(RIVALS) The Upside of Falling ✔️

Chapter 54: Choice

Brett

It was Friday night. I had just gotten home from a football game -- the first game that my parents hadn't attended. My mother told me they couldn't make it. No reason, no bullshit excuse for me to laugh at. Just that they couldn't make it.

We won the game and I went home. As soon as I stepped through the door I could feel that something was off. The house was too quiet -- no music playing, no muffled voices from the TV. There was just ... nothing.

I walked into the kitchen looking for my parents. I checked the family room. The basement. Den. Living room. Backyard. Couldn't find them anywhere. Finally when I made my way upstairs, I could hear their voices coming from behind the closed door to their master bedroom.

Their voices were what stopped me dead in my tracks; what made my blood run cold.

"You were with her." My mother was crying as she spoke.

"Lynn, I --"

"How many times."

I was confused. Standing there with my ear pressed against the door, I had no idea what they were talking about.

Part of me wishes it would have stayed like that.

"A few," my father had reluctantly admitted.

"A few?" My mother scoffed. A second later I heard something break. Later, I found the remnants of a framed photograph displaying a picture of them on their wedding day.

Then it was silent again. The kind of silence where I found myself missing the yelling.

"Why?" My mother asked after a moment. I could hear her voice break as she said the word.

"It just ... happened. It was a mistake that won't happen again, Lynn. I promise you that."

And then it dawned on me that my father was cheating and I felt a part of myself harden and become replaced with something colder.

My mother laughed, a maniacal sound. "A mistake that happened a few times, Will." I could hear footsteps before my mother spoke again, her voice lower this time -- sadder. "I won't let you ruin our family. Brett ... This will destroy him," she whispered the last part I barely heard it through the door.

My father promised; promised that him cheating was a one time thing that wouldn't happen again; promised that he loved our family enough to stay loyal to my mother; promised he wouldn't so much as look at another woman ever again.

I ran to my bedroom and quietly shut the door. My parents didn't know that I overheard them, that I knew about my father's cheating. So I pretended not to know and remained oblivious. I watched with knowing eyes as my mother and father secretly tried to move past his betrayal and act as if their marriage wasn't falling apart.

Until two weeks later when he cheated again. From that day on, I couldn't look at my father the same way again.

That was the same day he went from being my Dad to being my Father.