The Housemate Equation

Chapter One

Watching plates and glassware smash on the wall was not how I wanted to spend my 17th birthday.

It was the morning after prom and I'd startled awake thirty minutes ago, after hearing the brawl downstairs. Mom and Dad were supposed to be preparing for work instead of standing in front of the TV, yelling the neighborhood down.

From where I knelt in the cold corridor, I tucked my hands under my armpits to keep them from being seen, and peeked into the living room. The usually warm and spotless room, now looked like the World War II had passed through it. Fragments of broken vases littered the floor, and Mom's red heels were sprawled out on the carpet.

I watched her scamper around, waving a bunch of papers around in the air, while Dad was shooting her his signature scowl. Spying on them felt wrong, but they should have seen it coming. Ever since Mom kicked him out of their shared bedroom, the living room had become the new meeting ground.

"April," Dad hissed through his clenched jaw. "Can't we do this some other time? You know the meeting the entire firm has been looking forward to all year is holding today." He warily ran his fingers through his salt and pepper brown hair, and glanced at his golden wristwatch.

There was charged silence in the air.

Mom stopped pacing and swiveled around to face him. Her barely-brushed brown hair was flying around her face, and the dirty green robe that was wrapped loosely around her body, was the same one she'd been putting on since last week. The odd look in her eyes could have passed for a crazed, almost barbaric one and I was sure Dad saw it too.

Rushing to the minibar, she pulled out a bottle of champagne from the glass compartment and gulped down about half of its content, straight from the bottle. Dad narrowed his blue eyes at her, as if daring her to hurl the bottle at him, but the wild look in her eyes made his confidence falter.

All of a sudden, I felt scared for him.

"April," His voice went all high pitched with fright. "I know you're angry April, but this isn't you. Please put the bottle down so we can talk through this like sane adults."

"Right, Luke. So I got up one morning and decided to be insane, and you had nothing to do with it?" her usually confident voice quivered. "So I'm the one who's been sleeping with his assistant after his wife begged him to stop?"

"Kamryn was a one time thing," Dad retorted. "I was going through too much with the plaza tow and didn't have anyone to turn to with you always working on that damn farm."

As I shrunk back from my position on the corridor floor in bewilderment, particles of dust suspended in the air and I fell on my butt with a silent thud. All this while I'd been thinking it was Mom who got sick of Dad and decided to ruin our family, but instead it was him who was the unfaithful one.

My heart clenched as she set down the papers and the champagne bottle down on the dining table, trying desperately to compose herself, "Are you going sign these now or do I need to resort to something else?" Her voice shook.

"I really love you, April. I made a few mistakes and I would do anything to take them back and fix this, but I can't. Please think about everything we've built . . . Think about the kids." He stepped forward to brush a thumb down her cheek like he used to, but Mom's face steeled over and she retreated backwards.

With his fingers suspended for in the air, she sent him the deathliest glare I'd ever seen, "Sign the damn papers." She muttered.

Dad stood speechless for a moment before he snatched the papers and began to read through them. It took everything in me to not start screaming the whole house down. What happened to the indestructible bond they seemed to have all my life? Hell, was this what love was about? Pure, unadulterated pain.

Deciding I'd tortured myself enough, I crawled out of my hiding place and walked over to them.

"I'm going over to Callie's." I blinked rapidly, in an effort to hold back the waterfall in my eyes that was threatening to spill.

If they cared about me, they would've remembered that Callie, my best friend and I had stopped talking nearly three years ago. But they didn't.

Mom ran her fingers through her sweat-matted blonde hair and forced a smile, "Of course sweetie. Just make sure you're back before dinner."

She hugged her robe tightly as her gaze met mine. I noticed that she looked visibly smaller in the fluffy fabric, her collar bones were even jutting out. Her grey eyes were cold and empty. They weren't the soft, twinkling eyes I had grown up watching.

"Oh, and happy birthday, my baby." She added with a tightlipped smile.

"Shit. It's her birthday? April, don't tell me you don't see how much this is affecting the kids? It's not just ourselves we have to worry about—"

Storming out of the living room, I pulled my hoodie over my head and walked into the chilly air. As the door slammed behind me, I rushed down the wet steps and into the heavy rainfall. The weather was the one thing good thing in my life right now. No one could see the tears rolling down my cheeks, through the downpour. No one could know how badly I wanted it all to end.

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