Slowly Freaking Out

1- Puberty Did You Well

Logan's POV

At the beginning of the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, my parents decided to get a divorce. The weekend after my last day of school, they both sat me down in the living room with very somber looks on their faces. My mom, being the crier that she is, started to tear up and then my dad, being the talker that he is, started to explain things.

“Your mother and I have decided that we have reached the end of our rope. You know that we both love you, Logan, so much but we have kept it together for as long as we possibly could. I don’t want you to think that this is about you at all though, sweetie, this is just between me and your mom and we’ve just decided that it isn’t working anymore.”

I just stare at my dad, the wrinkles on his forehead are deeper than they usually are, which happens when he’s worried, and his dark brown hair is graying on the sides by his ears. He always jokes that it’s because of all of the fighting with my mom about stupid things, but I don’t think it’s really a joke.

I’m not surprised that they’re going to finally end their marriage yet they’re both looking at me as if they think I’m going to randomly combust or something. In all honesty, I’ve known for years that their marriage would not last much longer- it actually lasted longer than I thought it would. When I was thirteen, back when we lived in South Carolina, my dad got a promotion at his job and it was huge news. However, we had to move all the way to Iowa as a result. It was definitely worth the sacrifice, but my mother has always resented him a little bit for making us move even though it was obviously a good thing. They are just so bitter towards each other now for no reason at all and it’s almost unbearable. I’m actually kind of relieved that this divorce is finally happening.

“Okay,” Is all I say when I realize that they’re both waiting for me to say something in response to this “shocking” news. I told them that I refused to stay in the house though, if they were going to be screaming at each other more than normal as they disputed who received what and all of that jazz.

Which brings me to right now, a week later, as I’m standing in my living room, saying goodbye to my parents for the summer so that they can figure their shit out. I still keep in touch with my best friend from South Carolina and she talked her parents into letting me stay with them for a whole three months, which is really amazing. I mean, it didn’t take a lot of persuading since her parents love me, even though they haven’t seen me in three years.

“Just be good,” My mom chokes back a sob as she wraps me in a hug that resembles the squeeze of a boa constrictor.

“Yeah, I will,” I assure her, not nearly as emotional as my mother is about this whole thing. I hug my dad too but he’s not nearly as emotional as my mother is, so he just pats me on the back and tells me to call him if anything happens and I need to come home.

“And call us a lot,” She adds. “And be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” I reply sarcastically.

I don’t want to prolong our goodbye so I insisted on just taking a cab to the airport. It took a lot of convincing with my mother, but I eventually got her to agree that it would be easier for everyone if I just left by myself.

The drive to the airport isn’t a long one and going through security is pretty quick since it’s a Wednesday afternoon and not a lot of people fancy flying on Wednesdays apparently. The wait in the terminal isn’t even all that long because I didn’t get there all too early so I board my small flight along with the others on the plane and relax. Luckily, this flight isn’t full so there’s nobody in the seat beside me, which means that I don’t have to pretend to be social.