sonny's anniversary).
He doesn't acknowledge the fact that she's gone at all really.
Tawni wants to march right over to him and tell him that Sonny Munroe is fucking dead (and has been for six and a half years, thank you very much) and he had better shape up because he's married to her for God's sake and has children with her even though he acts like he fucking doesn't, so he needs to start acting like it already, damn it.
But she doesn't.
She simply looks away and pretends that she is in a perfect world where Sonny Munroe never existed; much less met her or her husband.
Because in a world where Sonny Munroe never existed, Tawni Hart-Cooper and Chad Dylan Cooper would have gotten married (conceited snob marries drama snob) and would have lived in a business-like marriage agreement without caring for the other (or caring for much of anything, for that matter).
Plus, they wouldn't have the ghost of her hanging over their lives in a perfect world.
Tawni wants to live in a perfect world where she is married to Chad, never bothered to experience caring in the first place, had gorgeous blond haired blue eyed children that would make millions before they were even out of diapers, and where she always gets what she wants when she wants it.
But she doesn't live in a perfect world without Sonny Munroe.
Instead, Tawni Hart-Cooper lives in a world where Sonny Munroe lived and died.
Therefore, Tawni lives in a world where she is married to Chad, has experienced caring, has gorgeous blond haired blue eyes children that will make millions before they are out of diapers and that always remind her that those children should be brown haired and blue eyed or something along the like (they should have Sonny, or at least someone who cared at least a little bit about them (heck, even loved them maybe), as a mother), and never quite gets exactly what she wants and it's never exactly when she wants it.
She hates it, but she doesn't say a word.
Because if she admits it, then her façade has fallen.
Her world with its pretty walls and mirror-like images has crumbled.
(All thanks to that pretty little brunette co-star that made Chad Dylan Cooper fall in love with her and then just had to go and kick the bucket.)
But sometimes, if she smiles wide enough and closes her eyes, she doesn't care about anything and Sonny Munroe never existed (much less lived and died).
Oh well. Tawni could get used to being in second.
Second funniest on the show.
Second girl on the show.
Hell, even second prettiest on the show (and pretty is Tawni's title)!
Yes, Tawni Hart could get used to being second.
Second in her love to Chad Dylan Cooper.
Second in marriage because Chad's still hung up on his first love.
Second to her children because Chad loves Chad (and the kids might have a bit of Tawni in them, but he hopes they'll snap right out of it soon and become all him).
So, speaking that way, Tawni is used to being second.
That doesn't mean she likes it.
So stop telling her that she isn't in first place.
(Believe her, she knows it.)