Chapter Fifteen: Fighting (Effy's POV)

Saturday at 8:05 AM

Effy had been awoken early that morning by the unmistakable sound of her parents fighting. The fighting had been so loud that for a moment, Effy believed that they were being robbed but when her mother's distinctive voice said, "Don't you think I know that?!" Effy had instantly known that had not been the case and laid her head back on her pillow to listen:

"Don't you think I know that?!" Anthea Stonem shouted, "Don't you think I know that I hurt you?!" There seemed to be a pause before she continued, "that when I had an affair with Patrick that I would be risking losing you more than I already had but I had been so damn lonely!" Effy could hear her mother crying now, "You wouldn't look at me! You wouldn't look at Tony! You wouldn't even fucking look at Effy! What did you expect, Matthew? That I was just going to put up with your bullshit and not find comfort in someone else?"

Soon Matthew Stonem rounded out with, "No, Anthea! I expected you to be my Wife! I had expected you to love me! To fuck me! Not Patrick!"

It seemed they had decided to fight about mum's affair again Effy thought running her hand through her long black hair. Effy hated these fights; they always ended up with her mother throwing something and her father threatening to leave but they were always empty threats: he never left and her mother never made him.

"How could I have been your wife then? You wouldn't talk, Matthew! It was like the accident had happened to you and not Tony! You seemed to find a way to make it all about you!" Effy didn't like where this was going, they never talked about Tony's accident.

"My son almost died! How could that had not been about me?!"

Anthea scoffed at that and added, "The only reason you made it about you was because Tony could no longer carry out your rugby dreams! It was all about you and what you couldn't pressure him to do anymore! What about me? Don't you think I saw a few of my dreams for my son fly out the window, huh? What about Effy? You barely look at her anymore! What about what she went through? Having to wake up every night to Tony's nightmares or to give him a bath or change him because you couldn't handle it! What about her scars from the crash! I know you wish it had been her that had gotten hurt instead of Tony!" Effy shut her eyes at what her mother said, she didn't want to think about that time in her life nor did Effy didn't think about Tony like he had been.

Effy and her older brother Tony had been in a very serious car accident when Tony had been in his last year of college and when Effy had been thirteen, She and Tony had had a head on collision with a public transportation bus. Tony had been teaching Effy how to drive that day and in her excitement she hadn't looked both ways before turning.

The paramedics and doctors had said that they had been lucky to survive; that it had been nobody's fault but Effy didn't believe that, it had been her fault and her father knew that, "Its Effy fault anyway! If Effy hadn't been so damn persistent to learn how to drive, none of this would have happened!" Matthew Stonem had screamed that with such conviction that Effy had to tell herself not to cry. It was one thing for Effy to believe that something like that had been her fault; but it was a whole other to have one of your parents believe that too: It hurt.

Effy heard her mother slap her dad before she screamed, "it's one thing to blame me but it's a whole other to blame my daughter! You will not blame Effy for any of this, you sick bastard! You will not blame her for things that you can't face up to!"

"Your daughter! Your daughter! She's my daughter too!" even thought Effy couldn't see anything through the walls, she would have bet a million bucks that her father had been vibrating with anger as he said that.

"Since when, Matthew? When have you paid any attention to her? Do you even know what's going on in her life? Do you see Effy when you look at her or do you see you own misplaced anger?" Effy sighed and jumped out of bed, she rather not be there if they were going to fight about her. Effy could handle them fighting about the affair or even about Tony but she couldn't handle them fighting about her. It made her feel invisible; like she didn't exist. Effy had walked over to her closet and began rummaging through her clothes that were hanging up, when her father shouted, "When I look at her, I see she's fine! She's just like her mother; she'll be peachy keen! Effy doesn't have scars! Effy has friends, she has boys falling at her feet, and she's the most popular girl at her school! Don't make me some bad guy who doesn't care about his child!" Effy rolled her eyes at what her father said were those the only things my father saw when he looked at me? Effy thought bitterly as she buttoned her purple trench coat over her pajama shirt, she wasn't in the mood to rummage for clothes to wear especially since it wasn't like she was trying to impress anyone.

"Effy's fine? My god, Matthew, you know less than I thought! Effy is far from fine, she barely sleeps, barely eats, she's no longer friends with that girl Katie, and she barely even talks to me or her brother anymore!" Effy wasn't surprised that her mother know even less about her life as her father: the reason Effy didn't sleep anymore was because her parents fought day and night; she didn't eat as much because she was on a strict diet to be able to stay fit for the football team and besides it wasn't that Effy wasn't close to Katie anymore it was just that Katie had changed so much during her parent's divorce that Effy didn't know how to relate to her anymore, and the reason she barely talked to her mother was because her mother never listened to her. It always seemed to Effy that Anthea Stonem was always coming up with ways to ignore her daughter; it seemed that her mother always had something that was more important to do than knowing Effy and she talked to Tony all the time and the only reason her mother didn't know that was because Tony never called home anymore. Honestly Effy didn't blame him.

"If Effy isn't fine then it's because you're suffocating her with your bullshit! So, don't you worry because If she can survive a damn collision with a transportation bus, she can survive you!" and with that Effy had had enough, she flung open her bedroom door and ran out of her house, forgetting her shoes, ignoring that her mother and father had realized that she had been listening and began to scream for her to come back, ignoring the aching in her heart, and ignoring the suffocating feeling of remorse and guilt.

Effy ran like the wind, she didn't have a clue where she was going nor did she care; she just ran. She ran from her father, her mother, her brother, and a little part of herself that keep screaming that this was all her fault. That everybody's unhappiness was her fault. Effy couldn't make herself stop running and truthfully she didn't want too.

Running took the pain away, running made her feel less guilty; Running gave her the feeling of having control over her life but she knew she couldn't run forever and when Effy couldn't breathe anymore, she stopped and took in her surroundings. It was almost at once that she realized where she had run to and with a shaky breath Effy took out her phone and dialed Cook's number.

Cook picked up on the third ring, "Hello, Princess!" Cook's cheery voice rang, he sounded like he had been sleeping and Effy felt bad that she had woken him, she was about to tell Cook to go back to sleep but before she could get one word out; she began to cry hysterically.