I Get A Kick Out of You

Chapter 22

"Hey, mom? Is dad going to be at the house when we get there?"

Cassie looked at her son from the rearview mirror and gave him a soft smile. "No, honey, he'll be gone. Why do you ask?" Ethan crossed his arms and looked out the window. "Because I don't want him to be," he told her. "I don't ever want to see him."

He's been in this mood since New Year's Day, when he overheard Donna asking about their flight back. Cassie doesn't think it registered with Ethan that they would in fact be going back to Oregon. When it finally did that day, he shut himself in his room.

It breaks Cassie's heart that he knows the real reason of the divorce. If it were up to her, he would never know. She doesn't want him to resent Joel. She doesn't want him to carry this on his shoulders. If she could, she would take all of his pain and the memory of it away.

Unfortunately, that's not how it works.

"Hey, baby, I was thinking," she said to him. "Why don't you think about going to see someone to talk to? Like a therapist. You can tell them everything you can't or won't tell me, you can vent for an hour about whatever you want."

She glanced back to him and saw the gears turning in his head. "But...I already tell you everything," he said. She smiled as she asked, "Like about how you got hit in the face by a fist and not an iceball?"

He gave her a double take, then asked with sincere hurt in his voice, "Ben told you?" She shook her head as she told him, "No, he didn't. Honey, I'm a mom. More specifically, I'm your mom. I know when you lie because you're not good at it. When I did figure it out, Ben admitted to knowing about it and told me why you didn't say anything."

He put his head down in shame and sighed. "You've just been going through so much," he said. "I didn't want to add me getting hurt." After they pulled up into the driveway of their home, she parked the car and turned to look at him in the backseat.

"Ethan, baby, it's not your job to worry about me. I'll be fine, I promise. It's going to take time, but I will be. It's you that you should be focusing on. This is traumatizing for a kid your age. It's a traumatizing thing in general. I know because my parents got divorced, only under very different circumstances. If you ever want to talk about why your dad did what he did or...anything like that...I'm here. Okay?"

He nodded, but didn't say anything. She knew he already had questions, but didn't want to ask them quite yet. He wasn't ready and she understood that. "Come on," she told him, "you can pick what take-out we're gonna get." That got him to smile a bit.

They both got out of the car and went up to the front door. Cassie put the key in to unlock it, but...it was already unlocked. "Stupid asshole can't lock a door when he leaves," she grumbled. She opened the door and noticed all of the lights were on. It looked like no one ever left.

"Uh...hello?" She called. Suddenly, Joel came out of the kitchen with a wide smile on his face. "Hey, you two! How was New York?" Ethan looked up at his mom as if he had been betrayed. "You said he wouldn't be here!" He shouted.

He ran up the stairs and slammed the door to his room. "Ethan!" She called. "Ethan! Shit, goddammit, Joel!" She threw her duffle bag to the ground and crossed her arms, giving him a look that could kill even Stan himself.

Joel, on the other hand, looked like he didn't have a damn clue as to what was going on. "Why are you still here?" She harshly asked. He mouth dropped open to say something, but words seemed to fail. "Get out. Get out, Joel! Get out!"

"Wait, wait, wait," he quickly said, putting his hands up in defense, "I've done some thinking while you were gone. Being away from you and Ethan during Christmas, during New Year's...it sucked. It wasn't the same without you, nothing is! Come on, Cass, give me one more chance. I can prove myself to you. I don't blame you for leaving like that, I know you needed some time to yourself, but...what?"

Her glares got more and more dangerous the more he spoke and she figured she looked like a maniac by now!

"Blame me?" She asked. "You don't blame me? Joel, you cheated on me and got some poor girl knocked up! You've been neglecting me and your son for the past several years and now you've had some epiphany? After all that? Bullshit. I'm divorcing you. We're done. Now get out."

She started going up the stairs, but Joel followed her. "Your giving up?" He asked. "Just like that?" She scoffed and turned around so fast that he almost fell down the stairs. "You are so...stupid!" She shouted. "I've been fighting for this marriage for years, but you haven't given any effort, nor any reason as to why we wouldn't be in this position sooner or later! We're done, Joel."

With that, she continued up the stairs, but Joel remained where he was.

Cassie gave a quick few knocks to Ethan's door and said, "Ethan, sweetie, it's me. Open up." The door opened a moment later to her son, who had clearly been crying. "Oh, baby," she cooed. She opened her arms and he threw himself into them.

"Want to stay with me tonight? We'll watch movies and eat dinner in bed?" He nodded into her stomach, then followed her into her bedroom. All of Joel's stuff was still present and Cassie had an idea of what to do with them if they weren't gone by tonight.

"Actually," she said to Ethan, "why don't you get in your jammies and go get a few take out menus? Pick out some movies, too. Anything you want." He quirked up a smile through his tears and nodded. Before he could walk off, she placed a loving kiss to his head.

Once she heard his bedroom door close, she marched down the stairs. "Get your shit out of my room," she sharply told Joel, who was just getting ready to leave. He gave her an incredulous look. "Your room?" He asked.

She folded her arms as she said, "Yes, my room, in my house. The paperwork doesn't have your name on it, Joel, and thanks to the prenup you had us sign, it solely belongs to me. Now get your shit out or it's going on the front lawn."

He scoffed and shook his head. "You don't have the balls," he told her. "I'll come pick them up later this week." With that, he walked out the door. Cassie had to smirk because he has no idea how much hatred is fueling in her and she has the balls to do anything at the moment.

"Oh, Ethan," she said in a sing-song voice. She went into her room where he was sitting in the center of the bed, looking at menus. "Want to do something better than watch movies?"