Chapter 29

We got home after a few more days. Mom and Dad are still arguing non stop, it's like we're running in circles. "All I'm saying is, just because it happened to my parents, it doesn't mean it's going to happen to yours." "But, Marcus, they never used to fight." "You fight with your boyfriend. Who says you're about to break up?" "No one because we've always fought, we do it more than once a day. They never used to fight, like at all." I enthused.

"I don't know how to help you, Lauren. Just trust me." He hugged me. "Okay, well I just came to pick up Lilly. Where is she?" "She's in Laura's bedroom." He lead me to her room. "Laura, it's time for Lilly to go home now." "I don't want to go home." Lilly shook her head. "Come on, I think Cody's at home." I said. A grin grew on Lilly's face.

"Let's go!" She sprung to her feet. "Bye bye." "Bye." The two of them hugged. "Thank you for making me lunch today." Lilly said to Marcus while we walked to the front door. "You made lunch?" I raised my eyebrows. "I'm a good big brother." He grinned. "And he made slushies." "Well aren't you a star." I smiled at him.

Marcus nodded and opened the door. "Do you think you could come see me instead of Cody one night this week?" He ran his hand down my arm. "I'll see what I can do." "Okay, it was nice seeing you today even if it was just a half hour." "It was fun." "It'll be good to spend some alone time with you." He laughed a little. "I'll text you." Marcus said. I nodded and then our conversation was disturbed by someone clearing their throat.

I looked outside to see Cody leaning against his car with Lilly sat next to him on the front of it. "Whenever you're ready, Lon." He smiled. I looked back at Marcus. "Thank you for having her." I hugged him, he hugged me back and then I went outside and got into Cody's car.

"You know, I heard something real funny today." Cody looked at me. "And what's that?" "Marcus, he said it'll be good to spend some alon-" "Save it." I held up my hand. "Cody, Marcus is fun. He made us slushies!" Lilly grinned. "Well that's great." He looked at her through the mirror.

"And he played with us. I think he's my new best friend." "That's good." Cody's smile faded. "And him and Lauren don't shout at each other all the time, so that's extra good. And-" "I think he gets the picture, Lilly." I stopped her. She hushed down and stared out the window. I squeezed Cody's leg, he looked over at me and I smiled.

When we got home Lilly got out and ran inside. "It'll go away." I said which stopped Cody from opening his door. "Huh?" He sat back in his chair. "It'll pass over, you're always going to be number one." "I don't care. She can like him as much as she wants." "I saw the way you reacted, I know it hurt you." "I'm not in the mood, Lauren." He got out of the car.

I followed him into the house but stopped him before he could go anywhere but the hall. "Not in the mood for what? Me trying to make you feel better?" "It's just-" He sighed and looked away. "Nothing. Don't worry." He pushed me out the way.

"No, Cody, what is it?" "I'm going home, I don't wanna say anything wrong. You know, because we're always shouting at each other?" "Cody, what is it?!" I started to get annoyed. Cody sighed and then looked me in the eye. "I can come to terms with him taking your attention but now? Now he's taking her and I can't deal with that." His voice cracked as he spoke.

"It's okay, Cody." I tried to hug him but he pushed me away. "I just wanna be alone." He said and walked out again. I sighed before walking into the kitchen. "Where did Cody go?" Mom looked past me. "He had to deal with some business." I smiled. "Marcus business?" She raised and eyebrow.

"You heard us, huh?" "He needs to know that she loves him more than anything." "I know that, he just gets jealous." "Alright, sweetie. I've gotta go to work now." "It's five o'clock." I laughed. "I meant I gotta go see my friend. Can you look after Lilly?" "If you're going to see your friend then why can't she go with you?" "Because she can't." Mom walked past me and left.

It was around eight and neither, Mom nor Dad had gotten home so I decided to finally make dinner. After we'd eaten Lilly got ready for bed and then I put her to sleep before going to get ready for bed myself. Once I was ready I watched TV until I heard the front door.

