Chapter 7 – The Tough Day

"What's wrong Pumpkin?" Blake asked the second I walked into his room.

I didn't even take the time to answer or let him ask more questions and threw myself in his arms, my tears spilling like waterfalls.

Blake's arms automatically wrapped around me, his hand stroking my hair.

I knew he was confused. I would be too if my boyfriend had just dropped unannounced at my house and was sobbing uncontrollably in my arms without any kind of explanation. But at the moment all I cared about was that I needed Blake, I needed those arms around me because otherwise I had no idea how I could deal with what had just happened.

I needed more than just his arms around me actually. I wanted to lose myself in him and stop thinking about life outside of this bedroom. I wanted Blake to make the problem go away, the way he usually did. So, while still crying I started to kiss him. I kissed him frantically, taking him by surprise, my hands grabbing the edge of his sweatpants.

But Blake did something I hadn't expected. He grabbed my hands, stopping them and held them firmly at my back.

I tried to free them or to start kissing him again, but it was useless. I wasn't getting out of his grip.

"Lexi..." The way he said my name, it broke my heart and I just started to cry loudly, my head pressing against his shoulder.

Blake took this as his cue to let go of my hands and just held on to me tightly. "Lexi, what's going on? What's wrong?" he whispered against my hair.

"My mom left my dad," I cried against his shoulder, holding on tightly to his shirt.

Blake stiffened. "What?"

"Mom left dad!" It was hard to believe but I started to cry even more. I must not have been a pretty sight at the moment, snot coming out of my nose and tears covering my face. "Can you believe it? Can you fraking believe it because I know I can't!" And then I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed and Blake just carried me to the edge of his bed, sitting me on his lap and rocked me in his arms, whispering soothing words I could barely understand.

After I don't know how long, when stopped crying to uncontrollably I told Blake everything, told him how Mom had taken me out for lunch today to announce that she was leaving Dad because it just wasn't working anymore. And that she had been gone and out of the house before dinner.

In a couple of hours, my Mom had left us, had left me and my Dad and my brother and my sister. Just like that, with no more explanation and without enough time to really process it, she had been out the door.

How could she leave us this easily? How could she walk out of that door without looking back? When had she realized she would be leaving us? Since when had she been planning this? And how, how had I never seen this coming? Sure, ever since Mom had turned forty, she had started to act a little strange, but I never ever figure she could abandon us this easily.

"How's your Dad?" Blake asked me, still holding onto me tightly, my head tucked under his chin. "How's your brother and your sister?"

"I don't know," I whispered, my eyes closed. "I just up and left. I couldn't take it, I couldn't stay in the house."

"Lexi, your family needs you right now," Blake said softly.

"But I need you."

Blake grabbed my face, making me look in his eyes, his forehead touching mine. "I'm not going anywhere Lexi. I'm not leaving you. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. So don't ever worry about that. But your family needs to know that you're not leaving them either. They need to know that you will be alright, together, all of you."

"Is this how you felt? Is this how it felt to lose your brother? My mother only left and it feels like my heart's been torn in half."

Blake's thumb stroked my chin, "yes, it's how it feels, like your life will never go back to the way it was before, Like you've reached the end of the book and there's no way you'll ever be able to feel like you felt when you read it for the first time. But just because your mother left doesn't mean you lost her Lexi. It just means the life you knew until now has changed."

"I hate change."

"I know. But you have no control over it. Now, all you have control over is how you deal with the aftermath. And how you take care of those still there."

I nodded. Blake was right. I needed to be with my family right now, even if the sadness was almost palpable in the house, even if just looking at my Dad made me want to hurl with all the grief I felt for him. Ever since my Mom had told me she was leaving, it felt like there was a huge lump in my throat. I literally felt like something was stuck in my throat, like I could puke at any given moment. And there was no way for my tears to stop running.

Blake wiped the tears under my eyes with his thumb, and when he looked at me, I knew he knew, that he understood how I felt. He had lived through something even worst. If anyone could understand grief it was my boyfriend.

"You won't always be this sad, Pumpkin," he said softly, "keep crying for now, it's okay. Because one day you'll wake up and you won't be thinking about it, won't be thinking about your mother leaving you. You'll go on with your day and it'll be alright. It will never be the same sure, but you won't be as sad as you are now."

"You promise?"

"I promise," he said and hugged me. "Now, come on, we need to get you home."

I nodded against his chest and let him lead me out of the house and to my car and then back home.

Dad, Anna and Ty were all sitting in the kitchen at the counter when we arrived, staring at their full plates. No one was eating and no one was speaking and suddenly I felt like the biggest fool for having left like that, the second my mother had walked out of the house. How had they even managed to make food?

Before anyone could say anything, Blake walked up to my father and to everyone's surprise, hugged him. Dad actually looked like he needed it though. Blake told him something, I didn't hear, but my Dad just nodded, slapping his back a little and everyone was crying in the kitchen and we were all a big mess.

How could Mom have done this to us?

"Don't worry about dinner for the rest of the week, Anita will take care of it, and right now you guys need to step away from this counter."

"Why?" Annabelle asked, wiping her tears.

"Because tonight we will all sit in the living room eating ice cream and any junk food you can think about that I can order and that would normally make you unbelievably happy and I'll share with you Josh's version of a joke, or torture, I'm not sure yet."

"What are you talking about?" Ty asked, staring at the counter.

"I'm talking about a DVD titled '101 Ways Blake Eaton Sucks at Life' or every single video Josh has of me making a fool of myself."

For the first time today I actually chuckled. "I never heard about that."

"Only because this is an emergency situation, otherwise no one here would have ever known about it."

"I kind of want to watch that DVD," Ty said and he looked a little less gloomy. Blake grabbed his shoulder in a comforting matter, smiling at him.

"Me too," Anna said, with one corner of her mouth slightly raised and Blake gave her a half hug.

I don't know why but thos little comforting gestures made my eyes fill with tears.

We all looked at Dad. If he rather wallowed in his misery, we would all support him, but it felt like Blake had a good idea, like a distraction was actually what we all needed at the moment.

"How long's the video?" Dad asked.

"Two hours."

Dad nodded and then added, "I want chicken wings."

And that's how, the day that my mother left us, we all ended up in the living room, surrounded with empty boxes of four take-out places, looking at clips after clips after clips of Blake falling down, or messing up during his concertos or of falling prey to one of his brother of Josh's pranks, of basically making a total fool of himself.

And for a little while, we were okay.