Slowly Freaking Out

5- Boys Are Stupid

“On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the fighting?” I ask my mom over the phone.

“Honestly?”

“Completely honest, Mom. I can take it, I’m just curious,” I say, sitting on the edge of my bed and raking my fingers absentmindedly through my hair.

“It’s even worse now that you’re not here,” She admits. “I’d say about a nine.”

“Have you hidden all of the breakable things? Like family pictures, vases, all of that stuff?” I wonder.

I can hear her let out a small sigh and I know that she just rolled her eyes at me. “We are not that barbaric, Logan, we aren’t going to start throwing things at each other.”

“You already have,” I remind her. “Just last week, you knocked over the vase that held my birthday flowers and it wasn’t an accident, I’m not that stupid. Just don’t hurt yourself- and don’t murder Dad. I know that you hate him but he’s still my dad so don’t kill him please.”

“Very funny,” She mutters blandly. “Seriously, Logan, how are you over there? I miss having you around.”

“I’m having a great time. Mae’s great, Miles is great. Everybody’s great and it sure beats playing the mediator between you and Dad all of the time,” I explain. “And it turns out, I play a wonderful matchmaker.”

“You aren’t just a mediator to us, Logan,” My mom sighs, seemingly offended by what I just said. “And I’m upset that you think that way about your home.”

“Mom, I’m touched that you now realize that I’m an actual person, but you ignored me at all times when I was there at home. I promise you that the conversations that we now have over the phone are the nicest and longest conversations that we’ve had in almost a year,” I inform her.

“It’s your father’s fault,” She grumbles because whenever something goes wrong, the first thing she does is blame my dad. He’s the same way about her too, though, so it’s not just something that she does. They just blame each other for everything.

“Mom,” I sigh.

“No, it really is,” She insists.

“No, it’s not,” I argue. “It’s both of your faults and I’m going to go now because I won’t let either one of you try to turn me against the other one. I love you both and it’s going to stay that way.”

“He tries to turn you against me?” She gasps incredulously.

“Goodbye, Mom,” I roll my eyes at how childish she is when it comes to my dad and again, he’s the same way with her. Maybe that’s part of why their marriage won’t work- they are almost exactly the same. Right before I hang up, I tell her that I love her but I push the ‘end’ button before she can reply and then I put the phone in my jeans pocket and go downstairs to get something to eat. It’s around noon on Monday morning so Mae’s parents are at work and it’s just me, Mae, and Miles in the house right now.

When I get downstairs, I make some Pizza Rolls and the timer on the microwave beeps just as Miles comes into the room, grabbing a bag of chips from the large pantry.

“Hey,” He chirps.

“Hello,” I greet in return as I sit at the island with my food and wait a little bit for it to cool down.

“Where’s Mae?” He wonders, sitting down beside me as he starts eating the chips by the fist fulls.

“She’s upstairs on the phone,” I smile over at him and wiggle my eyebrows. “With Landon.”