The Boy with the Whiplash Tattoo

Thirty

The next few days were torture. We were all perfectly sweet to each other, but our mouths puckered up like we'd been sucking lemons.
Aaron didn't talk to me, and his silence burnt holes in my skin.
My mind worked a thousand miles an hour and that catty little voice, my voice, told me all that was wrong with me. But most of all that it was all my fault.
Mum and dad fought over the TV, her with her measured angry tone and him with spiteful little whispers and by changing the channel with the remote control app on his phone.
My husband was barely home, didn't even eat with us, and came home with red, blurry eyes and slept on the sofa, leaving me cold and bare on the floor.
"Maybe he's cheating on you," mum quipped one day, and that was the last straw.
I wished I could kill her with my bare hands.
Instead I said, feigning calm,
"When are you two leaving?"
"When you announce your pregnancy," she said without missing a beat.
I closed my eyes, pinched the bridge of my nose, we were not going over this again.
"We can't get pregnant with you here," I said, because maybe that would work.
"We'll stay in a hotel."
How did she always have an answer for everything?
I didn't press any further, because I knew it was futile.
"I want my bed back," I said, and Dad nodded. Mum didn't look up, so I went upstairs, took their things out of my room, left them in a pile on the sofa.
I slipped into bed and hid under the covers. I was bone tired and my heart felt far too heavy.