"Finally!" I stood on the bottom step. "Lauren, we need to talk to you." Mom and Dad said at the same time. I felt my stomach drop. "No. No, not now. No. This isn't happening. No. No!" I shook my head and walked backwards up the stairs. "Can you please come and sit in the living room with us, this is important." Dad held out his hand for me.

I hesitantly took it and let him bring me to the living room. "Sit down." He guided me. "I'm sure you can guess what's coming but we want you to sit down and listen to us the whole way through before you react." Mom said. I slowly nodded and waited.

"Your fathe- You tell her, Steve, the two of you are a lot closer." Mom said. "Me and your mom have been fighting a lot recently as you know. Don't get us wrong, we love each other very much but we love you guys more. We are very aware that we are breaking our little girl's hearts more and more with every word we say to each other." "So just stop?" I suggested with tears forming in my eyes.

"All three of us know that it's not that easy. When you and Cody fight, you can't stop until one of you leaves or until one of you begins to cry or until you finally solve it and the truth is that it's a lot harder when you've got a family. Now, we want you to know that we love you very very much, we love Lilly very very much and we love Trey very very much. You're our three little treasures and this isn't your fault. But we decided that we need to.. We need to get a divorce because we are no longer happy with each other and we don't want to hurt you any more. It's not fair on anyone to keep trying when we know we're going to fail." He said.

"So you just give up? When everything gets hard you just let go?! Is that the right example to set to your children? When two of your children are in relationships? One of your children is going to have a baby in a few months! Do you not realize that?!" I stood up. "We've been trying for a very long time. It's time to let go, Lauren." "No! It's not fair! You can't break up!" I refused. "Lauren, keep your voice down." Mom warned. "What? So Lilly doesn't hear? You're just never going to tell her? Or what, it's down to me to tell her?!" "Calm down, Lauren." Dad tried to hug me.

"Don't touch me." I pushed him away. "Where are you going?" They both followed me through the house. "Where the hell do you think I'm going?!" I snapped at them before leaving the house and running down the street. I didn't stop running until I got to Cody's house, I went inside and ran up to Cody's room.

"Lauren? What's wrong?" Cody asked. I climbed onto the bed and buried my face in his chest. He sat up and held me on his lap. I cried into his neck for longer than I've ever cried before. "Baby.." He tried to pull me away so he could look at me but I just held on tighter.

"They've done it." I finally pulled away from him. "Who's done what?" "They're getting a divorce!" I broke down again. Cody held me tightly and kissed my head. He rubbed my back to comfort me while we sat in silence. I heard the bedroom door open so I turned to look who it was. I climbed off of Cody's lap and collapsed into Angie's arms.

"Everything's going to be okay, Lauren." "No it's not. Everything's ruined! I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. It's not fair. I wanna go back to how it was before. I'll do anything. Please, Angie? Please?" I begged her. "I'm so sorry." She held me tightly. "Did you know?" I pulled away so I could look at her.

"No, I-" "Don't lie to me." "Fine." She sighed. Angie sat on the end of the bed and I crawled over to Cody again. He wrapped his arms around me once again. "They told me in Australia, I knew that they were signing the papers today and I knew that they were going to tell you today." "Did you know?" I looked at Cody. He shook his head. "I'm sorry I wasn't there." He kissed my forehead.

"Who gets custody?" I asked, hoping she knew. "I don't know that. But I know that you're over the legal age to chose who you live with." "But Lilly isn't?" I bit my lip, Angie shook her head. "So there's a chance we won't be living together?" I looked at Cody. "It's up to you." Angie said. "But Mom's going to get custody of Lilly and I want to live with Dad, I hate this." I ran my fingers through my hair.

"Mom, can you give us some space?" Cody asked. "I'm in my bedroom if you need anything." She kissed my head before leaving. "I can't leave Lilly." I refused. "First of all, you don't know for certain where Lilly is going to live and secondly, you can have two bedrooms in two houses and live with both of your parents if you really want to. They both love you very much and you shouldn't have to suffer from this. They're doing it to save you, not to push you down and make you fall."

