Page 33 of Untouchable Player

As soon as I open the front door I’m hit with the shouting.

It carries on even after I slam the door to let them know I’m home.

I didn’t grow up in a house with shouting. My dad was barely there enough for that. I have heard them arguing before, and usually it was quiet - passive aggressive. My heart pounds as I walk towards the source of all the noise.

I realise it’s mostly mom’s voice, though it doesn’t sound much like her as she screams at him. Dad’s voice punctuates those screams with pacifying words I can't make out.

“You’re a fucking liar!” I hear as I stand outside the kitchen door, scared to go in, but scared to walk away too. “I trusted you, I trusted you like an idiot and you were fucking her!”

My blood turns to ice.

“Calm down,” my dad says.

I burst in, “what’s going on?”

Mom has mascara streaming down her face and her usually perfect hair has fallen out of its ponytail. For the split second before she acknowledges my presence, I see a side to her I’ve never seen before and it scares me.

My voice sounds pathetically small when I say, “Mom?”

Mom fixes her expression quickly and wipes her face.

“Honey, I thought you were at class.”

“What’s going on?” I repeat, this time looking at Dad.

He looks a lot calmer, though his face is scrunched up the way it is when he’s annoyed.

“Nate, why don’t you go to your room, your mother and I are having a private conversation.”

I’m about to argue when Mom breaks in, “this conversation’s over,” she says. She storms out of the room and for a second, my dad gives me a look I can’t read before looking away.

“How’s school going?” he asks.

Is he serious? I just caught Mom screaming at him, accusing him of cheating? And he asks me how school was?

“Dad, I’m an adult now, don’t treat me like a child.”

He laughs, but it’s bitter.

“Son, this is none of your business, so why don’t you just go to your room and leave this to me and your mother?”

I grit my teeth and storm out.

My parents’ bedroom door is open and I linger outside, looking for Mom. She comes out of their en-suite carrying bottles of shampoo and perfume before stuffing them into a suitcase on the bed.

“Mom, where are you going?”

She looks up at me with that slightly wild look still in her eyes. “I’m just going to stay in a hotel for a few nights, I’m sorry honey.”

“Why are you sorry? Why doesn’t he leave if he did something wrong?”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “How much did you hear?”

I lower my voice, “did Dad cheat on you?”

Her bottom lip trembles and that tells me all I need to know.

“Don’t go.”

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