A/N - Thank you to imsles for her encouragement to write a story from a different point of view. It is my first attempt so please bear with me.


I sat at the cafeteria table listening to the guys laugh and talk. They were replaying the arguments their parents had had the night before. For some reason this was a daily occurrence while we ate lunch. I didn't really understand it myself. My parents never argued. NEVER. But I assumed that this banter was the guys' way of working through the turmoil that was "home" and sharing with the rest of us made each of them feel more "normal". Not that any teenager could ever feel "normal"… could they?

I didn't participate in this part of lunch. I had nothing to add. No one ever commented on the fact I stayed silent which was good because they probably wouldn't believe me anyway. And then today something happened. I was listening to "Rocks" tell his story about the previous nights "screaming match" and that night flooded my memory like a tsunami. Maybe it was his overly descriptive details of the words said, or maybe it was that the topic was similar or maybe I just finally remembered the only time I heard my parents fight.