I was heading up the stairs with my sister Emily when it happened. We both froze like we’d walked into a brick wall. “What’s the matter with you this time? How much more of this can I take? I’m sick of it all!” Mum’s voice carried straight through the door and down the whole building. For a moment our eyes locked, and we didn’t need to say a word. We both knew the score. Better to turn around and keep walking. We let out matching sighs, spun on our heels and headed away from the flats without looking back. No chance we were going home that night.
Who in their right mind would want to sit through another endless row between the parents? Not us, that’s for sure. We marched straight over to the next block where Grandma Elizabeth lived. Her place had turned into our bolt hole over the last few months. We used to drop in only at weekends, but now we were there most nights.
Things at home had gone past the point of no return. Mum and Dad shouted at each other non-stop, as if nothing else in the world mattered. Worst of all, they kept trying to pull us into the middle of it. One minute Mum would wheel round on Emily and snap, “Tell me I’m right, you agree with me, don’t you?” The next Dad would cut in and bark at me, “No, I’m the one who’s right here. Back me up!” Emily and I just kept our mouths shut. We didn’t want to pick sides or get dragged any deeper into their mess. All we wanted was a bit of quiet and some warmth, the kind we only found at Grandma’s.
These blow-ups happened every single day, like a record stuck on the same scratch that nobody would lift the needle from. We’d got good at spotting the warning signs. A certain edge in their voices, the way they moved too sharply, the looks they shot each other. Those were the signals to clear out. What kid wants to live with that kind of tension, where a normal chat can flip into a full-blown shouting match without warning?
We still couldn’t work out what had started the whole thing. Our family was never perfect, nothing like the ones in the adverts, but at least Mum and Dad used to sort things out. Rows came and went, the way they do in any house, but they usually ended with a proper talk rather than screaming. Mum might pull a face, Dad might get a bit louder, yet half an hour later we’d all be back round the table with a pot of tea, chatting about what we were doing at the weekend.
Then, roughly two years ago, something shifted. It felt like someone had swapped our real parents for different versions of themselves, the sort who could turn the smallest thing into a major battle. A mug left on the table? A long lecture about being thoughtless and rude. A shirt on the wrong hook? Sharp remarks about how the house was kept. A spoon left in the sink? Treated like a serious offence that needed a full inquest.
One evening Emily sat in Grandma’s kitchen, stirring her tea without really thinking about it. She watched the swirls in the cup for ages before she asked, sounding worn out, “How did it get like this, Grandma? Everything went wrong after their holiday together. What actually happened?”
Grandma Elizabeth stopped for a second, set her cup down and rested her hand on Emily’s arm. She could only guess at the reasons too, and those guesses clearly didn’t sit well with her.
“The grown-ups will work it out,” she said gently, keeping her voice steady. “Sometimes people need a bit of space to decide what’s best.”
Emily nodded, but her face showed she wasn’t convinced. She knew Grandma was holding something back, yet she didn’t push it. What was the point? While they still saw us as kids, they weren’t going to share anything important.
“We can’t take the shouting anymore!” I burst out, frustration spilling over. “We can’t get homework done or even read a book in peace. I can’t remember the last time we sat down for a meal together as a family. If they can’t stand being around each other, they should just split up. It would be better for everyone.”
The words came out before I could stop them, but they were the plain truth of the last few months. I wasn’t only speaking for myself. I knew Emily felt exactly the same. Peace had vanished from our flat long ago. Mum would say something cutting, Dad would snap back, and another row would kick off with nowhere to escape to.
“Matthew,” Grandma said, looking startled. She put her knitting aside, studied me for a moment and shook her head slowly. “Have you thought about what happens if they do split up? You’d have to be divided between them. Are you ready to live apart from your sister?”
“We’ll live here with you!” Emily said straight away, giving Grandma that pleading look. “We’re already here most of the time anyway. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
Grandma Elizabeth went still. She understood how worn out we were. She saw the exhaustion in our faces and the way the constant arguments were grinding us down. On the one hand, we’d be safe with her in a calm place where we could study without noise and feel looked after. She loved us fiercely and would have wrapped us in care without hesitation.
On the other hand, what about our parents? How would we explain that we didn’t want to go home anymore? Would they even agree? And if they did, how would it change things between us and them? Might it end up driving a permanent wedge?
“Let’s not decide anything in a rush,” she said with a heavy breath. “You know you’re always welcome here. But first we should try talking to your mum and dad. Maybe the four of us can find a way to sort this out.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll speak to them ourselves,” Emily said, sounding more cheerful now. She could tell Grandma was nearly on board, and that was what mattered most. “Just don’t turn us down, please. We really can’t stay there any longer. It’ll be better for them if they live apart too. Otherwise they might actually hurt each other one day. I saw Dad raise his hand at Mum yesterday. He didn’t hit her, I swear, but he came close.”
