The Player & The Pauper | ✓

1 | Don't Know What You've Got 'Til Its Gone

"If you had done as you were asked and stuck around this morning, you wouldn't be asking that question."

I roll my eyes, throwing my manners out the window. "You told me we needed to talk! You never said I was under house arrest!"

My mother's face quickly comforted in anger. "Enough, Peyton!" She yells, something my mother didn't do very often. "Check your attitude when you speak to me young lady."

"Whatever," I mutter, too quiet for even her super hearing to hear, and plop down on a stool in the kitchen. "Can you please just tell me what is going on?"

I watch as my mother's temper simmers to a cold, hardened expression. She was never a very warm mother, really. I know she loves me and my brother to the ends of the earth, but she never felt it necessary to shower us with hugs or baked goods or any of that other fairytale mom crap.

"Your father and I are getting a divorce, Peyton," she states, as if the reality of that statement means nothing.

I heave a sigh, leaning my elbow on the countertop beside me. "I know that. You guys told us on Wednesday."

"Just say it already, Mom," my little brother Jayden sighs as he joins us in the kitchen. Even he's dressed down in a pair of worn out jeans and a tee shirt, his brown hair not even containing half as much hair products as it had these last few months.

"Say what?" I demand, looking back and forth between my mom and Jayden. "Somebody just tell me what the fu—"

"Dad's gone, Pey. He walked out last night and he's not coming back."

Hearing those words come out of my sixteen year old brother's mouth is surreal. He only ever talks about girls and sports. He's never serious. Yet here he is dropping a Long Island sized bomb on me at eleven-thirty in the morning.

"No," I sputter. "No, Jay, I'm sure he's just gone on a business trip or something."

"Your brother is right, Peyton," my mother cut in, her gaze softening as she laid a hand on my shoulder. "Your father told me last night he would be moving out."

"But..." I trail off, my gaze bouncing between my mother's gaze and my brother's.

Jayden scoffs, crossing him arms over his chest. "Tell her the rest of it, Mom."

"Jayden Alexander," she snaps, her head whipping around to glare at him. Raising one hand she points in the direction of his room. "Go."

"Tell me," I blurt out. "It can't be much worse."

Jayden laughs, but it's dark and sarcastic. "You have no idea, big sister. No idea," he shakes his head as he retreats to the confines of his room.

When Mom turns to face me again, her face is set in a mask of sadness. "Peyton, I'm so sorry. I wish I could find a way to make this better, but I can't."

She hesitates with her next words, and a sense of concern plagues my thoughts and I feel a sting of oncoming tears creeping up behind by eyes. In my darkest thoughts, I know what she's about to say. But I refuse to let myself think it. "Go on, Mom. Just say it, please."

"Your father is cutting us off. He's already cut off our credit cards, and by the end of the day all of our accounts will be closed," she says solemnly. As the words leave her mouth, the tears behind my eyes begin to fall. "I have a small nest egg gathered in an account under my own name, but it's not enough to support our lifestyle. Your father has promised me that your's and Jayden's trust funds are still in tact, but until then..."