Nate

As soon as I open the front door I’m hit with the shouting.

It carries on even after I slam the door to let them know I’m home.

I didn’t grow up in a house with shouting. My dad was barely there enough for that. I have heard them arguing before, and usually it was quiet - passive aggressive. My heart pounds as I walk towards the source of all the noise.

I realise it’s mostly mom’s voice, though it doesn’t sound much like her as she screams at him. Dad’s voice punctuates those screams with pacifying words I can't make out.

“You’re a fucking liar!”

I hear as I stand outside the kitchen door, scared to go in, but scared to walk away too. “I trusted you, I trusted you like an idiot and you were fucking her!”

My blood turns to ice.

“Calm down,”

my dad says.

I burst in, “what’s going on?”

Mom has mascara streaming down her face and her usually perfect hair has fallen out of its ponytail. For the split second before she acknowledges my presence, I see a side to her I’ve never seen before and it scares me.

My voice sounds pathetically small when I say, “Mom?”

Mom fixes her expression quickly and wipes her face.

“Honey, I thought you were at class.”

“What’s going on?”

I repeat, this time looking at Dad.

He looks a lot calmer, though his face is scrunched up the way it is when he’s annoyed.

“, why don’t you go to your room, your mother and I are having a private conversation.”

I’m about to argue when Mom breaks in, “this conversation’s over,”

she says. She storms out of the room and for a second, my dad gives me a look I can’t read before looking away.

“How’s school going?” he asks.

Is he serious? I just caught Mom screaming at him, accusing him of cheating? And he asks me how school was?

“Dad, I’m an adult now, don’t treat me like a child.”

He laughs, but it’s bitter.

“Son, this is none of your business, so why don’t you just go to your room and leave this to me and your mother?”

I grit my teeth and storm out.

My parents’ bedroom door is open and I linger outside, looking for Mom. She comes out of their en-suite carrying bottles of shampoo and perfume before stuffing them into a suitcase on the bed.

“Mom, where are you going?”

She looks up at me with that slightly wild look still in her eyes. “I’m just going to stay in a hotel for a few nights, I’m sorry honey.”

“Why are you sorry? Why doesn’t he leave if he did something wrong?”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “How much did you hear?”

I lower my voice, “did Dad cheat on you?”

Her bottom lip trembles and that tells me all I need to know.

“Don’t go.”

She crosses the room and puts her arms around me and I force myself not to cry. I am not a child. My parents’ problems are not my business. So why does it feel like I’m a little kid right now?

When she pulls away, she looks calmer. “I can’t throw your father out of his own house, but I just need a few days to collect myself, okay? I’ll be back.”

“I don’t want to stay here with him either.”

“He’s your father, don’t be angry at him, please. This is between me and him.”

I let her get back to her packing and go to my room, listening out to see if Dad comes up to apologise or try to talk her out of leaving. But he doesn’t, and twenty-minutes later I hear her car pull out of the driveway and crunch down the gravel onto the road.

Katie hugs me as soon as she opens the door and I have to stop myself from bursting into tears.

“You can cry if you want,”

she says when she pulls away and sees my face, “I’m a woman, I can take it.”

That makes me snort a laugh, “I’m okay, thank you though.”

She takes a seat on the bed with her legs crossed. “Have you spoken to your dad yet?”

I shake my head. “I kept waiting for him to come upstairs and talk to me, but he didn’t. And when I woke up this morning, he was already at work.”

“Do you know where your mom’s staying?”

“She texted to let me know she’s at The Hilton.”

Katie nods. Sometimes I think she finds my family pretentious and tacky, (and I don’t disagree), but surely I’m just being paranoid and she’s not thinking that right now?

“She’ll be okay,” she says.

“I know, it’s just, I don’t want my parents to get divorced. I know it’s silly and I’m not a kid anymore and it shouldn’t really matter if they’re together or not, but it kind of does.”

“It’s not silly,”

she says, “I understand. If my parents split up I’d be upset too, but who says they’re splitting up?”

“My dad cheated on her, how can they not split up?”

“You don’t know that, it’s just what you heard. And even if it is, lots of couples get over infidelity.”

“I couldn’t forgive someone who cheated on me.”

Katie shrugs, “you can’t say that until you’re in the situation. Neither of us know what it’s like to be with someone for decades and raise two kids with them. They’ve got more to fight for than anyone our age.”

“You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Talking like a therapist.”

“Psychiatrist thank you very much.”

I smile at her, because I really am grateful for how much she’s been there for me these past three years.

“I don’t want to go back to the house.”

“You can stay here if you like. But you’ll have to share my single bed and I kick.”

“Thanks.”

“I would suggest you ask Harrison if he has space, but I’m guessing you don’t want to live with three sweaty athletes.”

My face flushes at the thought of living with Jesse. Seeing him pouring his cornflakes at breakfast without a shirt on.

“Or do you?”

“What?”

“Why did you look kind of happy at the prospect of bunking with your brother and his sweaty teammates? Did you find anything more out about Jesse?”

“No.”

“So you don’t know whether he’s gay or not?”

I shake my head. I realise, maybe too late, that Jesse’s sexuality is none of my business. If he wants it to be my business then he will tell me himself.

“He did turn out to be different than you thought though.”

I have to swallow a smile because Katie is like a fucking ninja at reading body language and she does not let things go.

“I guess, yeah. He seems like a nice guy. But even if he were into guys, he wouldn’t be right for me.”

I’m glad she doesn’t ask me why. I don’t even want to verbalise why. Because he’s a jock? Because, even though he’s not as dumb as people say he is, he’s never going to be a PhD student and I won’t be able to riff off him about my research one day in our New York City apartment? That sounds pretentious and ridiculous even to me.

“Hey, I have to go to class in a minute, but do you want to watch movies tonight and eat our body weight in chocolate?”

“That sounds good, but I don’t know whether I should talk to Harrison or go back home and try and talk to my dad or what.”

“Well, you can decide later,”

Katie says, “whatever you decide is okay with me.”

When Katie leaves, I open my contacts and think about calling Harrison. This isn’t something I can talk to him about in a message, but I can’t imagine calling him either. I decide to just send him a message letting him know Mom’s staying at The Hilton for a few nights. Why does it feel like a betrayal? He has a right to know where she is, and she didn’t ask me not to tell anyone. I’d want to know if he’d walked in on that scene.