The tears ran down my eyes like the rain outside of my bedroom window. The thunder clapped and shook the whole house as the flashes of lightning lit up my room. But, beyond all the noise you could still hear my parents yelling. Arguing back and forth, and back and forth for hours. Then, just like the rain, it stops. Silence. The house creaks and moans as it settles, those were the only noises to be heard for the rest of the night.

I wake up the next morning to the same silence I heard the night before. I walk down the narrow hallway to my bathroom and look in the mirror. Tired was one way to describe how I look, the tear stains on my cheeks, dark circles under my eyes, and red puffy eyelids indicate that I had a rough night. I slowly tread my way to the shower and turn on the cold water. As I stand in the freezing water I think about what is to come. Will it change my life forever? Or will my life remain the same as it always has been? As I get dressed I hear my mom call for my sister and I to come into my parents bedroom.  I walk slowly down the narrow semi lit-up hallway, heart beating a mile a minute, anticipating on what’s to come. I reach for the cold silver handle and I open the ivory painted door I see my mom and my dad on separate sides of the bed looking strait at the plain walls. My sister and I sit on the lush, beige, carpeted floor waiting for someone to speak first. My mom readjusts the position she is sitting in on her memory foam mattress. What comes out of her mouth next made me numb."As you both know your father and I have not been seeing eye to eye for a while........ I have decided to divorce him".

At first the tears never came, just the feeling in my chest of something being ripped out of it. The tears slowly work there way to the waterline of my eyelids. My sister was the first one to break, crying and screaming and accusing everyone for whatever she can think of. Then my dad started sobbing, he kept saying that he couldn't let my mom do this to his kids. That’s what got me to finally let it all out. Every emotion I have ever felt came rushing out of me like the hoover dam breaking. My parents started arguing again and my sister started having a panic attack, she was shaking and crying and screaming at the top of her lungs. I hug her and push her into the bathroom trying to calm her down, but the door behind us shut. I turn around and start frantically jiggling the door knob, but it wouldn’t open. My adrenaline was kicking in and my sister started to hyperventilate even more, so I screamed. Moments later all you here is my fist going through the drywall three times.

The three holes in the wall stared back at me like the eyes of a little kid looking at ice cream. Blood runs down my right hand and drips on to the expensive tile my dad put in the bathroom floor. My mom quickly opens the door and looks at the scene before her, a concerned look on her face. I walk out of the bathroom to sit on my parents bed holding my hand, tears still falling down my face. My speech is cracked and stuttering “I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault, I had to do something. I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault, I had to do something.” I kept saying it over and over as my mom cleaned up my hand. She finished and got up and hugged me and my dad sat on the bed next to me with a blank stare at the wall, holding my hand. “I am so sorry this is happening, but it has to happen.” my mom says. “Well it doesn’t HAVE to happen, you WANT it to happen.” my dad says. I tune their arguing out and look over at my sister. She is sitting in the far corner of the room, rocking back and forth telling her self it isn’t real. In the distance I hear my 6 year old sister call for my mom to change the channel on the tv mounted on the wall in her room. My mom rushes out of the room like a criminal leaving a crime scene. My dad calls my sister over to the bed where we are and tell us “now kids there is still a chance of your mother and I getting back together….”. I sat there and gave my sister a knowing look, “it’s never going to happen” my face says. She looks down in acknowledgement, knowing it’s true.

My mom walks back into the room with an irritated look on her face, but it softens as she looks at the three of us sitting on the bed. I can see the remorse in her eyes. “Well it doesn’t HAVE to happen, you WANT it to happen” replays in my head like a broken record. That is the only thing I can hear in my mind because it is so empty. She walks back over to the bed and sits down grabbing my hand saying I’m sorry. I just stand abruptly, ripping my hands from each of my parents and walked out of their bedroom.

I walk back down the hallway that seems to never end as I get to the door at the end. I pass the bathroom still filled with moisture from my shower, I pass my little sisters room with her sitting contently on her bed watching spongebob, then I pass my other sisters bedroom as her cat walks out of it meowing for her to come home. As I open up the door with yellow caution tape on it, a silent creak of the hinges can be heard echoing throughout the house. I calmly shut my door, walk to my window, open it up, and scream. I scream out all of the memories of my past. My mom and dad fighting, being happy, laughing together, crying together, not talking to each other, and avoiding each other. I scream out into the endless rows of dirt where green stalks of corn and lush bushels of soybeans would surround my house in the growing season. I scream and I cry. I collapse to the carpet in front of my window and kneel so I can still have my torso out of it. I let the crisp wind of March dry my tears to my ruby red cheeks and nose. The leaves on the many trees around the five acres of land around my house brush together making a sweet song that you can just fall asleep to. I scootch back to lean up against my bed frame. I sit there looking out the window to the fields of nothingness and let the wind blow my lavender curtains from side to side. I answer the question I asked earlier that morning. It looks like my life will change forever.