My music is shake the mirror on the wall loud. It is feel it in your teeth loud. It is probably going to have hearing damage loud.
It is not loud enough.
My hand trembles as I put on my mascara, and I have to use a Q-tip to get the black mess off my eyelid. I take a deep breath and try to drown out the voices.
It’s not like my parents ever had a perfect marriage. They fought when I was a kid, too, but back then it was in the way normal people who spend all their time together fight. The way I argue with Reese. Over petty things that end in a huff and a few minutes of silence while we cool off. Fights that are forgotten when the commercial break ends and our favorite show comes back on.
The way they fight is different now. With slammed dresser drawers and kitchen cupboards. With heavy stomps up the stairs that are too loud to be by accident—like toddlers throwing a tantrum. I’m not sure which of them deserves more of the blame for the way things are. Obviously there’s David from work to consider. Plus, my mom’s the type to find fault in everything. She’s never satisfied, nothing is ever good enough for her. So eventually my dad stopped trying to make her happy, and then he just...stopped trying altogether. Stopped taking care of himself, stopped keeping his promises. Which is probably why the David from work incident happened in the first place...and around and around we go.
In the gap between songs, my parents’ argument filters in through my closed door. The usual stuff: my dad doesn’t listen and my mom treats him like a child and maybe if you didn’t act like such a goddamn child...
I focus on finishing my makeup. Look myself over in the full-length mirror hanging from the back of my closet door. It feels like there’s more I should be doing to get ready. In romantic comedies, getting ready for a big date always becomes a montage of makeup and wardrobe choices. But Reese helped me decide what to wear days ago. I’ve already washed my hair, and I even blow-dried it so that it’s all straight and smooth, albeit still at an unfortunate, in-between length. I’m wearing sparkly eye shadow and this tinted lip balm I like because it tastes like cherries and makes me look like I’ve been sucking on a Popsicle. In a good way. I think.
Point is, I’m ready. Antsy.
A door slams across the hall, followed by a few grumbles from my father and vibrations as he flies down the stairs. Headlights flash across my window a few beats later as he backs out of our driveway.
I turn down my music and move to my bed. Even though the house is quiet again, still and peaceful like the aftermath of a storm, I don’t want to be here. I wish I could kill time at Reese’s, but she’s not there. She and Kevin are at his place “studying,” and are going to meet us downtown.
I reach for my computer and pull up the Pinterest board I’ve dedicated to dorm-room decor. It’s full of ideas like temporary wallpaper and ways to hang curtains with suspension rods. I’m 99 percent sure I won’t actually try to do any of this. For one thing, I probably can’t afford this temporary wallpaper because it comes in tiny rolls and is stupidly expensive, and for another, the school will assign my roommate, which means I have no idea if their taste will mesh with mine.
I’ve tried to make my bedroom feel like my own space, but with walls this thin, it’s hard to feel truly isolated from the rest of the house. Never mind the fact that it’s still home to numerous items I’ve outgrown, like the stacks of paperback romances I loved to read when I was a baby freshman and still haven’t gotten around to donating. Anyway, at college I’ll probably settle for a few movie posters and a paper lantern light, but it’s still nice to think about having my own place—even if it is essentially a cinder-block cell shared with another girl. I just pray that whoever they are, my roommate and I get along okay. That once I move out of this house, I won’t have to absorb any more yelling.
I type Bayes’ rule into a new tab and copy and paste the equation that pops up in the search results into a new document. Not that the equation is actually all that useful for my purposes. But the principle itself is about how every theory is a work in progress, taking into consideration every scrap of information you receive. So, I start a list. David from work goes at the top, followed by every terrible fight I can remember, all the times my parents said or did something that made me question why anyone would want to get married. All the evidence I have that love does not, in fact, conquer all.
And at the bottom of the page I write Webster’s name. You make it easy.
I stare at the list and realize I’m still skewing the evidence toward my own pessimistic opinions. Trying to prove my own existing belief, rather than treating my theory like something to be updated and refined. I do know some couples that seem happy, after all. Like Reese and Kevin. And I should be giving those examples equal weight, looking out for new evidence instead of lingering on the past, but I can’t get over this feeling that happiness like theirs is always temporary.
Suddenly I wish Bayes’ theorem worked like a reverse online dating algorithm. That it could help me predict more than just the probable outcome of a relationship. Not just why it will end, but how. Because there have to be certain ways of falling out of love that hurt less than others, and I want to know what those are.
“Aubrey, honey?” Mom’s knuckles rap against my door.
I shouldn’t have turned down my music. At least then I could have pretended I didn’t hear her. Ignored her until she went away.
“Come in.” I don’t look up from my computer as Mom steps inside and perches on the foot of my bed, hand smoothing out wrinkles in the duvet.
“You look nice,” she says. “Going out with Reese tonight?”
I nod and switch back to scrolling through Pinterest. It’s not like my parents would have a problem with me going out with Holland. In fact, my mom would be thrilled—she’d want to see his picture and ask me a million questions about him and might even go so far as to call Webster’s mom and gossip about it with her.
So. That’s pretty much exactly why I didn’t tell her. I don’t want her making this into a bigger deal than it is. And I sure as hell don’t want her dating advice.
Mom doesn’t say anything else, so eventually I lift my gaze and say, “Did you need something?”
She draws in a deep breath, and for a moment I think she’s going to apologize for fighting like that in front of me. Reassure me it didn’t mean anything, that it will all blow over, the way she used to when I was little.
Instead she shakes her head and says, “I don’t know what to do with your father. He’s driving me crazy, he really is. If I have to ask him to take down the Christmas lights one more time—I mean, I work full-time, then I come home and I cook dinner, I do the laundry, I clean the house. I ask for this one thing, and do you think he can do it?”
I’m not sure if I’m actually expected to answer or not. I settle for a noncommittal grunt and continue scrolling on my computer, seeing nothing.
Eventually Mom heaves another sigh and pushes herself off the bed. “Anyway. I shouldn’t be talking about this with you.”
“No, you probably shouldn’t,” I say, a little sharper than I intended.
Mom shifts and clears her throat. “So, what are your plans?”
“Movies.” I close my laptop and reach for my bag. “Actually, I should run. We’re getting dinner first.”
That part isn’t even a lie. We are eating first, though technically not for another hour. But I can’t be here another minute. She makes me so fucking stressed. God—it’s no wonder my dad is never home anymore.
“Oh! Okay. Guess I’m on my own for dinner, then.”
A twinge of guilt hits me, but it’s tempered with the same exasperation that’s been pulsing through me the past hour. “Guess so. See you later, okay?”
“Home by eleven,” she tells me as I head down the stairs.
I walk through the garage, past Dad’s empty parking spot, and vow I’ll never end up like them. I don’t even understand how it happens—how you can fall in love with someone and be so sure about them, so committed to building a life with them, and then one day wake up and realize the love you shared was only as stable as water cupped in your palm, slipping through the cracks little by little until there’s nothing left.
I may not understand the why yet, but I’ve seen it happen. And once you do, it makes you realize it’s safest not to fall in love in the first place.