Hello, Everyone! This is the sequel/prequel to Ordinary People. And, although the plot doesn't deal directly with it, you may want to read Dear Haley to gain some context for this one.

It took forever to write, but I'm glad I took my time. Pay attention to the details in the plot because this is a story where it gets brighter the closer you get to the end. I'm sure that you'll have some questions, so feel free to ask. I only ask that you are patient. In the end, my hope is that you enjoy, and are entertained by, my story.

JACOB

"You are so stupid!" Mom screams. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Will you shut up?" Dad says as he shakes the map. "I'm trying to follow the directions!"

"Daniel!" she barks, this time with a tone of annoyance. She flicks her head towards me.

Dad looks back, says something to Mom, and walks ahead a few steps. She follows him. I know they're still going to argue, but they think, since I'm only thirteen, I don't know any better.

God, I hate this family trip.

My parents don't like each other very much. In fact, it would be a major understatement if I said they hate each other.

They've probably plotted out, in detail, how they're going to kill one another. All they ever do is argue. If it's not about their jobs, it's about their money. If it's not their money, it's the food. If it's not the food, it's each other. Talk about being uncomfortable. I hate it when they argue about the other person right to their face. They scream insults and blame each other and all I'm thinking is: how in the world am I going to sleep tonight?

I can still hear them.

"You don't know where you're going."

"Yes I do."

"Then why aren't we there yet! You are so useless. You've never been good at anything, Daniel. If we took a cab, like I wanted to, we would've been there already."

"Yeah, with this traffic, we'd get there in no time! Don't be an idiot."

"I am not an idiot!"

"I thought we decided not to fight on this trip!"

"You're making it difficult by getting us lost!"

"Ugh! Will you just shut up?"

I close my eyes. I try to concentrate on the noise of the street. There must be something I can use as a distraction. A hot dog vendor comes up on my right and I knock over the ketchup and mustard bottles, purposefully making sure he sees me as I do it. I kick the loose wheel on the left side just for good measure. The vendor looks mad.

"Oops!" I chuckle and keep walking.

"We should've taken a left at that last street," I hear ahead of me.

"No, you don't know anything. Who's holding the map? That's right. I am."

Mom just stays silent. She must be thinking of an insult she hasn't used yet.

They didn't even notice what I did.

Watching them argue is like watching a chess game go into stale mate: Hours of waiting only for the game to end without a winner. It's totally disappointing. I was forced to be on the chess team in seventh grade because I was a "troubled youth" who needed an outlet. It was basically my punishment for breaking all of the computers in the computer lab. You'd think a better outlet would be football or wrestling (Maybe they thought I'd have too much fun).

Sometimes I wish they'd just get a divorce and be done with it. At least all of the arguing could lead to something productive.

Yeah, sometimes I wonder why they're still together. Do they stay together to torture each other? Do they stay together to torture me?

They're doing a pretty good job of doing both.

Sometimes I wish I had the courage to say something to them. Actually, not sometimes... all the time. I lie awake most nights and think about all the things I could say. The sad thing is that no matter how many things I think of, I'm not going to say them. Even if I did, it wouldn't matter anyway.

I'm invisible to them. They wouldn't even listen.

I normally just keep those thoughts to myself since there's no one I can tell them to. It's not like I have any friends I can talk to and the only time my parents notice me is when I do something stupid...

I wonder what the hot dog vendor did after I knocked over his ketchup and mustard bottles. He looked pretty angry.

We continue to walk around for about half an hour without a real destination in mind. Mom and Dad seem way too quiet. I know it's a weird thing to say but it's different when they're not yelling at each other. They've been talking and looking at me a lot but they're not yelling anymore. And I'm not sure if it's a good different or a bad different... it's just different.

They stop at the corner of the street, right before the cross-walk, so I stop too. Dad nods his head very slowly, as if he's agreeing with something but secretly doesn't want to. Mom glances at me, says something else, and he nods again. I stay where I am, a few feet behind, watching them. Dad looks at me and smiles. I don't know what to do so I smile back.

"Get over here, Jay," he says with a flick of his wrist.

He hasn't called me "Jay" in forever. It was his nickname for me when I was a kid. It was always "Jay" this or "Jay" that. It's nice to hear him say it again. Without another thought I walk to him and wait for him to say something else.

He messes up my hair with his huge hand like he used to do when I was eight years old.

I laugh and tell him to stop.

