𝑏𝑟𝑢𝑡𝑎𝑙 [𝒍𝒓𝒉,𝒄𝒕𝒉]

ᴛʜɪʀᴛʏ-ᴏɴᴇ - ᴄᴀʟᴜᴍ - ᴇᴍᴇʀɢᴇɴᴄʏ ꜰᴀᴍɪʟʏ ᴍᴇᴇᴛɪɴɢ

31 | Calum | emergency family meeting

Saturday

Jade wasn't the only one who had received that text. Just the moment after Calum had brought up all his strength to tell Maureen the magical words "I think I am bisexual", his phone buzzed as well.

And from reading that text to realizing that something at home must have gone completely wrong and understanding that he wouldn't have time to continue discussing what he had just said.

It felt so wrong to just drop a bomb like that and then having to leave, but he had no other choice. His mother's text sounded super serious and there was only one way it could lead to.

There was no time for his family to stay there and wait another hour for him to come home, no it had to be now, just like the text had said.

He had to leave through the window, so Maureen's Mom wouldn't see him escaping and all he was able to tell her was "I'm sorry but I really gotta go."

He knew it wasn't much and Maureen was probably confused, but from the moment he had read that text it was as if his mind had gone on autopilot.

When Calum walked home, there was only one thing, this meeting could all be about. All the kids had felt it already and if not, they had heard it. The fights, the yelling and the smashing doors.

Although Calum knew this meeting would probably end up in Mom and Jade crying, Dad just sitting there silent and Anastasia not quite understanding what was going on, he was sure that it was for the better.

He made it back home just in the same time as Jade. They met in front of the door, where Calum caught his sister's eye contact. Jade took a deep breath, while Calum nodded at her.

They both knew where this was going, but telling by the look in his sister's eyes, Calum was better prepared than she was.

Mom, Dad and Anastasia were all already sitting in the living room, Mrs. Hood's eyes already glossy. "Calum, Jade", she said, her voice was shaky, just like her hands which were gesturing to the couch. "Please, sit down."

There was a lot of beating around the bush. Mrs. Hood said a lot of empty words just so she could drag out the moment she had to get to the point of what's been up.

Which, to be honest, only made things worse. From the sentence on when she had said "Me and Dad have to tell you something important", everyone knew what it was that she was going to say, and all the time she avoided just saying what was going on, made the moment she would finally say it even more and more dreadful.

It gave Jade time to hope for the best. When she started telling them how during Corona, it killed her not to go out at all and how Dad just couldn't understand that everyone close together in one house made her drive crazy, because she could never get her time alone, Jade kept thinking that it could be that her Mom wanted to go on a trip for herself, maybe to the mountains where she could go on hikes and recharge whatever she had lost during lockdown.

And then when she said, how after quarantine, the tension between the two of them just wouldn't go down again but they really wanted to try to work out their differences, Jade thought that they might wanted to go see a therapist together.

But it had no use, at one point all the empty words came to an end and the words Jade had been hoping so desperately not to be said, appeared. "We realized that there is just too much in our marriage that had been going wrong, even before the lockdown had started. They were just never said. And ever since we had to see each other for 24 hours every day, it was just overloaded... There's just too much for us to fix.

Your Dad has already started looking for an apartement. If everything goes well, he's moved out by the end of the month."

And then it happened. Time slowed down and the realisation hit them all. It was true. There was no longer "the Hood family" all in one. From now on it was split into to two sides. There were now always two sides.

There was no Mom and Dad anymore, there only was a Mom or Dad.

Jade was the first one to react; getting up from the couch. It was her movement that brought Calum back to reality and time finally appeared to be moving forward again.

She didn't say anything though. She just walked off, her steps echoing through the house until the front door fell shut.

And Calum? He didn't really feel anything. He was just sitting there in silence, observing the whole situation. He wasn't surprised. Not at all, and in the slightest bit he was also a little bit relieved.

Dad moving out meant that there was no more yelling. No more fighting between his parents and no way for him and the things he did to affect the relationship between the two of them.

It was as if the breath that this family had been holding had been let go of. 

920 Words

Oh wow the first actual update in a year and two months. And it happens to be a super short one :O

I still haven't finished prewriting this in private, but I spent the last two days rereading Quarantine and everything I have written so far from Brutal to really get back into the book and for me to finally finish this. 

I still wanna do a good job at it though and I don't want the storyline to be rushed, which why it will still take me a while to finish, but I have noticed that the only way for me to actually finish writing this is if I keep updating. I kinda need a bit of pressure to actually work on it hihi

So I'm back to updating, however in really slow updates until i finished it in private. With that I mean, one chapter every two weeks. So I will post the next chapter on March 19th 2024