Page 114 of One Night

She picks up right away. "Merry Christmas!" she says in a cheery tone.

"It's not merry. It sucks." My breath is shaky, tears welling up in my eyes.

"Amber, what's wrong? Is it your parents? Are they fighting?"

"They're getting divorced. Apparently my dad's already moved out." I sniffle.

"You just found out?"

"Yeah, they told us on Christmas. Great timing, right? At least we finished dinner first."

"Amber, I'm so sorry. What can I do?"

"Can I come over? Would your parents mind? I know it's Christmas but—"

"Of course you can come over. My parents are watching a movie upstairs and my brothers are in the basement playing their new video games. I'm just hanging out in my room."

"I'll be there in a minute."

As I'm racing out of the house, I pass my dad and mumble, "Going to Kira's."

He doesn't try to stop me. He knows I don't want to be home right now. I'm sure my sisters don't either. Here we all thought we were having this blissful Christmas with no fighting but we should've known it was too good to be true.

Kira's waiting at the door when I get there. She gives me a hug. "Let's go in my room." We go in there and sit on her bed, facing each other. "So why now?"

"They'd just had enough." I stare down at her comforter, which is covered in pink and white hearts. Her mom let her pick it out when she was 16. Actually I'm the one who did. We went shopping together and when we saw this, Kira said it was too much pink but I loved it so I convinced her to get it. Back then, I loved anything that was pink and had hearts. I thought it was romantic. But now seeing those hearts is making feel sick.

"It makes sense," I say. "You know how much my parents fight. I just never thought they'd actually break up. And for some stupid reason, I don't want them to, even though I know it's probably for the best."

"Everyone wants their parents together. It's normal to be upset about them breaking up, even if it's for the best. It changes things and change is stressful."

"It's even worse for Britt. She'll have to live there while all these changes are going on. When she found out, she ran off to her room, crying. Leah and my mom were talking to her when I left."

"Have you told Dylan?"

"No. I'll call him later." I lean back against the headboard. "What I don't get is how they ended up at this place. My parents seemed so in love when I was a kid and now they hate each other. How does that even happen?"

"I don't know. I guess they just grew apart."

"But why? If you love someone, why do you grow apart? Why isn't love enough to keep people together?" My tone is desperate, expressing my intense need to make sense of this. Because I want to believe in love. I need to. The hopeless romantic in me needs to know that real love exists and can last, but right now, I'm doubting it. It seems fake, temporary, something we've been tricked to believe in because of romantic movies and books.

"Amber, your parents have been like this for years." Kira keeps her voice soft, cautious, not wanting to upset me even more.

"Yes, but I still believed there was a small part of them that still loved each other."

"Maybe they do, at least on some level. Just because they're getting divorced doesn't mean they don't care about each other."

"Trust me, they don't care about each other. My dad saw my mom crying at the table and he just got up and walked away. He didn't show any concern. Any emotion. He just walked away and left her there. How do you do that with someone you used to love enough to marry? To have children with? How do you even get to that point?"

She shrugs. "I really don't know. Everyone says marriage is hard and if you don't work on it, you risk falling out of love. Maybe that's what happened. They didn't work on it."

"Or maybe they didn't have time to," I say quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind." I pick up one of her pillows and hug it to my chest.

"Come on. Tell me what you meant."

---