We put our helmets on the chair, and silently walked into the house, careful not to draw attention to ourselves. I haven’t been here in years, and the unspeaking voices gave the house an abandoned feel. But still the house looked the same. Same blue wicker chairs, same palm trees, same hammock. Still the same undying feeling I had when I left. The fan was lightly blowing, rustling Margo’s already windblown hair as she looked around the room for the first time. I have never brought anyone here, to her the house probably looked pure, untainted by the bad vibes it has given me. I took a deep breath and scratched the back of my head nervously, maybe things are different now, maybe it is okay I brought my girlfriend here. But that was too much to hope for, I knew the minute the shouting started.
I knew I shouldn’t have brought her here, I knew I shouldn’t haven’t come back. All they did was fight, over the stupidest little things. My parents should have never married. And having a kid didn’t solve the problem. That was selfish, so f***ing selfish of them to hate each other so much and to hate me so much. Margo looked back at me in confusion. Of course she doesn’t understand what was happening. She didn’t understand the yelling, why I was so used to it. She is probably expecting me to run in and stop my parents, but I just stood there. We met freshman year at the University of California. She had these stunning green eyes, and this crazy red hair. She is from a small strict military family; she has never been exposed to a broken family. I hesitantly stepped in front of her and approached the kitchen. I peek around the corner to see my father sticking his sausage of a finger at my mother and her hands thrown over her head.
“You forgot to pay the dog sitter” my mother was yelling.
“It’s a freaking dog sitter! She’s our neighbor! She doesn’t even have to drive!”
There it is. The stupid fighting. Right then Lucy, our loving but extremely old Beagle came up and licked my hand. Margo dropped to her knees and started ruffling her ears. The jingle on the dog’s collar alerted my parents that they were no longer the only ones here.
“Derek, what are you doing here” my father asked. My body went stiff, every instinct in my body told me to smack him, to not even say anything and just hit him, but I didn’t.
“Uh, I wanted you to meet my girlfriend” Margo then, as if on cue stood up and went to shake my parents’ hands.
“Hi, my name is Margo” She was extremely formal about it. She treated my parents as if she was talking to her own parents, always saying Sir, and Mrs.
“Well, hi Margo it’s nice to meet you” my mother said while my father stood there speechless. They never knew me as the kid that would talk to the girls or even bring one home. But they didn’t know me. Not for real.
“Alright it has been a long day; I am going to show her around.” I took Margo’s hand and took her duffle bag and headed up stairs. I walked into my room and froze. Right on opposite side of the room was a fist sized hole. I forgot about that one, I wondered if my parents have ever seen it. Margo didn’t even say anything, she grabbed the duffle bag from my arm and put it on the bed. She walked over to the wall and rubbed her hand across the dent, more like hole.
“Tell me everything.”
I knew there was no hiding from her now, no more hiding from the past. God, I must really love this girl if I am about to tell her a story that I myself haven’t even admitted to. I told her how it started: I was in sixth grade when my father got laid off from work. I never had a perfect life to begin with, my parents bickered here and there but I never thought it would get worse. He searched and searched for months on end unable to find a job. So that is when the drinking began. Instead of the continues search, my father went to the bar, or simply came home with a six pack. At first my mother thought it was a phase and that he was depressed and maybe a little therapy or time would help. But soon it became a recurring event, my mother started yelling at my father when he would come home and he started yelling back. And soon it became normal, they always fought. My father even started looking for a job again just to get away from her.
Soon they would fight over everything. Absolutely everything. I could hardly stay in the same room as them, when I had parent-teacher conferences, they had to come separately so they didn’t fight while talking to the teacher. So as soon as I graduated from high school I went to the farthest college I could find. Which was California, it was the only one that was far enough and I could still afford. It is a three-hour drive from my small town in Oregon State.
“And since then, I haven’t come back” I finished telling her. She looked at me, with sad eyes. This is the first time I had ever told anyone this, and she knew it. I question why I came back, what drew me here? Maybe even though there was so much hate and sorrow in that house, it was still home; and I needed to share that with her. I love her. Right then and there I realized I loved her. Instead of going out that night, or even mingling with my parents, which wasn’t going to happen anyway, we stayed in and talked. We fell asleep blissfully.