Emily stopped talking, caught up in that awful memory. She’d gone into the kitchen for some water and stood frozen in the doorway. Dad was half-turned towards Mum, his arm shooting up, and Mum had ducked on instinct. A second later he dropped it, but that second had felt endless to her.
“Come on, Grandma, say yes,” I added, moving closer and taking her hand as if I could stop her from changing her mind. “We’ll help with everything around the house. Just don’t send us back. They barely notice we’re even there. Yesterday I told Dad there was a parents’ evening. Do you know what he said? ‘Go and ask your mum.’ So I did. Guess what she told me?”
“Go and ask your dad?” Grandma said quietly, already knowing.
“Spot on,” I replied with a bitter laugh. “Then they spent the next two hours arguing about which one of them would actually go. Sat in separate rooms yelling down the hallway while I just stood there listening.”
“And I needed them to sign a form for a school museum trip,” Emily said, staring at her sleeve and twisting the fabric. “Now I’m the only one in my class who can’t go. Neither of them signed it. Instead they started another fight. Mum shouted that it was Dad’s job and Dad insisted she should deal with school stuff.”
Grandma Elizabeth watched us and saw the deep tiredness in our eyes. It wasn’t ordinary kid exhaustion. It was the kind that builds up over months of the same thing every day: arguments instead of warmth, indifference instead of support.
“It’s always like this,” I said, shoulders slumping. My voice came out flat, the way it did when I’d said the same thing too many times. “Whatever we ask turns into another row. We don’t even want to come home anymore. The other night we got back at eleven and they didn’t even tell us off. Just sent us straight to bed without asking where we’d been. Then they spent ages blaming each other for not bringing us up properly.”
We both sighed at the same time. Over the past few months we’d seriously wondered if divorce was the only way out. What scared us most was the thought of being split up. One of us would end up with Mum, the other with Dad, and the closeness we’d always had would shrink to the odd weekend visit.
We talked it over in whispers when we were alone in our room. Once I joked about running away, just grabbing our bags and heading off with no plan. I said it with a grin to ease the mood, but Emily took it seriously. Her eyes lit up for a second and she whispered, “What if we actually did leave? Even for a couple of days?” In that moment we both realised how bad things had got. Even the idea of running away didn’t seem completely mad anymore.
Then the thought hit us both at once: Grandma. Why not ask to move in with her? Emily said it first. “Let’s ask Grandma if we can live here. She won’t shout or argue. We won’t have to listen to any more of their rows.” I jumped in straight away. “Yes! She’s kind and she always backs us up. Her flat’s big enough for all of us.”
We started picturing what it could be like. Quiet breakfasts, doing homework without interruptions, evenings playing games with Grandma. No raised voices, no blame, no hiding in our room to stay out of the way. For the first time in ages we felt a flicker of hope. Let Mum and Dad sort their own problems. We could finally have some peace. That was what we were thinking as we imagined life at Grandma’s.
“Mum, Dad, we need to have a proper talk,” we said together, standing in the living room. We’d waited until both were home and walked in with a plan. Emily kept hold of my hand. It helped her stay steady. “But you have to promise you’ll hear us out before you say anything.”
Dad looked up from his phone, surprised. Mum, who had been folding laundry on the sofa, sat up straight. They both had the same look, as if we’d just said something ridiculous.
“This is your doing!” Mum snapped, folding her arms. “The children are giving us orders now. Like we have to answer to them!”
“Listen to yourself,” Dad shot back, dropping his phone. “I’m out working all hours to keep this family going. You’ve been here with them the whole time. What exactly have you taught them? Why are they trying to boss us around?”
Emily and I glanced at each other. We’d known this would happen. The conversation always slid straight into the same blame game. But we weren’t backing down.
“That’s enough!” Emily said, her voice cracking. She stepped forward and tried to keep it steady even though she was shaking inside. “Matthew and I have talked about it. You two need to get a divorce.”
The room went dead quiet. Mum’s mouth fell open. Dad stood up slowly from the sofa.
“Well, that’s a new one,” Mum said, sounding dangerous. “Emily, you’re far too young to be telling us how to run our lives. What else have you two decided? Maybe you’ll split the flat between us while you’re at it?”
“If you won’t get divorced, we’ll go to social services,” I said, squeezing Emily’s hand for courage. I sounded more sure than I felt. “Then, Dad, you could lose your job. Your firm doesn’t like scandals, does it? You’ve said yourself that reputation matters.”
“And you, Mum,” Emily went on, looking straight at her, “the neighbours will stop respecting you. They won’t even speak to you. Everyone already hears you shouting at each other. We’ll just fill in the details.”
