DIVORCE

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING with my suitcase?” I stood in my bedroom doorway and watched my mom stuff her toothbrush into the toiletry kit she always packed for our family road trips.

“This isn’t your suitcase, Cassidy.”

“Yes, it is,” I insisted.

“Honestly”—Mom sounded tired—“the family shares a set.”

“Yeah, and mine is the medium-size one. I always use that one. Besides, that’s not the point. What are you doing with a suitcase?”

Mom’s blue eyes flicked to Joules’s open bedroom door. My sister was filling up her Hello Kitty backpack for the school day. “I’ll call tonight.” Mom raised the roller handle on the suitcase and hurried down the hall.

My heart clenched behind my ribs, keeping me in my doorway for a short minute. Then I followed her down the stairs.

She pulled her long wool coat from the front closet in a quick jerk, knocking Joules’s skate bag from the hook on the door. She swore under her breath as she gathered up the bag and tossed it onto the bottom stair. I looked down at it from two steps up and gripped the banister when my heart clenched again.

“Mom, where are you going?”

“Work,” she snapped.

“With a suitcase?” I hated how young my quiet voice made me sound.

She exhaled a sigh as she slipped into her coat. “Your father and I want to wait to tell you kids together.”

“Tell us what?” My mouth kept asking all these questions I didn’t even want the answers to.

“Shaw’s coming home for your birthday weekend. I know it’s bad timing, but he’s taking twenty credit hours this semester and it’s the only time he could come up for a visit, so we decided—”

“You decided to celebrate my birthday by announcing you’re moving out?”

Mom held up her hands. Her purse swung from her arm like an off-balance pendulum. “One step at a time. It’s only a separation.”

“That leads to a divorce,” I added, swallowing hard. “That’s what steps do, right? They lead to something.” I walked down the remaining stairs and held my arms out to exemplify my point.

Mom softened her tone. “Cassidy.” She reached for me, but I pulled back. The muscles in her neck were visibly strained as she steeled her face and shook her hair out from under the collar of her coat. “We’ll discuss this tonight.”

Heat crawled up my arms and neck like a million long-legged spiders. I’d never felt so angry in my entire life as I did watching her wheel my suitcase out the front door and down the sidewalk to her stupid new car. She’d been parking outside the garage ever since she bought the sky-blue Beetle two months earlier. I’d guessed it was for a quick getaway, but Dad joked that she wanted to show off her “midlife-crisis mobile.” Mom never laughed at any of Dad’s jokes anymore.

I ran after her into the snow in my slippers and yelled, “Whenever you decide to come home, I want my suitcase.”

I didn’t notice Madison’s teal Jetta parked beside Mom’s Beetle until Mom backed out of the driveway. I held one finger in the air to let Madison know I needed a minute, then ran inside. As I traded my wet slippers for my Pumas, Joules came down the stairs.

“Why are my skates on the steps?” she asked.

“Mom put them there.”

“Why’d she do that?”

I grabbed my backpack and said tersely, “Because she doesn’t think about anyone but herself.”

Joules’s face scrunched up. She looked so old, like I’d taken away her whole childhood with that one sentence.

I opened my mouth to apologize, but I knew if I started explaining she’d ask more questions. This was not my job. How was I supposed to avoid my sister until Mom and Dad decided to buck up and be honest with the rest of their children?

Joules tugged on my wrist as I started for the front door. I didn’t turn. My face was too hot with anger I didn’t want her to see.

“I didn’t mean that about Mom, Jouley.” The lie came out surprisingly easily. “I’ll see you after school, okay?”

“But I have practice today, and you have ballet.”

“Then at dinner.” I waved over my shoulder as I made a break for Madison’s Jetta. I slammed the car door shut and slouched into the passenger seat, crossing my arms.

She greeted me with an air-kiss on each cheek and peered at me over the top of her tortoiseshell sunglasses. “Wrong side of the bed today?”

“More like wrong family today,” I muttered.

Madison kept her eyes on me for another second before sliding her sunglasses back up the bridge of her nose and putting the car into reverse. “So,” she asked hesitantly, “what was that scene with the suitcase about? Mom going on vacay without the fam?”

I stared out the frosty window at the tire tracks Mom’s car had left in the snow. I could feel Madison’s eyes on me, but I stayed quiet.

“I bet you can talk your dad into extending your curfew. If you want to meet up with the boys tonight for a movie or something, I’m in. While Mommy’s away, the kiddies will play,” she singsonged.

“She’s moving out,” I blurted.

Madison slammed on the brakes at the stop sign at the end of my road. The car skidded a little before stopping mere inches from the intersection. Madison tore off her sunglasses and turned in her seat to face me. “No. Way. For how long?”

“I don’t know, for good.”

