MARSHMALLOWING OUR WAYS

CHAPTER 21: CASSIE

I was about to answer to Wesley that yes, I'd love to be his girlfriend. And that I like boyfriends who would go shopping with me, when mom knocked again. This time her tears were on her cheeks and she was sobbing.
I mumble a bye and head out. I wrap my arms around her and then head inside the home.
She sits beside Dad, who is on the verge of crying. They both look at each other then at me then back at each other.
Something's off.
I sit opposite the couch where they are sitting and try to look into their eyes but fail. They won't look at me. Dad is looking at his hands which are folded in his lap and mom is looking at dad. They both clear their throats at the same time, look at each other and share a small, secretive and sad, very sad, smile.
They then look at me and sigh.
Mom starts first, "Cassie. We want to share something with you. Something really important that will affect our lives very much. Listen to us. To our explanation first then we'll listen to you."
Huh? "Okaaay?"
"Thank you." She looks at dad who sighs heavily and frustratingly again and says to me, looking straight into my eyes with his blank and empty ones filled with tears,"Cassie. We are getting a divorce."
He says every word slowly, as if enunciating it would make those any better.
My ears feel like they have swelled up and eaten my brain. I can't hear, I can't think. My brain doesn't work. All I see is darkness and darkness and darkness.
Divorce? Why? They have been together and happy for so long. They were in love with each other. Guess not anymore, huh?
But just guessing something doesn't explain things, now, does it?
I try to make my ears not swelled up and working. I fail a little. I try again. They start to work. I can hear them explaining things. I want to hear what they have to say.
I bring my brain back out of darkness. I quieten the buzzing in my ears, which started I don't know when.
I start to feel again.
I begin to think again.
I commence to cry an sob and cry and sob and cry and sob.
Do you hate me so much, Lord?
Do you not like me being a little happy?
I was happy when I had shopped that day with Wesley, but maybe you didn't like it and made me faint.
I was happy today, I was loving myself today, but you had to have done this to me, right? You just had to have my parents divorced.
My parents.
Those parents who were madly in love. Who joked around and laughed and did anything else together.
Parents? It's not the right word...They're still parents, still a pair of mom and dad and they probably always will be.
Couple? That's the right word. They're not a couple anymore. They're not a couple of a strawberry blonde beautiful girl and a handsome brown haired boy anymore. No. They're not. They won't be anymore.
This...This cannot be happening.
"Cassie?"
I snap out of my head, "Huh?"
"What I'm saying is that, we'll get the divorce papers next week. After the formalities are done, your dad will move out from here and live a few blocks away. You can visit him all you want, I don't mind. You and Ron, as you would have figured, would be living with me. Cassie. This is our mutual decision and we just can't be together. I'm sorry, baby, I really am. I just want you to understand and support us. Can you do that?"
Understand?
Support?
Do words like that exist? Because if they did,  I don't think they need anything else but love to make it work. And love? They had a lot. And I mean a lot.
I look at dad. "But...But you said everything is fine. Everything will be. That you'll do things for the best. Wh-what about that?"
He looks at his hands again, not having anything to say. Mom has her eyebrows at me, expecting an answer to her rhetorical question since, you know, I can't deny her.
I somehow manage to nod.
I make my brain work and move my legs. They take me to my room, to my bed.
Dad and I did the interior of this room. Well if you call deciding where to put the bed interior.
Mom and dad don't love each other, I guess. They probably hate each other. Will that happen to me too?
I don't want that to happen. No.
I think I'm falling in love with Wesley. Yes, I noticed that today.
But.
There are so many buts it's almost funny. Ha.
But does falling in love also mean falling out of it eventually? I don't want that.
If I start a relationship with Wesley, does that mean that we'll end like this?
Does that mean that we'll hate each other so much, we don't care how much people are being hurt because of it?
I don't want that. I don't need that.
I don't want to hate Wesley. I like him so much, hell, I've started to fall for him, I don't want that to change. Ever.
To hate him, I'll have to hate myself first. I can't do that again. No. I can't.
Relationships end because they start.
I don't want mine to end so I won't start one.
Perfect. Or not. I don't care. All I care is that we don't start a relationship because that will result in the end of one.