He chuckles. "Your mom and I were talking and we forgot that this is a family trip. We haven't been seeing or doing anything that you'd be interested in. You must be bored out your mind."

Even though he's completely right, I play it cool. "Whatever. I don't really care."

"What do you want to do, Jay? What do you want to see?"

Mom smiles and puts her arm around me. "We're gonna do whatever you want to do."

This is nice. They're not yelling anymore. They're not insulting each other. They're actually working together as a team.

Maybe all this arguing will finally lead to something productive after all.

Have you ever had a perfect day? A day where everything seems to go right. A day where everything works out. A day, that if you hadn't just lived it, you'd think was nothing more than a good dream.

I really hope I'm not dreaming because it's only nine o'clock at night and already I can say that this is a perfect day.

We spend hours at the toy store, the arcade, and a comic book store. They let me choose whatever I want to do, so at the comic book store, I decide to let them choose the next place. I know it's going to be somewhere lame, but it doesn't matter as long as I'm with them.

I'd go anywhere with them at this point. It finally feels like a family.

It almost seems like they know I'm going to let them choose our next destination because as soon as I ask them, both Mom and Dad answer at the same time: Willis Tower.

Apparently, it's one of the tallest building in the world now that the Twin Towers are gone. Top five I think (not all that impressive in itself). There must be something important about it since they both want to go there.

As we walk, Dad tells me everything he knows about the building and I let him think I'm interested. He points to it as we get closer. One thing that I can admit is that it's gigantic.

I walk between the two of them, making sure my pace is the same as theirs. My arm locks with Mom's and she looks at me with a smile. I forget how tall I'm getting; she's probably only an inch taller than I am now. Her eyes look a little glossy. I don't know if she's so happy that she's about to cry or if all of the lights from the city are just making them look that way.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"Nothing," she says quickly, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "It's nothing. Look we're here"

I try to get a glimpse of the sky without any luck. All I can see is the never ending bend of the tall building. Dad nudges my shoulder and tells me that we're gonna go to the very top.

It really is amazing.

It makes me feel powerful. It sounds kind of strange, but being so high off the ground makes me feel like nothing can stop me, nothing can hurt me, like I'm the most powerful person in the world and this is my throne, above every building, above every person. I'm so close to the sky I can almost touch it. I lean over the guard rail to get a better view, pretending that I'm flying above the city, the crisp late autumn air swirling around me.

Dad sighs heavily. "Having fun?"

I give him a thumbs up sign and continue on with my flight.

He and Mom turn away from the scene and start heading for the door that leads back inside. "Come on. There's one more thing we want to do."

I take a look at the sky for the last time. As my eyes come back down, I notice the doorman. He has a nose like a bird's beak, big and pointy at the end, and his head is as round as a basketball. He doesn't look very friendly and the more he smiles the more creepy he becomes. You'd think a fancy place like this would put a better looking doorman to greet us.

There is an urge in me to say something. People need to know that they freak people out. I know I shouldn't, but it's hard to break old habits. "What's wrong with your face?" I yell out as we walk past him. "Your nose is huge!"

He glares at me but there's nothing he can do about it.

"Jacob!" Dad smacks the back of my head.

My mom raises her voice. "Don't hit him."

I playfully punch back to let her know I knew he was only kidding. "It's not a big deal, Mom. It didn't even hurt."

"See? I didn't hurt him, Nancy. I'm just teaching him a lesson."

"And that's how you teach him a lesson? By hitting him in the back of the head?"

"Are you criticizing my parenting skills now?"

"No, I'm criticizing your competence as a parent!"

Wait. What just happened?

He laughs and shakes his head. "I knew you couldn't keep it up. I knew it."

"You knew what, Daniel? Tell me what you knew!"

"I knew you couldn't keep it together, Nancy. You are the worst parent ever."

"I'm the worst parent ever? Says the guy who just hit his kid."

"You know I was just playing around. You always take things too seriously."

"Yeah, I'm the one who takes things too seriously."

I don't know what's happening. My head moves back and forth like a ping-pong ball as I watch them throw knives at each other. I'm so confused. Why are they arguing again? Where did all of this come from? Where did all the happiness go? I desperately try to jump in and reassure them that I wasn't hurt. I knew Dad was kidding.

The more I try the more they push me away.

A kid, about my age, walks by, eyes locked on them as if he's looking at some fish in an aquarium. I step in his way and get in his face. "What are you looking at?"

He doesn't respond. He looks more surprised than anything.

