Adira focused on the gray hairs and receding hairline on her father's head, fighting back tears,  as he explained to her what she already knew. She had been dreading this for almost 2 months, she had hoped her parents would make things better again, but she knew that now there was no turning back.. Her parents were getting a divorce.

Even the word itself was vile and evil sounding, she had met people in church who's families were split, but she had never imagined her family that way, well not until 2 months ago when the fighting started getting out of hand, her father would leave for long periods of time, and them come back at the beginnings of dawn, drunken and barely standing. He would yell profanities at her mother, bringing the already awake Adira downstairs to investigate. Her mother  would just shake her head at him and lead him to his bed, telling Adira that he just had a rough day. 

"Mom," she started,  "what will happen to me if you guys get a divorce?," she asked watching her mother's face contort into a look of grief and pain. 

"Not if, when," her mother replied, keeping her eyes on the pan of frying eggs. "And you will stay with either me or your father, you'll have to choose one of us to be your primary caretaker."

Adira sat back into her chair and sighed, she didn't want to choose! She wanted both of her parents, and she wanted them to be happily married, like they were before, kissing each other softly on the cheek before bed and whispering compliments into each others' ears. Her eyes welled up with tears at the thought of no more Christmas dinner at her grandmother's house, surrounded by her family, all joking around and talking about the farm and her father's newest promotion. No more eating together at the dinner table, discussing the ups and downs of their day, or the silly coworkers who made stupid mistakes. 

"Adira," she heard her mom almost shouting, as she woke from her daydreaming. "God girl, start listening, I told you three times to go tend to the horses and yet you're still here," her mother shouted. Adira flinched, her mother rarely raised her voice, and never once had it been at her. 

She stood quickly and slipped on her boots and walked out the door, slamming it behind her, wishing that the door's gust would send all the bad news and memories flying far away. 

She hurried into the barn and dumped fresh oats into each of the horses' troughs. Then she hurried to  refill all the hay mangers and water buckets as quickly as possible. What she needed now was a ride. She hurried over to her horse's stall. In it stood a tall palomino mare. "Hey rain," she murmured as the mare walked over to her. She grabbed the lead rope and clipped it onto her halter and unlatched the door, leading her out into the bright morning sun. She tied the lead rope to the other side of the halter and  quickly mounted her using a stool.  "Steady girl," she whispered clicking to get her to trot.

Hi again! :) Hope you liked this chapter, I know the chapters are really short, but it's hard to figure out where to end each one.