Every day, my four brothers and I walk home from school together. We could take the bus, but we prefer to walk so we can stop by the abandoned arcade and theme park on our way. The place went out of business about ten years ago. I remember going there all the time when it was still open. My brothers and our cousins and I would go with our parents and spend the whole day there. We loved it.
We were devastated when it shut down, and annoyed when someone started the rumor that it closed because it was haunted. Of course, it wasn't haunted, but when no one knows why a place closes, they usually go with haunted. Now nobody ever set foot on the property, except my brothers and me. We knew it wasn't haunted.
To be honest, it was still super fun even though it was closed. A lot of the arcade games didn't work, but we still loved going there. Our parents didn't, but we did.
More had shut down that year than just the arcade/theme park. Our parents' marriage shut down big time. They came close to divorcing, but because they couldn't agree on custody rights for my brothers and me, they decided to deal with each other, at least until we kids were older. Nothing improved, though.
Mom is never happy anymore. She acts like she hates us. My brother Dally says she does hate us, but I don't think so. She's our mother. How could she really hate us? But she sure acts like it. She yells at us all the time and makes us do every single bit of housework except for the cooking. She gripes about every little thing we do wrong, and I think she even hit my brother Ponyboy for getting a B on a paper. I don't know for sure though. I almost wouldn't put it past her. Almost. I still have hope.
Gosh, is she a changed woman. On top of treating us like dirt instead of her own children, she's always frustrated in general. Never once since the almost divorce have I seen her genuinely happy. Oh sure, she gets excited when she wins an argument with Dad or hurts his feelings, but she isn't truly happy. And she drinks. And she's insanely moody. So she's always either mopey or angry or both. Or drunk. It kinda sucks.
And Dad? He's changed, too. He really loved Mom, I think, but once their marriage started going downhill, things got pretty tough on him. I think if it weren't for us kids, he would leave her. I think she hates him more, and he would really be divorcing her for her sake. She wants a divorce, but they can't get one if they can't agree on custody rights.
Dad still tries to be a good father, but he's so caught up in his own life that sometimes it's hard for him. I believe he is trying his best. It's just that the company he works for is struggling and he has a bad relationship with mom. And his problem is that he's a people-pleaser. He wants Mom to be happy, but she's so demanding and so rude to him that it's exhausting for him to please her. He also wants to make his five children happy, but, well, with five kids and a busy life, it's kind of hard to maintain strong relationships with each of your children or to spend time with all of your kids together. So I understand.
I understand Dad's sadness a lot more than Mom's. Dad 1) has to deal with a grouchy, bossy wife all the time, 2) feels like he's failing as a father (even though he'd never say so), and 3) is in a job where people are getting laid off left and right, creating a ton of stress for him. So yeah, he's gonna be exhausted and sad fairly often. But Mom? She gets her way all the time and hardly does any work because she has five kids to do it all for her. But I know she's just struggling, too. This is hard on all of us.
My brothers are reacting differently than I am, for the most part. Like I said, I have four brothers. Their names are (in chronological order) Two-Bit, Dallas, Johnny, and Ponyboy. I was born in between Johnny and Ponyboy.
Two-Bit is a wise-cracking prankster and very protective of me, Johnny, and Pony; he doesn't need to be protective over Dally. He's the best older brother a girl could ask for. Sure, he gets drunk all the time, but honestly, his humorous personality makes it hard to tell when he's drunk and when he's sober. He's a big sweetheart and he loves everyone. But if you hurt someone he loves, he'll come at you like an angry bear. An angry mama bear, as is mine and Johnny and Pony's inside joke. He's also a turd sometimes because he loves to play pranks and he's always in a good mood. Not that being in a good mood is a bad thing, but when I'm in a bad mood, I wish he'd shut up. But I love him.
Two-Bit pretty much ignores Mom and Dad's problems and carries on with life. Trust me, he hates how Mom and Dad act, but he doesn't let it ruin the fun of life. Two-Bit is both nonchalant to the issue and angry about it. He lives in the moment of his anger, but doesn't dwell on it afterwards.
He also doesn't let it ruin his siblings' lives. He's gotten really mad at Mom for her yelling at us. And one time, when he got home from hanging out with some friends and found Pony with a bruise on his cheek, his immediate thought was that Mom had hit him. So he questioned Pony about it. Pony said that he got in a fight at school, but heck, there was no way that was true. Two-Bit found Pony's paper with a B on it on his desk, and then that evening he heard Mom griping about the grade to Dad. Two-Bit got right up in Mom's face and yelled at her about hitting him, and she vehemently denied it. We never really found out the truth, but we all kind of knew without solid proof.
