~L~
The next few weeks came and went, and I was so busy with life, my parents relationship didn't even phase me...
So I was having fun. I had met a new group of girls in one of my nursing classes, which called for dinner parties at their little on campus apartments and outings at the sorority houses down the block. And I was with Austin a lot- like almost every evening.
It was exciting... Until, it wasn't.
They had been back in the studio together. They were getting ready to work on some special for the record company, so things had started to get a little tense.. yet again.
I guess I didn't realize just how bad things had gotten until I'd come home one evening and my parents were both sitting in the living room- so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop from three rooms over.
"Is everything okay?" My heart was beating a mile a minute and I was nervous... That didn't happen often.
I think that was the first time I had actually realized just how much I'd grown up. At one point, when I was a rowdy teenager, I didn't care of my parents were displeased or disappointed in my actions, but that night, I was worried that I had done something wrong.
It wasn't me though.
"No." Stevie was sitting on the couch, elbow resting on the arm as she held her chin in her hand and she stared down at the floor.
She had been crying- I could tell by the balled up tissues in her hand and the tone lingering in her voice... I knew it wasn't going to be good.
"Let's sit down, Princess." My dad still calls me that...
Nodding my head, I creased a brow as I stared at him and trailed towards my mom.
He was standing up from how anxious he was, I think he'd been pacing the room. And he was upset too, but in a different way. He hide it a little bit better than Stevie did.
"What's wrong?" I remember that as soon as I sat down on that couch, I reached out and took one of her hands in mine... She made me feel better in that moment.
She finally looked over, brown eyes melting into mine as she gave my hand the softest squeeze. "I love you." She mouthed, even though I could tell that she was a little heartbroken.
~
I was knocking on her front door half an hour later and she was right there, already in her pajamas and probably half asleep, but more than willing to sit up with me in the living room.
"He's gonna have another kid." I was crying so hard, I'm sure my words were just barely understandable.
"Oh, Lark." Suzanna had listened to me ramble on about it for a couple of minutes already, and I know that she was at a loss for words, too.
Sometimes there's just nothing to say and that was definitely one of those situations.
"I knew it was going to end bad." I was truly hoping that I would be proven wrong, but the past just doesn't lie and I knew their track record fairly well... I had been there- I had seen it.
But you can't blame just one person, because even she will admit that in their time together, she had also made some mistakes... She hadn't been innocent.
Suzanna was sitting right next to me, arm wrapped around my shoulder as I kept my face hidden by wrinkled up tissue. "You are so strong, Lark." She told me that all the time- since I was just a little girl, running around without a care in the world.
And once again, in just a split second, I found myself wishing that we could go back in time.
I wanted to be five again and I wanted my mom to be laughing with her friends, my dad to be spinning me around in his arms, and I wanted Suzanna to be there... with us, where I felt like she had always belonged.
But that's the funny thing about time... when it's gone, it's just gone and wishing it back won't do you any good. And sometimes that hurts more than the memory.
"Is your mother okay?" Suzanna loved her like a daughter... I realize that now.
I bit down on my lower lip as my stomach twisted into tight knots. "I don't know." I admitted, which made me feel as small as an ant.
I was so caught up in my own emotion, I didn't even stop to make sure that she was okay. I really regret that now.
"It's alright, sweet girl." She assured, leaving a soft kiss to the top of my head. "I'll call her to let her know that you're here for the night." Suzanna didn't expect me to go home and I didn't want to.
So she called my mom, talked to her for over half an hour in the kitchen as I sat in the living room, listening to Suzanna whisper for a long time.
I don't know what they talked about... I can assume Suzanna was making sure that Stevie didn't need anyone to come over. She was like that though- she would drop everything for us, even after she had "retired."
Anyway, eventually they hung up and with a sympathetic smile on her face and tears in her eyes, she came back and held out her hand for me.
"She's alright, honey." And that was a sigh of relief for me, even though I might have been selfish in the moment.
I ended up sleeping in the guest room that night, lying there for so long, I could hardly keep my eyes open, but I didn't want to fall asleep, only to wake up to reality again the next day.
And it was different... things were different after that.
