Valerie's Guide To Postponing a Breakup

Should We Talk About a Breakup? Hi, hi, hi

Mum ushers me inside, whispering words of comfort to me all the way. But I can barely hear her since my anxiety is on a rampage, ransacking everything in my brain, disabling my ability to think straight while it laughs all the while.

I practically collapse when we reach the sofa, my shoulders shuddering with my tears. "What happened, Valerie?" Mum asks, concern lacing her tone. "Leo," I manage to choke out miserably, taking my glasses off and putting them on the arm of the sofa. Mum's expression hardens like a mask. "What?" She asks, her voice constricting. "What did he do to you?" "I don't have any proof," I tell her between sobs, burying my head in my hands. "But he got a job at that new brunch place I was telling you about, and I think it's because he—he hangs out with the other girls there." A light hiccup jars my sobs for a split second before they come pouring out again. "Everyone always leaves Mum," I wail, forgetting all our past fights and all my past grudges. "Everyone always leaves but you."

She sits down next to me, putting her arm carefully around my shoulder. "It's not only about Leo, is it?" She asks me softly. I look up at her with tear-rimmed eyes, wondering how she seems to know things I didn't even tell her. "This is also about Dad, isn't it?" I hesitate before nodding slowly, sniffing. There's a moment of delicate silence before it's fractured by a sniff that isn't my own. Mum wipes at her own eyes, careful not to poke herself in the eye with her nails. "I'm sorry," she says quietly. "I should've worked harder to make him stay." "You're right." I say quietly. "It was you who asked him to leave, wasn't it?" It's a struggle to keep the harshness out of my voice.

But then, her next words seem to bring back all the bad memories, as if she's dug up an old grave with just one flick of a shovel. "I—" she sniffs again, shaking her head. "I never asked him to leave, honey."

___

I sat on the stairs, my hands clutching the bannister, as I watched through the crack in the door. But I didn't have to see it. All I needed was to hear it; all I needed was to hear their ongoing arguments and how Dad always won one way or the other. I was fourteen—nearly fifteen—when it happened.

"You're not listening to me, Mark!" Mum argued. "We can't go on like this." "Go on like what?" Dad's voice came over Mum's, louder, sharper, angrier—but still she persisted. "It's only a matter of time before this hostility pulls her in too. Her only problems are friends and discos and, I don't know, what to wear!"

I wish with all my heart that she was right about that.

"Think about Valerie, if not us." I flinched at the mention of my name. Dad always got angry when Mum pulled the 'Think of Valerie' card. "All I've been doing for years is thinking about her!" Dad roared back. "Why do you think I haven't packed up and left, Angela?! We. Weren't. Supposed. To have her."

There it was. The words that seemed to shatter my entire life, hurtling me into the smothering waters of confusion and the worst conclusions my brain could muster.

And ever since then, I've been silently drowning.

I tried to tear myself away from the conversation. But I felt like a fish on a hook—I just couldn't leave.

"I know," Mum responded, desperation crawling into her tone. "But please, Mark, you can't leave." Dad let out an angry, exasperated noise that I thought sounded a bit like an explosion. "Why'd you throw away those pills I gave you, Angela? You fought so hard to keep her that I couldn't say no." "And look how amazing she turned out." Mum continued, sobbing. "She looks just like you, Mark; she loves you. I love you—" I turned away to flee back up the stairs and to the safe, comforting familiarity of my room, but that's when I heard it—the thunderous smack.