Emotional Dependency

Meeting Irene

This story is my side of the story.

It wasn't very clear why my parents got divorced. When i asked them why, they would tell me that they hit one another. I now understand that you can't tell a five yearold about adult problems. I remember waking up at night hearing them yell at each other. My brother and i were standing at the top of the stairs, just listening to whatever they were saying. "Stop it" my brother yelled at them, "Now!". After that night it all went very quickly. My dad moved to an appartment closeby, where i stayed once in a while. My brother and i stayed most of the time with our mom. My relationship with my mom wasn't that great, nor bad, but i was defenitely more of a daddy's girl. He told me once that, when i was a baby, i would cry untill i was in his arms. His presence would calm me down and make me fall asleep. I remember having a picture of him on my nightstand, after he moved out, so whenever i started to miss him, he would be there in that picture frame. My mom would let me call him when the picture wasn't enough. I think that would happen a few times a week, so you can imagine how much of a daddy's girl i was.

A little later my mom moved to another house and my dad moved back into our home. My brother and i moved with my mom to the new house, and we got the oppurtunity to have a new room, make new friends, we even got a cat. All those things made me really excited. And we would go to our dads house every other weekend and every tuesday, living our other life with him. It was hard to switch from house to house, because when i finally got used to being with my dad again, it was time to go to my mom. I remember crying so hard everytime he dropped us off. After a few weekends of getting used to being alone with our dad, he told us about a woman he had met.

"So how did you meet?" me and my brother asked him full of excitement. We were told that no one, that would come into our lifes, would replace our mom or dad, so we were more than happy for him to find a nice woman. I think we were pretty wise for our age. He showed us a picture of them together. I looked at it and saw a woman with tanned skin, a short brown bob, and a big smile on her face hovering over my dad. Her arms were wrapped around him, they looked happy. "I fixed her computer, and then we fell in love" he answered our question, knowing we would believe it. "What is her name?" my brother asked. "Irene". We were staring at that picture for a while and asking my dad questions about her. "When will we meet her?" was the last question. "Tomorrow" he explained with a big smile on his face. We were super excited and jumping around the room, not knowing this would be the beginning of hell that would haunt us in our adult lifes.

The next morning we waited behind the window until we saw her little white car parking infront of our house. Three doors opened. Irene,  her daughter who was holding a small white dog, and her son walked out of the car towards our frontdoor. When they came in we were standing in the livingroom. We greeted everyone and were awkward, like little kids always are. The girl, that was way older than me or my brother, walked past her mom and put the dog down. My brother and i were terrified of dogs so we jumped on the couch once he ran up to us. "he doesn't do anything" Irene said with a kind smile on here face. Her words didn't help ofcourse. We were still standing on the couch and screaming with every move the dog made towards us.

My brother went outside with the son of Irene which was the same age as he was. I was interested in the daugther of irene, who was a beautifull blonde girl. She told me she was 12 and that her name was Mona. "Do you want to see my bedroom?" i asked her. I was super excited to show her my little yellow room with my weird printed orange curtains. She agreed and we went upstairs. I was also excited about her, because she was super kind and this would mean she was going to be like a big sister to me. I think as a little girl that only has a big brother, it's a dream to have a sister.  And with that thought i jumped in my new life, having a bigger family. The bigger the better, right?

My sixth birhtday came and we were throwing a big backyard party at my dads house. Everyone was there: friends, family, neighbours, Irene and her kids, except for my mom. My mom arrived a little later with her new boyfriend. She introduced him to us a few months earlier, and we really liked him. When she arrived we were standing on the porch talking about me turning six, until my dad came to us. "I don't want him here!" he told my mom strictly. "Why? He is here with me, he is allowed to come to my daugthers birhtday." She sounded mad. They started yelling at eachother, about things i didn't undertand. I was just standing there, in the middle, just letting it happen. I later figured that my dad found it too confronting having my moms new boyfriend in 'their' house. "Then i will go too." my mom sighed. She looked at me and signed me to come to her. "there is a present in my bag, here Lyra, open it." She opened her bag and let me take out my present. I opened it infront of her, still standing on our porch. It was a coloured stamping set of the alphabet, and a lilo and stitch movie. After i thanked her, I stood there, waving her goodbye, not knowing why she had to leave. It didn't really bother me anymore after a few minutes. I was overloaded with people and presents. I also knew that i was going to see my mom very soon, so all the attention of the others was enough to distract me of her absence.

Having divorced parents wasn't that bad at all. I would have two birthday parties, two times the amount of presents, two bedrooms, two groups of friends, everything was better. I was a happy little girl.

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A/n: please give me feedback on my story and errors that I make! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!