“They’re threatening us! Look at them!” Mum said, staring from one of us to the other. “These are our own children. How can you treat us like this?”
“We’re not threatening,” I told her quietly but firmly. “We just need you to see that we can’t go on like this. We’re exhausted. Tired of the noise, of you not listening to us, of every little request turning into a fight.”
“You’ll divorce, you’ll live apart, and we’ll move in with Grandma,” we said together, the way we’d practised. “It’ll be better for everyone. We’ll have peace. You’ll have no more constant rows. We don’t want to be stuck in the middle anymore.”
Our parents just stood there. For once they had nothing to say back. Normally they’d be straight into another argument, talking over each other and pointing fingers. Now they both seemed lost for words.
Their thirteen-year-old twins were acting in a way they’d never seen before. Emily and I stood side by side, hands linked, looking at them without the usual hesitation. We were talking about things the adults usually tried to avoid.
Mum and Dad had thought about divorce themselves more than once. What always stopped them was the same question: who would we live with? Splitting twins up felt impossible. We’d always been close, done everything together. They couldn’t picture forcing us into separate homes and only seeing each other at weekends.
They’d never even considered Grandma before. It just hadn’t crossed their minds, probably because they were so wrapped up in their own grudges. But hearing us suggest it made them stop and think. What if this was the answer? Grandma loved us, her flat was big enough, she was always glad to have us. Maybe it could fix at least some of the problems.
“I’ll ring Mum,” Dad said at last, his voice tight. “If she agrees…”
He didn’t finish. Mum cut in, and the tiredness in her voice surprised even her.
“Then we can finally stop making each other miserable. Phone her. I’ll be glad not to see your face every day.”
The words hung there. She hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but years of built-up hurt had pushed them out.
“And I’ll be glad too,” Dad answered, covering the sting with sarcasm.
There was no real anger in it, just a tired smile at how far their marriage had fallen. He pulled out his phone and dialled Grandma’s number. While it rang, they both stared in different directions, not meeting each other’s eyes. They didn’t know where this would lead, but they sensed the line had probably been crossed.
That day the Harrison family made a decision that changed everything. It began with a long call between Dad and Grandma Elizabeth. She listened without interrupting, only asking a question now and then.
When he’d finished explaining, there was a pause. Grandma let out a long breath and said, “If you both believe this is best for the children, then I agree. They’ll be safe here. I’ll look after them.”
By evening Mum and Dad sat down in the kitchen together for the first time in ages without raising their voices. They faced each other and went through the details slowly. Bit by bit they reached the same conclusion: divorce was the only sensible step. Emily and I would move to Grandma’s, and they would send her money every month to cover our costs.
Neither of them planned to walk away from us. Both promised to visit at weekends, but on different days so they wouldn’t have to see each other. “I’ll come Saturday mornings and take them out,” Dad said wearily. Mum nodded. “You’ll take Sunday. That way it’s simpler. The important thing is they don’t feel abandoned.”
Their main aim was to keep contact between them as small as possible and avoid fresh arguments. They agreed not to talk about each other in front of us, not to try to win us over, and not to argue when we were around.
“We’re still their parents,” Dad said. “We need to stay that way even if we’re not married anymore.”
As the months went on, it proved to be the right call. We finally got to relax and live like normal teenagers. Emily joined an art club she’d always wanted to try but never had the headspace for before. I started playing football and made new mates in the team. We spent time together again, walking round the city, going to the cinema, talking about school without worrying a row was about to erupt.
Our schoolwork settled down too. We had a quiet space to study, no shouting to distract us. Homework got done without stress, and our marks improved straight away. The teachers noticed. “You’ve both become so focused,” they said. “Keep it up.”
Life found a steadier rhythm. Not perfect, but calm and reliable. We stopped hiding in our room, stopped jumping at loud voices, stopped worrying about every little thing. We just got on with being teenagers who had found some support when they needed it most.
Five years later everything moved at a steady pace. Emily and I had settled into the new routine. Studies, clubs, seeing friends, quiet nights with Grandma. Our parents still visited on alternate weekends, each on their own day, bringing small gifts and attention but no old grudges. Over time they’d learned to keep things polite and brief when they spoke.
The first time the former couple actually sat down together was at our school leaving do. Both came, of course. They started off keeping their distance, sitting at opposite sides of the hall, but as the night went on the awkwardness eased.
When the dancing began, Dad walked over to Mum. “Fancy a dance? For old times’ sake?”
She paused, then nodded.
Afterwards they sat outside in the school yard for a long time, watching everyone else mess about by the fountain. They started chatting about us, then drifted into memories of the past. They kept it civil, talking about the good times rather than the old hurts. Emily and I watched from a distance and felt a bit of relief. It still hurt to see two people who had once been so close treating each other like strangers.
