AUTHOR'S NOTE!

Alright, so here is chapter 3. This chapter mostly focus's on what leads Brooke and Lucas to there divorce and the struggle they are both having dealing with Maggie's illness. Lucas thinks Brooke is closing him, Riley and Bailey out of her life and only focusing on Maggie. Brooke thinks otherwise and she's not very happy about it. This chapter gets a little physical, but I won't tell you what kind.

ENJOY!

December 13th, 2018

Lucas

I love my children, I love them very much. I wish I could say the same for my wife. It's hard for me to love her. I wish It wasn't though. I really wish it wasn't. We just don't love each other like we used to. Everything has taken a turn for the worst in our relationship. We don't even kiss anymore, and we don't have the time to have sex, but when we do, we're never in the mood. Brooke usually sleeps in Maggie's room, and I usually sleep in the bed or on the couch. We just don't communicate anymore. When we do communicate, it's through yelling and it's always about Maggie. We both hide behind her. Isn't that sad? We use our sick, twelve year old daughter as an excuse to not talk about each other and our problems. But, the truth is, we really don't have time to discuss our problems.

Christmas was coming soon and privately, Brooke and I had talked about getting a divorce, I pushed it, she wasn't really agreeing with me. What broke our hearts the most was having to explain it to Maggie, if we did decide to go on with divorce. Brooke thought we were being selfish and that we should just stay together for Maggie's sake. I somewhat agreed, but it was time for us to at least separate. Brooke had different views.

"Lucas, I really don't have the time for this right now. Maggie is in her last week of chemo and it's hitting her really hard, we just need to be there for her and put our personal issues to the side." Brooke said as she was on her laptop paying bills.

"Brooke, if we don't talk about this now, then we won't ever talk about it." I said, trying to pursue her.

"Maybe that's it. Maybe if we don't talk about it, we'll be okay. Getting a divorce is just going to cause even more stress in this house, Luke, especially on Maggie. It won't make her health any better." Brooke said, with worry in her voice. She never smiled anymore, she was just never, ever truly happy. I think the last time I saw Brooke truly happy was when Bailey was born.

"Brooke, I understand that, but Maggie is mature for her age, she'll understand. She knows we fight, she's asked me about it. All we have to do is sit down and talk to her." I said, hoping Brooke would agree along some lines, I was sadly mistaken. Maybe I shouldn't have put it in that context.

"She'll understand? Lucas, our daughter is twelve years old and she has Leukemia! Do you expect her to be okay when we tell her that we aren't going to be together anymore? You don't think that that's going to hurt her in any way at all? You think she's gonna be okay with that?" At this point Brooke was yelling.

"I'm not saying that she's gonna be okay with it. All I'm saying is that when we talk to her about it, she's probably not going to be surprised to hear it. All we fucking do is fight, Brooke. We can't even hold a normal conversation! For Christ's sake we don't even sleep in the same fucking bed! Just because our daughter is dying, doesn't mean that you have the right to just push me and Riley and Bailey out of your life!" I yelled. I soon later regretted saying that. Brooke got up from the bed and slapped me hard in my face.

"She is not dying! Get Out!" Brooke shouted.

"Brooke... I--" She wouldn't even let me finish. She shoved me into the dresser, then she started hitting me in my chest. I made the wrong mistake of hitting her in the face. It wasn't right of me, I shouldn't have done it. The minute I did, I felt terrible. Not only did I hit a woman, I hit my wife. She fell to the ground, holding her face she looked up at me and in shock, with tears falling down her face.

"Brooke, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I.... I didn't--" I was interrupted by Brooke pointing her finger at me.

"I want you out of this house, NOW!" She screamed. I had never heard Brooke yell so loud in my whole life of knowing her. I picked up my keys, walked down the stairs, slammed the door and left.

December 13th, 2018

Brooke

I lay there on the floor in shock. I couldn't believe that Lucas, my husband of almost 13 years, hit me. How dare he say that Maggie is dying and how dare her tell me that I don't love my other children. I sat there, motionless on the floor, the slamming of the door made me jump, then I heard crying in the other room. It was my 4 year old, Bailey. I got up to go check on her in her room.

"Hi baby, mama's here. You okay, sweetheart?" I said as she wrapped her tiny little arms around my body and buried her face into my stomach. She was crying hysterically, I didn't know what about.

"Baby, tell mama what's wrong? Did you have a bad dream?" I said, trying to comfort my youngest girl, I rubbed her back, it always made her relax.

"Dada's scary, mommy." My heart broke. I guess I didn't realize until now how loud we had let our voices travel. Bailey's room was only two doors down from ours. I squeezed her tight into my body.

"Oh, baby, Daddy's not scary, he was just a little mad at mommy. He didn't mean to wake you up, sweetheart." Explaining a domestic disturbance to a 4 year old is not the easiest thing to do. You have to speak very tenderly about it as if it's no big deal. Bailey's attention span was very short, so she always changed the subject every 2 minutes.

"Mama, can I seep wif you in Maggie's woom?" I loved listening to Bailey's voice. She had my raspy voice, but higher pitched, obviously, and she couldn't pronounce a few of her letters correctly yet.

"Of course you can, let's go check on her." I smiled and scooped Bailey out of her bed and put her into my arms and I carried her to Maggie's room. It was only 9pm, so I figured she may still be awake. Of course she was.

"Hi, honey, mind if me and Bailey join you?" I asked Maggie.

"Sure." She said, flipping the covers up so we could all squeeze in.

"Mommy in the middle!" Bailey said. She always has to sleep by me and I know Maggie wants me by her side, so of course I'd have to sleep in the middle.

"How's my girl feelin?" I asked Maggie. Her back was facing me, she was laying on her side when she rolled over.

"I'm okay, getting tired... Mom, did Dad do that to your eye?" I forgot that my eye was probably a little red or starting to bruise, I should have covered it up or something. I couldn't believe she just asked that. I guess I also didn't realize that Maggie isn't 6 years old anymore and she knows what goes on in this house.

"Nah, Mama just had a fall, that's all." I said, giving Maggie a kiss on her cheek.

"Well, it doesn't look so good, you should probably put some ice on it or something." Maggie always seemed to put herself before others. She was just a genuinely kind heart-ed little girl. Always thinking of others before herself.

"I'm not too worried about it. But, I am worried that if you don't get any rest, you're gonna feel worse in the morning, so maybe you should just close your eyes." I said to my daughter. I wrapped her in my arms. Her skin was cold, and it was a ghostly pale white, the bags under her eyes looked like black eyes, and her hair was falling out. My daughter is beautiful.

"Is Daddy coming home?" Maggie asked.

"I really don't know, baby, I'm sure he'll be home sometime tonight." I replied back, I was starting to dose off. I was pretty tired myself and I just wanted to pretend like the fight Lucas and I had, never happened.

"I'm sorry that you're sad." Maggie said back.

"Mama's not sad, Maggie, just tired, now get some rest, sweetheart." I said back to her. Lucas was right about one thing. She did seem to understand that we were fighting. I didn't expect her not to, I just didn't expect her to actually say anything or want to talk about it. I still think that it's selfish. I just couldn't bare to see my children, hurt enough as they already are, but even more hurt after we tell them mommy and daddy aren't going to be together anymore, especially Maggie. I just feel like this shouldn't be happening.

I hope Lucas actually comes home tonight.

I know, this is a really depressing story. It's probably going to be like that for awhile. Though, I'm sure there will be some really good, happy flash backs. We shall see. Until then, I'm still trying to conjure up some good stuff for Chapter 4. REVIEWS PLEASE!! :D