My brother is a senior, going to move off to college in about half a year. This is a big deal for lots of reasons, and one of those reasons is that I get the big guest room when he leaves. Of course this isn’t the primary source of excitement for him moving to college, but it’s exciting for me because I have a tiny room right now.

Anyways, I started to discuss what to do with the room when he left. I mentioned keeping the Murphy bed when I move in there for storage and a bigger floor space during the day. It would be good for me to raise it up when I’m exercising or painting or working on homework. He disagreed with me, saying it would be better to have in the office.

I saw where he was coming from and tried to have a conversation about it with him. He was coming off rude at first, and then started saying some weird things. “You win, you win. I have no say in any of this.” I tried telling him to chill, saying I was just trying to have a conversation with him. My mom, sitting in a chair near us with a sad look of death on her face, got mad at this.

It got worse, and he went as far as saying, “For the past 20 years I’ve lived in this house, it’s never felt like a home.” WTF?! All I wanted was a conversation about a bed.

My mom got very upset by this remark and got up from the chair. I snapped at him (I regret it now, but honestly…. really?) and said that “All I wanted to have is a conversation about a bed. It means a big deal for me of getting a bigger room, and it’s offensive how you think everything is about you. It’s not a personal attack on you, and I find it really narcissistic that you would think that.” I said this quickly and with purpose, like one giant exhale.

He stormed off. My mom was cleaning everything in sight. First the table, then my stuff, getting everything she could. She does this often when they fight. Something about her cleaning makes her even more mad. I asked if she needed help. She said, “No, I’m just trying to make the house feel more like a home.” Snarky. That’s something about her that will probably never go away.

My dad heard this comment and they got into it. Yelling. Screaming. A different language. I walked away.

My dad slammed a few things and then left, but then came back. I told him to make up his mind, and he told me to shut the **** up. He banged on the door of the office that my mom locked herself in. “I’ll break it down if you don’t open it.” He tried, but he’s too fat. Then he went on screaming. He yelled at me to stay out of it when I told him to stop, that mom was filing for a divorce. I shut up after that, let their empty threats bounce off of each other as I locked myself in my room.

It was 25 minutes until anything happened again. He didn’t leave because my mom held his wallet and keys captive. She decided against my complaints that it would be a good idea to hide them in my desk. I asked her why, and she said, “Because your father is unstable and said he was going to kill himself tomorrow.”

He’s lying. It’s a very obvious thing. But that got to me. At that point, the whole thing got to me like a tidal wave breaking on the sand. I tried to cry it away, but it’s still there. And I don’t know what to do other than write a blog about how things are total shit.