To Have, To Hold, and To Leave: A Bryce Hall FanFiction «completed»

5

My phone rang, waking me up. "Hello?" I answered groggily. 
"How the hell do you do this every morning?" Bryce yelled. 
"Whoa, chill out. Be a parent. Tell them to get up and get dressed. It's really not that hard, Bryce."
"They have been asking all fucking morning where you are. What am I supposed to tell them?" he asked, his voice rising again. 
"You know, if you can't handle it, you can just say that," I sighed. 

Jaden must have heard me yelling because he gave three, short knocks on the door before opening it. "Is everything okay?" 
"Can you take me home? Bryce is losing his damn mind," I explained, hanging up in the process. 
Jaden and I got into his car fairly quickly, and he sped over to the house. When we got there, Isaiah was sitting on the front porch.
"Mom! You're home!" he yelled, running towards me and wrapping his arms tightly around my waist. 
Jaden had gotten out of the car with me, and he shot me a look before he spoke. "How does it sound if I take you guys to school today? Your mom and dad have some stuff that they need to do."

Isaiah looked excited, and he ran towards Jaden's car. I thanked Jaden before heading inside. Owen was running around the kitchen naked, and Annalisa was pouting on the floor, surrounded by a bowl of spilt cereal. "What happened here?" I asked, grabbing Owen as he ran past me. 
"Our kids don't respect me!" Bryce yelled from the living room. 
"Probably because you are sitting on your ass in our living room while all three of our children are doing whatever they want!" I yelled back. "Alright, babe, you didn't have any milk in your cereal, so I want you to go and grab your backpack and head out to Uncle Jaden's car, okay?"
Annalisa listened to me quickly, heading out the door quicker than I had ever seen her leave the house. I practically dragged Owen up the stairs, pulling clothes on him. "There, kiddo. You, my dear, are going to go over to visit with Uncle Josh and Jasmine, okay?" 

I walked him next door, and Josh opened the door. "You and Bryce talked yet?" 
"Um, that's a really good question. The answer is yes, but also no. I'm about to go back and talk to him fully right now," I explained. 
Josh nodded like he understood as Owen followed him inside. I made my way back to my own house, and Bryce was still sitting in the same spot that I had left him in. 
"What the hell was that?" I screamed, standing between him and the television. 
"I was a little preoccupied. I wouldn't have to worry about it if their mother hadn't just up and disappeared last night," he spat back. 
"I didn't disappear! I left because you're leaving me for your ex-girlfriend, and it was something that I could hardly handle. I needed to get away from that so that I could process. I know that you don't understand that. No one has ever just thrown away sixteen years of their lives in less than a day when it comes to you, have they?"

He sat silently again, and it pissed me off more than it should've. "How can you just sit there and say absolutely nothing to me? We stood in front of our friends and family and confessed our love for one another, and you are letting that all go? How can you let that all go?" 
"Addison was my forever, Kate, and you and I both knew that," he finally blurted out. 
I felt like I had been shot. "How long?" 
"What?" 
"How long have you been cheating on me with her?"
"Kate, I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you," he replied. 
"I guess I have my answer. Go file.  I don't want you to be stuck with me for longer than you have to be," I sighed. 

He didn't wait for me to change my mind, bounding out of the home that we had shared for the last decade. I sank into the couch in the seat that he had just vacated, and I was surprised that I wasn't sad. I should've been sad, but I think that it was like many other things in my life. I wanted the person that I loved to be happy, even if I wasn't what made him happy.
My phone rang for what felt like the hundredth time in the last day, but this time, I wasn't dreading answering it. 
"Hi, Amy," I answered, happy to be hearing from Jaden's mom. 
"Hi, sweetie. I was just giving you a call to check up on you. Is everything okay?" she replied. 
"You talked to Jaden," I stated. 
"Um, to Mads, actually. Is everything okay?" she repeated. 
"Bryce and I are getting a divorce." It was the first time that I had actually confirmed it to anyone, and I was terrified. 
"Oh, honey," she sighed. "I'm so sorry." 
"No, it's okay," I assured her. "I want him to be happy, and if that's not with me, then that's fine."

We spoke for a few more minutes before Amy let me go. I sat on the couch in my empty house, and worry set in. I had been nothing more than a housewife for the last sixteen years, and I didn't know how I was supposed to just get away from that.
Bryce came back to the house just a little while later, and the two of us stared at each other. I spoke first. "Um, I think that I'm going to go stay at a hotel or something. It would probably be for the best."
"No," Bryce shook his head. "I did this. I'll stay somewhere else. You should be served with the papers by the end of the week. You should probably get a lawyer," he suggested, heading upstairs. He came back down with a suitcase, and I looked at him with tears in my eyes. "I'll pick the kids up from school, and then I'll come back here and we can tell them together."