Gage Cilleti has just begun his junior year of high school, and is becoming more and more involved in his school's activities, considering he'd been playing baseball since he was just seven-years-old.
Elijah McCay has just dropped out of school, du...
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Making my mother breakfast was the least I could do this morning, after holding her for hours as she wept over the loss of her broken marriage. I couldn't speak, could barely see straight after an hour of her explaining everything my father had put her through these last few months.
My heart was aching, and my scalp was sore from me tugging at the ends of curls every few minutes due to constant stress. As I poured waffle batter into my mother's waffle maker I stared into a fit of nothingness, thought swarming from every corner of my brain.
After not seeing my mother cry once for almost seventeen years, you get used to having such a strong shoulder to cry on. Never once realizing that maybe they too, need a shoulder to pour their feelings onto. Last night was a wake-up call. That my life wasn't as okay as I thought.
Especially not my parents' marriage.
Last night, my mother sat me on the sofa beside her bed, and sat beside me as she poured her heart out. Finally giving me every answer I'd been craving since days ago, when she first admitted to their marriage falling apart.
She sat beside me, head hanging low, cheeks heavily stained with tears and redness. "Mom," I reached out, hand colliding with hers, tightening instantly. "Please, tell me what happened." She couldn't speak, her empty hand coming forward to clasp at her chest, shoulders shaking with sobs.
I sat there quietly for a minute or two, giving her a moment to collect herself without falling apart completely. When she seemed to be calming herself, I turned and gave her an empathetic sort of look. She returned it, hand reaching out wipe under my eye.
Frowning, I leaned back. I hadn't even realized that I, myself, had tears running down the underside of my cheeks. "It started a few months ago," she finally began, and my heart felt as though it was going to fall right out of my chest out of anticipation. "Abba confessed to having feelings for another woman he worked with. I figured that it would fade, that maybe they were just spending too much time together after hours at work.
"So, we started going on dates again. More than we usually do. We even got a hotel room together that weekend you spent with Rick." My chest felt as though it was fuel, threatening to go up in flames. I had never felt anger like this. The burning desire to hurt someone you once cared so much about.
She refused to meet my eyes again. "But of course, that didn't work. Not too long after that, he started working more and more overtime. And I could feel it. Every time he wasn't with me, he was with her. I let it go on for too long, Gage. I allowed him to put that woman first, and his wife second. I allowed him to make me feel inferior." I couldn't help it, by how I, too was crying every tear that was tugging at my cheeks.
"Yesterday, I was driving to work—running a little bit later than usual when I pulled up to that coffee shop, you know, the one I always go to. When I was ordering, the barista called a woman's name. Vivianne. When the woman came forward for her drink, there your father was, paying for her fucking drink and carrying her bag for her." I couldn't help but flinch. My mother never swore, she didn't even like it when I swore.
"Then they saw me, you should've seen his face. His fingers slipped and he dropped the entire drink, along with her bag. Her very expensive seeming bag. When she bend down to scramble and pick up her things, he couldn't move, couldn't talk. And I felt almost . . . triumphant? I had finally caught him in the act, and we would finally be done it."
"So when he came home today, I had his things packed in his bags. I'm sorry, honey but he needed to go. As much I would've loved for him to stay, we couldn't be together anymore. I can't sit here and act though he isn't in love with a twenty-five-year-old receptionist—who I should stab in her sleep, but I won't. I'll keep my dignity in tact." I laugh, watching as she does too for the first time in hours.
I hold her closer again, and listen as she finally becomes content.
A/N - This is sort of a filler chapter, about Gage's parents and what they've been going through behind closed doors. A real chapter is coming very soon <3
