he seemed…unwell in general.
“You okay?” I asked.
The smile his face wore fell, and he got up, moving to leave. “Yeah, I’m fine. Your mother said dinner will be ready in ten minutes.” He tossed me one more look before heading down the hall, leaving me alone.
I checked my phone, finding that I had no messages. Ash was busy dealing with her shit, and I had a sinking feeling in my gut that I was about to deal with my own shit. Sliding off my bed, I kicked off my shoes and went barefoot down the hall, as quiet as I could be.
My parents were in the kitchen, but they weren’t talking to each other. Just the way they were moving around, how tense their shoulders were, I knew something wasn’t right. Something was off here, and I needed to know what it was.
Once dinner was ready, we gathered around the small table in the corner of the kitchen. Its fourth side was against the wall, so there were only three chairs. I sat opposite my dad, and Mom was between us on its other side. She’d made chicken and rice, along with some beans that frankly smelled delicious, but I wasn’t very hungry, not when I knew something was obviously going on.
I wasn’t stupid. I might not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but I wasn’t oblivious.
“When are you guys going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked, breaking the awkward, heavy silence of the room. I hadn’t even touched my food yet, and honestly I didn’t know if I wanted to. It smelled good, but my stomach was in knots.
“What do you mean?” Dad asked, feigning a smile. He’d already shoveled some of his rice onto a fork and was about to eat it, but his dark eyes were on me. “Nothing is going on.”
I gave him a look. It was a look that said I wasn’t impressed or convinced.
“We should just tell her,” Mom spoke, glancing at Dad. “We said we would once she went to college—”
“Yes, but not like this,” Dad insisted.
Mom had other ideas though, for her head whipped in my direction. “Your father and I are getting divorced,” she said, saying it bluntly, as if she weren’t telling me that my parents had planned on splitting up once I went away to college.
I blinked, the news hitting me like a brick fucking wall. “What?”
Dad set down his fork, sighing. “We planned on telling you, but…like I said, not like this.”
“We want you to know that we both love you, and that will never change.” Mom’s words flew right over my head, mostly because I was shocked. Shocked and…confused. I knew they bickered, but didn’t everyone? Didn’t that just mean they both had strong opinions on things?
“I don’t get it,” I said, sounding faint. And, you know what? I honestly didn’t get it. I understood what my parents were telling me, but I didn’t know why it was happening, why now. They never seemed unhappy. I thought, until now, we were one happy family. A happy family that struggled when it came to finances, but didn’t most households in America do that?
My dad coughed, causing my eyes to snap to him. “Sometimes, Kelsey, people grow together, and sometimes they grow apart.”
“Did you try to grow together?” I asked. Deep down, I knew I sounded stupid, like a child and not like an eighteen-year-old, but I didn’t care. This…they were supposed to be my family, my normal family. Ash had grown up without a father, and she’d been cynical ever since. I didn’t want to be like that.
I might act out now, but in the future I wanted to settle down. I might not have realized it at the time, but I did now. Mom and Dad were my role models, and I…without them, what was I supposed to do? Who was I supposed to look up to? They were my family, and now they were telling me they were falling apart.
The worst part? I didn’t have a say in it. I couldn’t fix it, couldn’t fix them. Whatever rift had caused them to want to divorce was not something any single person could fix. If the two in the marriage wanted out, there was nothing anyone else could do.
“You know what? Never mind,” I spoke quickly, jerking my chair back as I got up. The chair legs scraped against the floor, and my mom winced. She’d hated that sound for years, and usually