campbell's guide to the universe

ix. til death

"til death do us part." isn't that the vow?

two people, my mom and dad, all dressed up in white gowns and black suits, staring into each other's eyes like this is their entire world; their forever.

mom and dad have me seated on the couch, and i'm thinking about how i could never see my parents saying those words to each other. my leg bounces up and down quickly, pace speeding up the longer that we sit there in a stretching expanse of silence.

luke is over at a friends house, and in this moment i really wish he wasn't.

i need him to be sitting there next to me, need him to calm my restless leg with his weight beside me on the couch and be my support system. instead, i feel all alone.

without him, i feel seconds away from toppling.

mom and dad both have eyes that are unusually soft, crinkled at the edges. i know that can only mean one thing for me; doom is on the horizon.

"i think you've noticed changes between us..."

i have. i've been sitting through it all; doors slamming, dad leaving at 8:00 and not returning until midnight when he expects us to all be snug under our covers. instead, i have dark circles under my eyes from staying awake long enough to hear the door click closed behind him at one, two, three in the morning.

"well, we've been dysfunctional for a while."

i nod, uncertain of what else to do.

"we went to marraige counseling," mom begins. only then do i realize that her voice is shaking, unsteady. i have never heard mom sound like that ever before. unsteady is my voice, never hers. "and we think it's best if we divorce."

my breath catches somewhere halfway between my lungs and my nose.

my legs are finally still, and my hands too; i think it's all purely out of shock though.

sure, my parents weren't perfect. and hell, they didn't act perfect to me either. but i still thought they loved each other.

maybe i was just naive.

maybe i don't know what love really is.

maybe "til death do us part" is the vow designed to place pressure on couples, pressure you could never escape until it lead to your marriage falling apart. those five words could have very well been what pulled couples apart.

and for all i knew, love was dead.

"it's not because of you!" mom continues.

except maybe it is. maybe your son is tearing you apart. but can i tell you a secret? you are tearing your son apart too.

"our counselor said that many kids think divorce is their fault, so we want to reassure you that it absolutely is not!" i laugh for a second, because otherwise i would cry my eyes out.

my feelings are all over the place, and odd considering the way my parents treat me. sometimes i think that i only feel like i need to love my parents because they happen to be my parents, and that is the most complicated emotion in the world.

that line of discussion bounces between the two of them for the next few minutes.

i wonder if this is how they told luke; frantic, disorganized, almost afraid. but not afraid in terms of me doing something, afraid that they might trigger some outburst from me; some reaction they aren't even able to put into words.

i stare at the carpet fidgeting with the ring sitting on my middle finger, waiting for this moment to pass. waiting to wake up from everything like this was all just a bad dream.

however, after hearing it's not because of you ten times in ten different ways, i can't take it anymore.

i want to yell at my parents, at myself, at the universe. anger bites my brain; i bite it back.

instead, i take a breath. "is one of you going to move out?" my eyes dart back and forth between the two of them, frantically searching. searching for what? who knows.

what i really want to ask, the deeper question, is is one of you leaving? leaving the house, leaving the state, leaving to who knows where. but i can't put that in words, so i ask if one of you is moving out hoping that will still get my point across.

"yeah. i am. i've got a house about twenty minutes away," dad says.

since when? how long has all of this been going on?

by now, my anger is practically choking me. it bubbles up, threatening to spill out and burn everything to the ground.

i inhale and exhale, but it is far too frantic and doesn't really serve its purpose.

this moment feels weird, suspended above anything else that has happened between my parents and i. how they have treated me hides behind a curtain, a new issue taking center stage and temporarily distracting from the other things. and what happens when they aren't together anymore? i worry things will only get worse, and i don't think i could handle that.

"i—" my fingers itch as i curl them into a fist.

and just like that, i am upstairs in what felt like merely the blink of an eye. my bedroom door slams quite loudly behind me, tears streaming hot and sticky trails down my cheeks.

"fuck." i exhale. because what else can i say when everything is fucked?