"Cody, I'm so scared. I've never been so scared or felt so vulnerable in my life." "You're shaking." He slid his fingers between mine. "I'm so cold." "It's really hot. And you're sweating." I shook my head as my teeth started to chatter. "Okay.." He got up and got out a hoodie and some sweats. "Take your shorts off and put these on." "They won't fit me." "You'll be fine." He said and passed me the clothes.

"I wasn't ready for this. I saw it coming from a long way off but I wasn't ready. I don't know how I'm going to cope." "You'll learn. It's going to be really hard at first but you'll get through it, you're a fighter." "I want to sleep." I curled into a ball at the bottom of the bed. Cody lifted me up and placed me on my side of the bed before covering me with the blankets.

"I'm never leaving you. You'll always have me to depend on." He said while pulling my body into his. "Oh please." I scoffed. "What?" "Mom and Dad promised to love each other forever, no matter what and look how that turned out. I'm sorry but I don't believe you right now, Cody." He didn't answer me after that. The room fell silent and we laid in the darkness of the night.

"Cody..?" I whispered after what felt like hours. He didn't reply so I rolled over to find him asleep. I lightly shook him. "Cody?" "Mhmm?" He groaned and opened his eyes slowly. "I can't sleep." "What's the time?" He sat up and looked at his phone. "It's three in the morning, Lauren." He looked over at me.

"I'm sorry." I apologized. "Let's go see what we can find." He smiled, I smiled too and got up. I crept into Alli's room and took some leggings before going back and putting them on. "Where exactly are we going?" "Somewhere we haven't been in a looong time." He said and took my hand as we walked through the house.

We got into the car and Cody started to drive. "You know, no matter wha-" "I don't want to talk about it, if that's okay." I stopped him. "Whatever you want." He placed his hand on my thigh. "I got a call from Matt earlier." I changed the subject. "Yeah?" "He has an interveiw for me." "What are you promoting?" "My new single." I smiled.

"You didn't tell me about this?" "No, I didn't. It's called 'It Was Us' and it's going to be out in a week. I've tweeted about it. I assumed you would of picked up on it." I shrugged. "I wanna hear this song." "You will wait until it's out, you can hear the preview that I put on instagram but that's it." "You're mean, I showed you Surfboard and we weren't even together." He pouted and removed his hand.

"I didn't ask you to, you just showed me. And anyway I was still telling my story." I took his hand off of the steering wheel and put it back on my leg. "Well carry on then." "He has an interview for me.. In New York." I looked at him for a reaction. "Well that's great!" "But I don't know if I feel like doing it anymore." I sighed.

"No, you can't let this ruin your career. You're just starting out and can't afford to miss this. It's a huge opportunity. It will be fun anyway, something to take your mind off of everything." "And you'll come with me, right?" "Of course. I'd love to!" "Good." I smiled. "But you have to promise me you'll go." "Yes I will. And maybe Dad could come with us." I grinned. "That would be cool." He agreed.

"I haven't been here in ages!" I looked out the window. We were parked outside the old, broken down house that we used to go to. "I came here today." "You did?" "Yeah." Cody got out. I did too and followed him down to the bottom of the field. "You want a leg up?" He stopped at the bottom of the tree house. "You're talking to Lauren Miller." I laughed and climbed up the tree.

"You need a hand?" I teased as he climbed up after me. "Shut up." Cody laughed. We laid side by side and looked up at the stars. "I'm gonna be okay, Cody, you know that?" "Of course I know that. I've been telling you that from the day they started fighting." "And Lilly? Well she's my little sister so of course she's gonna be okay." I giggled.

"And we're gonna do just fine too. You and I, we're supposed to argue. The problems start when we stop arguing." "What's made you so positive all of a sudden?" "I think the fresh air's getting to me. Don't let it in!" I covered my mouth and nose. Cody laughed and pulled me close to him. "You're my baby girl. Never ever forget that." He kissed my lips.