They couldn't be in the same room for more than ten minutes without finding something to argue about. The tone of someone's voice. Whose turn was it to take out the trash? How much money was being spent on groceries? It didn't matter what sparked it; the result was always thesame: raised voices, slammed doors, and a tension so thick it made the air in our house feel suffocating.
The only time they managed to maintain a fragile peace was when Aria and I were around. They'd have fake smiles and speak to each other in clipped, overly polite tones that were somehow worse than the yelling. Clearly, I didn't realize it at the time, but now it was all too obvious. They hated each other.
Now I can understand why, in my real life, they didn't speak to each other. They've done too much damage to each other to be forgotten.
Some nights I wondered if that's how Lily saw us, as two people who'd hurt each other so much that there was no turning back. And that thought, along with my parents' screams, sometimes kept me awake.
My accident had kept them calm for a while, but apparently, the truce was over. And they have spent the last two nights literally screaming at each other. One thing I was worried about was that if I could clearly hear my parents from my bed, Aria definitely could too, so on the third night of listening to their scream, I decided to go to her room.
When I opened the door, she had two pillows pressed over her ears, trying to block out the noises.
"Hey," I said softly, sitting beside her. "Want me to stay for a bit?"
She nodded, giving me space so I could lie down. I pulled up music on my phone and started singing to her until she finally started laughing at my horrendous voice.
"Our parents hate each other," she whispered when the music stopped.
"They don't hate each other," I lied. "They're just going through a rough patch."
"So, when will it get better?"
I didn't have an answer for her ten years ago, and I don'thave one now. Because in our timeline, it never got better. It just ended.
And now I felt even guiltier because I had left as soon as I could for Australia. I'd escaped. But Aria had been stuck here for years, dealing with their deteriorating marriage alone until she was old enough to leave, too. I'd abandoned my little sister to this toxic environment because I was too focused on my own pain without realizing that there were people who needed me here.
Aria had paid the price for my cowardice. In our present, she is distant and doesn't express herself too much. We didn't have the best relationship in my present, and sometimes I felt like I didn't even know her.
Now, I'm old enough to see precisely what is happening in this house, and I'm starting to understand why we are no longer close.
Some parents stay together "for the kids," convinced that a united family is always better than a broken one. They think children need both parents under one roof, that divorce is inherently more damaging than constant conflict. But they're wrong.
Growing up in a house where your parents can barely look at each other, where every conversation is a potential landmine, where the tension is so constant you forget what peace feels like, that messes you up in ways that are hard to articulate.
You learn that love equals fighting. You learn that commitment means suffering. You learn to walk as quietly as possible, read emotional cues, and make yourself small, so you don't become another thing for them to argue about.
And we learn that if we want peace, the best we can do is escape as soon as possible.
Aria and I had both fled the moment we could. She went to college across the country, and I went even farther. We'dtold ourselves it was about opportunities, about following our dreams, but really it was about getting out of here. We couldn't breathe in that house anymore.
"You know what?" I finally said to Aria, "I think it would get better. I will try to fix it."
She smiled, leaning back on my chest, until she finally fell asleep as if my confirmation were enough to give her the hope she needed for tonight.
Meanwhile, I started thinking about what I could do differently this time. What would happen if, in this timeline, I tried to fix things with my parents? What if I encouraged them to go to counseling? Would they still get divorced? Would that be better or worse for Aria and me? And if they stayed together, if they worked through whatever was tearing them apart, would I still have an excuse to leave the country when I finished school?
Because that's what their fights had given me, permission to run away. If my family was already broken, what did it matter if I was on the other side of the world?
But if I fixed things here, if I kept them together, would I be trapped in this town forever?
The thought made me feel like a terrible person. I should want my parents to be happy, and I should want Aria to grow up in a stable home. But part of me worried that fixing their marriage meant sacrificing my own escape route.
"You're not even trying," Jeremy complained on Friday as we sat in the cafeteria. "I set up the perfect opportunity for you to talk to her yesterday, and you just nodded and walked away. Do you want my help or not, pretty boy?"
"I do," I assured him. "I'm just... nervous. She's not just anyone, you know?"
What he didn't know is that she and I had done more than just talk already, and she made it pretty clear that she wanted me away from her, at least for now.
Jeremy's expression softened. "You really love her, don't you? This isn't just some conquest thing."