“Oh, Dees,” she gushed, “I am supercrazy sorry. What happened?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t ask—not like she would have told me if I did. They fight constantly. I guess I should’ve seen this coming.” I bit my bottom lip, shutting myself up. I hadn’t told anyone about my parents fighting or how much it was eating me up inside, making me feel like an outsider around my friends and Ethan.

Despite the national average, every one of my friends’ parents were still happily married and taking second honeymoons like Aimée’s mom and dad. The first thing Ethan’s dad did when he got home from work every day was pull his wife into his arms and kiss her—deep, passionate, make-your-son’s-girlfriend-uncomfortable kiss her. None of my friends would understand what it was like watching the two people who were supposed to love you more than anything else fall out of love with each other.

“Wow. Your parents are like my backup set. I can’t believe…” Madison’s voice trailed off, and she was quiet so long I finally turned to face her. She was staring out the windshield with this curious expression on her face.

I cleared my throat and pointed at the stop sign we’d been sitting at for several minutes now.

She shook her head and turned off my street. “Now we’re definitely going out tonight. My treat, wherever you want to go. My mission is your happiness.”

“Thanks, Mads, but I’m not really in the mood.”

I could tell Madison was disappointed and hurt I had turned down her help, but I didn’t have the strength to pretend to be okay. I leaned my head against the cold window.

Madison fiddled with the radio. “Parents always screw up families.”

“I’ve never once seen your parents fight.”

“That’s because Helen reserves her negativity pour moi.” Madison grinned sarcastically.

“At least your parents still love each other.”

“Yeah, my parents love each other,” Madison replied, “and that’s about it.”

“They love you too, Mads.”

“My dad hasn’t been inside my bedroom since I stopped shopping at Baby Gap, and my mom can’t even look at me without mentioning how the way I’m wearing my hair these days makes my face look ‘round.’”

“I like your new hair,” I said in a lighter tone, fluffing my similar style. She didn’t laugh. “Hey, you’re beautiful and lovable. Stop it.”

“That must be why it’s so easy for me to keep a steady boyfriend.” She pouted. It was so Madison to turn my parents’ separation into a pity party for herself—the product of a lifetime of psycho overanalyzation by her psychiatrist dad—but I welcomed the diversion, and she knew that. This was her upended way of making me feel better.

I put my hand on her arm. “Drew will come around.”

A sharp laugh jumped out of her mouth as she turned into the block-long line to get into the school parking lot. “Drew is so not—” She shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with him. I don’t feel like we’re getting anywhere. Like, the things I have going on are so far away from him that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever being with him, you know?”

Without realizing it, I nodded, saying, “Yes.” My chest tightened again, but this time I was thinking of Ethan and how what I had going on at home, and in my head, was not something I could—or wanted to—share with him.

The shrill sound of Madison’s car horn made me jump. She jammed the heel of her hand into the center of the steering wheel a second time as she yelled at a group of stoners loitering in the middle of the school driveway. They tossed her peace signs and chuckled to themselves while they casually strolled out of her way. “Move along, half-baked little ducklings.” Madison made a shooing gesture with her hands at the windshield.

Caleb looked up to respond to her second honk, but when he saw me in the passenger seat, he turned tail and separated from the group.

“Didn’t you use to play doctor with that one back in preschool?” Madison pointed at Caleb. “He’d be kinda cute if he washed his hair, like ever.”

I watched as he shuffled through the thin layer of snow covering the lawn that bordered the quad. He bent to tighten the laces on his black Vans, not bothering to actually tie them, then kept shuffling. He looked about as alone as I felt. I couldn’t help thinking how I had been the one who didn’t understand back in eighth grade when his parents split up. Ironic how now our situations were so closely related.

Madison bumped me with her elbow and smirked. “Am I right? He has potential, no?” She eyed him like he was a quaint fixer-upper. I tried to nod, but my brain was preoccupied. “At least Drew has the decency to shower and wear clothes that don’t make him look like a homeless skate rat, I guess.”

I forced a cheery tone. “That’s because he knows you wouldn’t accept any less.”

“I don’t know,” she replied gruffly. “My standards aren’t exactly Eiffel Tower–high these days.”

“He adores you,” I assured her, guiltily feeling better about my own situation knowing her life wasn’t as perfect as it seemed.

Madison waved her hand at her face like I was making her cheeks hot with a blush and pulled into her parking spot.

“Hey,” I began when she turned off the engine. “Don’t tell anyone about my mom and the whole suitcase thing, okay? Even Aimée.” I dropped my head, feeling shameful for wanting to keep anything, especially something this big, from my oldest friend.

Madison turned toward me with a stunned expression and leaned over to hug me. I tightened my arms around her shoulders, wanting to feel comfort in her gesture, but my stomach wouldn’t stop roiling.

“Don’t worry, Dees,” she said. “Your secret is safe with me.”