Chapter 3

A small smile was somehow plastered against my lips as I pressed down the handle of the front door, sensing its immediate disappearance when the shouting interrupted my thoughts.

"Do you really think I am that stupid to believe you were thinking about me whilst you were fu—"

The door slamming from my sudden force had thankfully silenced my mother from expelling the continued argument my parents seemed to be having every day. She turned to my presence and positioned her shaking hands down on the kitchen counter.

"Hi honey," I could recognise the clear attempt at composure in her voice, striving to forget that her and my father were just ripping into each other's throats, "how was school?"

My father stood beside the sink; his expression not so easily masked. I could see the clear redness of his eyes with the stress and weight of what his deplorable activities had done to this family.

"It was fine," the bluntness in my voice was evident as Biscuit scurried towards my legs with a glint in his eyes, oblivious to the dispute he'd probably sat watching in the hopes that one of them would walk him at some point.

I stroked his head whilst kneeling down to meet his height. He was most likely the only family member left that I could be around comfortably, and he was a dog. With my father, I'd always attempt to hide the animosity behind my conversation yet ultimately failing. Whereas, I'd struggle with guilt for my mother, treading lightly with whatever I would say to her.

A lot had happened at school, but I wasn't prepared to tell my parents anything with the lack of transparency about their problems.

Without much more conversation to be had, I walked up towards my room to finish some homework, thankful that Biscuit had followed me up, most likely wanting to escape the thick atmosphere downstairs.

The screaming match was sparked back up again with my disengagement and escaping upstairs, only at a much lower pitch than it had been before. I changed into some plain black leggings and a sweater, comforting myself against the backboard of my bed.

My parents had been continuing their ceaseless arguing for a couple months now, tracing back to a few weeks after new year's when my mother had caught my father in a lie, resulting in the lousy explanation of what my father had done behind her back.

From what I had eavesdropped in on, my father had cheated with a woman from work after their Christmas party. My father used every excuse in the book, but I had yet to see if one of them had weaselled their way into my mother's forgiveness.

As heartless as it sounded, I'm sure myself and my parents would be happier if they were no longer together. In most normal marriages, being unfaithful was a reason for separation or divorce, yet my parents were adamant that they'd somehow reconcile by staying together, and by thinking that I was completely in the dark about everything.

They'd also assumed that I was unknowing to the fact that they had begun attending couples' therapy once a week, as of last month. However, the evidence of improvement had yet to be seen or heard, mostly because the same argument would still ensue every night.

The logistics of their separation would prove easy for me. I'd be able to spend as much time with each of them that I needed since at this very moment, I couldn't stand to be around either of them. Obviously, I knew my mother hadn't done anything wrong, she was just too headstrong to leave my father, rendering her the foolish one out of the two in my mind.

Valentina, April, Henry and my family friend, Tom, were the only people that knew about the trivial problems between my parents and that was the way I liked it to stay. They would comfort me when it became more heated at the beginning, but now they'd just become the people I could express my anger and resentment to.

Eventually, my parents quietened to a hushed whisper until there was no sound at all, followed by the harsh slamming of the front door. I was too selfish to ignore the fact that there was finally a peacefully silence throughout the house.

Pulling out my history book, I began to scribble down notes from the class I had earlier this morning. I had been too easily distracted by Valentina's continuous rambling about Finn, the newest guy to enter her life.

From what I had gathered, he attended a different high school to us in the next town across, but that was all I had learnt before dozing off, hearing the words "extremely hot" and "unbelievable in bed" whilst she proceeded to explain how they had met.