Dallas is a total hood. Well, only sometimes. Ok, pretty much most of the time. He's not a good person, but he's a great guy, if you know what I mean. Tough and hard, he's done some pretty bad stuff, even gone to jail. He's mean and he hits on girls all the time. He gets into fights and beats people up and slashes their tires. He's a stereotypical bad boy, if not worse sometimes. But he does love his siblings, especially his younger ones. Sentimental feelings are not something he would admit to having, but I know him. I know he cares about us, because like Two-Bit, if you hurt someone close to him, you'd better watch out. Granted, Dally would do a lot worse to you than Two-Bit would, but still. It shows that he cares, even if he doesn't act like it.
Dally hates Mom and Dad. He doesn't talk about it too much because it bothers me and Johnny and Pony, but he isn't secretive about it either. He straight up hates them. He's completely cut himself off from both of them; he never does what Mom tells him to and he doesn't let Dad even try to love him. He and Dad were really close before, but now Dally was sick of Dad being depressed all the time. Dally didn't believe that Dad was really trying. He thought Dad was just keeping up a facade to keep Mom pacified as best he could. In Dally's eyes, Dad didn't really love us anymore because it was our fault they hadn't gotten a divorce.
Johnny is an angel from heaven and practically worships Dallas. Johnny is the quietest person on the face of this planet, even though he's the nicest. Before the almost divorce, he spoke a lot more, but ever since then, he's been a really quiet guy. He's also a lot jumpier. I think Mom's yelling at him scares him. But, just like a guy, he won't admit it. Boys never admit anything. Johnny and I are super close though, so I'm one of the few people who can get him to talk; Dally is one of the few others.
Johnny hates seeing Mom and Dad fight, and even though Mom acts like she hates him, he always does his best for her and tries to win back her love. It doesn't work most of the time, although she does sometimes acknowledge it with a pat on the shoulder or, if he's lucky, a smile. I love it when Mom smiles, because she never does unless Johnny somehow managed to please her. But how could you not smile at Johnny?
Ponyboy is the youngest in the family and my only younger sibling. As such, I protect him with my life. I know how Two-Bit protects me, and I do my best to protect my one younger sibling the same way he protects his four. We're all super close to Pony, maybe because he's the baby of the family, or maybe because he's just so lovable. Of course, I could just be biased. Pony's pretty quiet, too, but he was already a calm child before the almost divorce. He loves reading and does better in school than any of us. (But Two-Bit and Dally skip all the time, so they don't really count.) Oh, and yes, Ponyboy is his real name; don't ask. (Speaking of which, "Two-Bit" is just a nickname because he's always got to get his two bit's worth in.) Anyway, Pony is precious; I watch the sunset with him almost every night. We're best friends.
Pony tries to be indifferent to Mom and Dad's issues, nonchalant like Two-Bit, but I know they affect him. He has nightmares at least twice a week, so one of us siblings always sleeps with him at night, except for Dallas, who acts all heartless and who says that Pony's just a big baby and needs to get over it.
Like I said earlier, we never had concrete proof that Mom hit Pony, but she watched his grades a lot more after that incident, he never got less than an A again, and he seemed more skittish around Mom. He always does exactly what she tells him to right away without a word. As for him and Dad, he tries to stay close with Dad and always stops what he's doing if Dad tries to spend time with him. Pony and Johnny are definitely the most affected by the almost divorce.
As for me? I just live my crazy life with my crazy brothers. I'm kinda along for the ride, ya know? One girl with four brothers is in a fun, insane adventure of a reality. It's a good life. It kinda sucks sometimes, but it's good. I have food to eat, a home to live in, good grades, close friends, my amazing cousins, and most importantly, my incredible brothers. I love my Dad, and I try to love my Mom.
My brothers have all shaped how I react towards my parents. I sure don't let their fighting affect my happiness, like Two-Bit. I hate Mom's attitude towards us, like Dally. I hate seeing Mom and Dad fight, like Johnny. And I do my best to fulfill what Mom demands of me, like Pony. I work really hard to keep my dad happy, and I spend time with him when I can and he can.
Overall, life is good. And I know that with my brothers by my side, it will stay that way.