I push him backwards. "What the hell are you looking at?"

I feel a large hand grab my shoulder and whip me around. Dad looks intently into my eyes. It takes every ounce of my power to meet his glare. "What do you think you're doing?" he demands.

I don't have an answer. I knew they would pay attention to me if I did it but saying so isn't going to be a good enough reason. I swallow the large amount of spit that collects in the back of my throat. There are so many things I could say back but there's only one question that I'm concerned with. "Why are you fighting again?" I manage to let out.

His eyes change from a glaring intensity to a hollowed sadness. The grip on my shoulder loosens but he keeps his hand where it is. With a deep sigh, he rubs his eyes. It's at that moment that I realize how tired he looks. I never noticed it until now but he looks exhausted.

I look at Mom. "Why are you fighting again?"

She looks away.

"It was a perfect day. What happened?"

My question hangs in the air like a slowly deflating balloon. The white noise of our surroundings fill in the silence between us. My mind races for something else to say but the same question keeps repeating itself: What happened? One moment everything is fine and in the next it's like nothing changed. And over what? A playful smack in the head?

Dad looks at me again, his dark brown eyes trembling like his hand. "Jay," he says slowly. "There's something your mother and I need to tell you."

I look at her again. This time she meets my gaze. There's no question she's crying now.

"Jay. Look at me."

I look at him.

"Your mother and I are getting a divorce."

That's the word. That's the word I've been waiting for this entire time.

I've thought about this moment millions of times. Each time I think about it, though, it's completely different than this one. In my scenario we're at home and I'm sitting in my room, leaning against my door, trying to ignore the newest argument they're in. They'd rip each other a new one in the hallway, or maybe in the living room, and in the midst of all of the shrapnel I'd hear it. Honestly, I thought it would be my Mom who'd say it.

"I want a divorce!" she'd yell at the top of her lungs.

And then Dad would scream: "Thank God!"

But this is totally different. This isn't how I imagined it at all.

This hurts.

How can one word be so heavy? I thought I'd feel relieved. I thought hearing him say it would make me smile, but I don't feel relieved at all. I'm definitely not smiling. I feel like a huge boulder is sitting on my chest and it's crushing me.

"We wanted you to have a nice family vacation before we told you."

A nice family vacation? Is he serious? This is how he wants me to remember this? After the perfect day of family happiness, he decides this is how he wants to end it.

"We want you to know that even though your mother and I don't love each other anymore, we still love you... both of us."

Love. Please, I'm thirteen years old. I know what love is. That's complete crap.

"We've thought about this for a long time. It's necessary."

After a pause, Mom takes my hand. It slips through her grasp and falls back to my side. "Say something," she says.

There is so much I want to say. There is so much I could say. In the end, it doesn't even matter. They've made their decision. They want to break us up, nothing I say will fix that.

They fight and argue, they insult each other all the time, but can't they work through it? Do they even want to?

And what am I? Am I just an afterthought? Did they even think about me when they decided to split? I'm part of the family too. Shouldn't I have been involved in this decision?

No matter what I want to say or what question I want to ask, the end result is the same: They're getting a divorce.

I push Dad's hand off of my shoulder. It's heavier than I think. He doesn't say a word. I turn my back towards them and walk in the opposite direction. Mom calls out my name but I don't stop. I don't even slow down.

If they can leave me, I can leave them too.

Every step takes me farther from them, and every step makes it harder to hold back the tears that don't seem to stay down. I've held back tears before but this time it's different. These aren't tears of sadness. They're of anger. For some reason, I'm so mad I'm on the verge of crying. I don't even know why I'm crying. It's not that big of a deal... Still, it feels like someone keeps punching me in the stomach and there's nothing I can do about it.

I push through the crowd of hundreds of other tourists, unapologetically running into as many of them as I can. They also get mad. They call me names. I don't care. Their parents aren't getting a divorce.

And so what if my parents are getting a divorce? It's not like they're dead.

I walk into a bookstore. There is a display of the newest best-seller near the entrance. I knock over the card-board cutout standing beside it. No one seems to notice. I push over the stack of books on the little display table. An older woman sitting in the reading area looks up from her magazine and eyes me suspiciously. I flip her off, grinning as I do it. With an offended scoff, she gets up and leaves.

I chuckle to myself when suddenly someone knocks into me.

"Get out of my way!" she spits in my face.

As if I need something else to get me even more pissed off about. I push her back. "Watch where you're going!"