When I Repeated My Parents’ Love Story Chapter 09

When I Repeated My Parents’ Love Story Chapter 09

Saturday. I slept until the sun was high and my eyes were still puffy when I finally got up.

I pushed my door open. The house was quiet.

When I stepped into the living room, the vibe was even stranger than the night before.

Mom was in the kitchen prepping breakfast, but Dad had stationed himself in the dining room setting out

silverware. A whole living room’s worth of distance sat between them. Zero conversation.

By the time I washed up and came out, breakfast was already on the table.

Mom’s signature shrimp and ricotta ravioli in broth. The bowl in front of my dad had way more shrimp than

mine.

I sat down and glanced at Mom. She was staring into her own bowl, stirring it with intense focus, the tips of

her ears pink.

I glanced at Dad. He picked up his fork, speared a ravioli with stiff, robotic movements, and snuck a look in Mom’s direction mid-bite. I caught him. He immediately choked, coughing like his lungs were staging a

revolt.

Mom jolted, half-rising on instinct to grab him some water, but her hand stopped mid-reach and retreated. She sat back down and muttered, “Slow down. Nobody’s racing you.”

Dad coughed harder. His whole face went red, and I couldn’t tell if it was the choking or the embarrassment.

I ate my breakfast in silence, my mind spinning.

What was going on?

Weren’t they just standing shoulder to shoulder yesterday, tearing through that party like a united front?

How did one night turn the atmosphere this stiff?

Did they have a fight after I went to my room?

Did they expose the fact that neither of them actually loved the other?

Anxiety churned in my stomach, tangled with a strange, sinking disappointment.

If all of it really was just an act, and now the curtain had dropped because I called them out, were we about

to slide right back into that cold, hotel-lobby version of home?

The only sounds at the table were the quiet clink of forks against bowls. The silence was maddening.

I finished my breakfast without tasting a thing, went back to my room, and sat there, my thoughts a storm.

I fished out my phone and, on pure reflex, tapped open my chat with Lucas.

The last message was still the one I’d sent before the party. His reply. “K.”

There was a time when that single letter could fuel an entire fantasy novel in my head. Ten thousand words

of sweet delusion about how maybe, just maybe, he felt something too.

Now it just looked ugly. And the shame burned hot.

I thought about it. Then I deleted the chat thread.

But the urge to spill my guts didn’t go away.

Everything had flipped upside down, the atmosphere at home was suffocating, and I was about to burst.

I scrolled aimlessly, and somehow, my thumb still landed back on Lucas’s profile.

Maybe… I could talk to him about it?

Would he think my parents were pathetic?

Would he… maybe, just maybe, offer some tiny sliver of comfort?

I bit my lip and started typing.

“Lucas, you there? I think my parents had a fight. The vibe at home is so weird. I feel kind of…”

I stared at the send button, thumb hovering, my insides twisting.

Then I heard something. A small, strange noise drifting in from the garden outside.

Our living room opened onto a small garden. Who would be out there at this hour?

I set my phone down, walked to the window, and eased the curtain open just a crack.

What I saw turned me into a statue.

Right there by the hydrangea bush, Mom’s absolute favorite, my dad and mom stood facing each other.

The distance was too far to hear anything clearly.

But I saw my mom with her head down, her fingers absently shredding a hydrangea leaf. My dad looked completely lost, hands shoved in his pockets, then yanked out again. He rubbed his nose. His gaze

ricocheted everywhere except at her.

Then I watched my dad do something that looked like it took every ounce of courage he’d ever possessed. He stepped forward, one small step, closing the distance to almost nothing.

My mom flinched in surprise and looked up.

My dad’s face burned crimson. His mouth moved fast, words tumbling out in a rush.

My mom listened Her expression froze. Then color crept across her cheeks, inch by inch, and she slowly

dropped her head again. But the corner of her mouth… it lifted. Just a tiny, tiny curve.

And then, right before my eyes, so shocking I nearly screamed-

My dad squeezed his eyes shut, braced himself like a man facing a firing squad, and pressed a quick, feather-light kiss to my mom’s forehead.

It was barely a peck. Gone in a blink.

But that one motion locked my mom in place. The flush swept from her cheeks all the way down her neck.

She didn’t flinch. She didn’t snap at him. She just lowered her head even more.

My dad, after the kiss, seemed just as stunned as she was. He stood there frozen, his ears practically

bleeding red.

The two of them stayed like that, face to face, neither moving an inch.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves and draped them both in a soft, fuzzy glow.

The hydrangeas were in full bloom-blue, violet, pink, white-clustered thick and vibrant, framing two middle-aged people who had completely lost their composure and turned the color of ripe tomatoes.

Time seemed to stop between them.

I held my breath. I didn’t blink. My heart pounded against my ribs, but it wasn’t sadness. It wasn’t hurt. It was something else entirely-something warm and sweet and aching that slowly filled the hollow space in my

chest.

So they didn’t fight.

So the cowards actually found their courage.

So some feelings don’t need words. One clumsy kiss says everything.

I dropped the curtain and stepped back, terrified of disturbing that quiet, living scene outside.

I walked back to my desk and picked up my phone. The unsent message to Lucas still glowed on the screen.

I stared at it. Then, one letter at a time, I erased every word.

I closed the chat, swiped over to my camera, and crept back to the window. I parted the curtain just a sliver, aimed my lens at the two figures still frozen like statues in the garden, except everything between them had

completely shifted.

Click

A soft shutter sound.

The photo held sunlight, hydrangeas, and two people blushing like teenagers but somehow glowing like

something sacred

I stared at it for a long time. Then I set it as my lock screen.

Maybe…

Watching my parents fall in love wasn’t so bad after all.

And that heavy thing inside me, the thing I used to call “Lucas,” had somehow, without me even noticing.

gotten a whole lot lighter.

As for the whole simp thing

I walked to the mirror and studied myself. My eyes were still swollen, but something behind them looked

clearer now.

Maybe I didn’t have to be a simp after all.