He's Already Messed Up

After weeks of hushed, whispered complaints and death glares of resentment, Kyle's parents escalated their two-month cold war to direct confrontation. Down the stairs, in the cream-colored living room,with family photos of them in suits and dresses, all smiles overhanging the yelling on top of another to the point of unrecognizability, punctuated by the "How dare you?" "I never asked for that."Screaming was their only recourse.

His older sister Claire, formalizing her role as the haggard mediator of the two, sat in on the living room brawl. Kyle squatted at the edge of the stairs and peered over to watch.

"Can we please turn down the temperature?" Claire asked, directing her parents to speak like adults. They didn't listen. They kept screaming as Kyle watched from above like a spectator at a gladiator fight. "Y'all need to figure out what you're going to do. Either separate or divorce before y'all mess up this family, and damage Kyle," Claire said.

"He's already messed up," his mother threw out, punctuated by his father's silence.

"MOM!!! Claire responded. Kyle sat back against the wall; the sadness in his eyes warred with the anger in his scowl. Then sadness overpowered rage.

He snuck back into his room and crawled to bed. He neglected to brush his teeth, dragged his blanket halfway over his head, and slept for ten hours,a reprieve from his reality.

Kyle awoke to the sunlight piercing through his curtain. For a brief seven seconds, he forgot about last night, about the fighting, about the "messed up" comment. He sat on the edge of his bed, rubbing his eyes, as he sat in his room of movie posters and books scattered across the room. Then, a knock.

"Hey," his mother said in her sweaty workout hoodie. She walked through a little breathlessly as Kyle remained on the edge of the bed.

"Hi," he replied.

She wiped the sweat on her forehead with her hand, looking at Kyle with concern. "So, you heard what happened last night with me and your dad?"

"Yeah," he said. "Y'all are going to work it out, right?" Kyle asked, with a slight optimistic smile forming at the corners of their mouth. She shook her head, still moist. Kyle's smile disappears.

"So, with that. Let me ask, who would you want to live with? Me or your Dad?" That question jolted him awake.

Her eyes expected an easy answer, not wanting to go further into the drama, Kyle answered: "I don't know." His answer created a frown on his mother's face.

"Just to prepare you, one day a judge will ask you this, and you will need to have an answer," she said. She sat next to him and started crying, her tears mixing with the non-evaporated sweat. "I tried to make it work with your father. I tried suggesting therapy, but he wouldn't go. He won't do anything. And when there's no peace, no love. It's just..." She left that statement unfinished.

"How do you feel about this?" his mother asked. Heartbrokenly terrified at this blowup of his life, he still felt the urge to protect himself after remembering his mother's words from last night. He straightened up, removing his emotions from his face.

"I don't feel anything."

"You aren't at all scared? Terrified?" she asked with confusion in her eyes.

He shook his head. "No, I don't feel anything,"

She sighed. "What you're feeling is not right." She said with maintained eye contact. "This is gonna be a rough period, so I'm gonna need to rely on you and your sister, okay? You're the man of the house now." Kyle nodded his head. She then grabbed Kyle for a hug and left the room.

As soon as the door closed, tears rolled down his face. He didn't get up. He remained on the edge of crying and coughing, with snot coming out of his nose, using his pillowcase as a tissue. After a few minutes, he steadied himself. He made sure his face had no residue, his eyes de-reddened. Then, he walked out of his room to join the family.