Then, out of nowhere, the next day they asked us to meet them in a café. Over tea they reached across the table, held hands and Dad smiled broadly. “We’ve been thinking. We’ve decided to get married again. These last few years have shown us our feelings never really went away. We still love each other and we want to try being a family once more.”
He sounded genuinely happy, as if he was sharing the best news possible. Mum looked delighted, clearly hoping for the same from us.
Emily and I looked at each other. Our faces fell. Doubt crossed her eyes and I felt my hands tighten under the table. Not this again. What were they thinking? Could they really live together without it all falling apart?
“Are you serious?” Emily managed.
“Completely,” Dad said. “We’ve both changed. We know how to listen now. We want to give our family another chance.”
We stayed quiet. Part of us wanted to believe they really had changed. Another part was terrified of going through the same pain all over again.
We didn’t argue with them. We didn’t even comment, which clearly upset them. Mum looked confused. “Aren’t you pleased? We thought you’d be happy for us.”
We just shrugged at each other. What could we say? “Don’t do it, you’ll only hurt yourselves again”? The words wouldn’t come. We didn’t want to be cold, but we couldn’t pretend everything was fine either.
The rest of the visit felt stiff. They talked about their plans, we nodded politely, but our minds were elsewhere. On the way back Emily said quietly, “I hope they know what they’re doing.”
I just sighed.
“So we’re heading to London for university?” Emily said, opening her laptop to check course pages. “As far away as we can get from this circus. I can already see how it ends.”
“Of course we are,” I said, sounding older than I felt. I pushed a hand through my hair, trying to shift the weight of the last few months. “They might manage a month or two of peace. Then it’ll be back to the shouting, the slammed doors, the accusations. I don’t want to be caught in the middle of their relationship anymore. I don’t want to wake up every morning wondering what mood they’re in and whose turn it is to catch the next round of complaints.”
I got up and paced the room, gathering books without really thinking. The same question kept turning over in my head. Why do adults, who are supposed to show wisdom and steadiness, act like moody teenagers? Why do they keep making the same mistakes instead of fixing things?
“We need to go,” I said again, stopping at the window. The light outside was fading, turning the buildings soft orange. I stared out, trying to picture what came next. “Far enough that their rows can’t reach us. Let them deal with their own problems. We’re not their counsellors or go-betweens or punchbags anymore. We’ve got our own lives and dreams, and I’m not letting their next explosion wreck them.”
“When are we sending off the applications?” Emily asked.
“Tomorrow,” I said without hesitating. “So we can’t back out.”
She nodded and kept scrolling. She’d spent the week reading about London courses, student housing and what jobs might be available afterwards. Her notebook was filling up with lists of pros and cons, forms needed, deadlines and contact details.
“The main thing is we can study without their dramas getting in the way,” she said. “It’s good we’ll be far enough that it won’t reach us.”
“Exactly,” I agreed, sitting beside her. “When they start blaming each other again we won’t even hear it. They can ring and complain all they like. We’re not getting pulled into another family meeting. Their choice to give things another go is theirs, not ours.”
Mum and Dad went through with the second wedding after all. This time they kept it small on purpose. No big party, no extra cost, no fuss. Just a quiet ceremony at the registry office and a meal with the closest people, Grandma, a handful of friends and us.
In the photos they looked genuinely happy. Smiling, holding hands, looking at each other with real warmth. Their fingers were linked, their eyes soft. It seemed like the old hurts had been put aside, that the time apart had helped, and that they now knew exactly what they wanted. Emily and I looked at those pictures and wondered if maybe, this time, it really would be different.
But it wasn’t. The first few weeks were surprisingly calm. They tried to be kinder, said thank you more, let small things go. Then the old patterns crept back. Within a month the raised voices were back in their flat. At first they were quiet jabs. “You left your things out again?” “Why didn’t you tell me you’d be late?” “You could have helped since you were home.”
Soon the arguments were open and louder. They fought over nothing: wet towels in the bathroom, forgotten shopping, the television too loud. Words got sharper, voices carried further, the gaps between rows grew shorter.
Two months in, just as I’d expected, it boiled over. One evening an argument about who should buy food turned ugly. Dad lost it and hurled a cup at the wall. It smashed, pieces scattering everywhere. Mum grabbed a plate and threw it to the floor. The sound rang through the flat.
After every big fight they rang us. The calls always started the same way. One of them would phone, still breathing hard, and unload everything.
“Can you believe what he said to me today?” Mum would say, close to tears when Emily answered. “He doesn’t even try to understand me.”
“Son, you have to see my side. She has no control over herself,” Dad would tell me, sounding worked up. “I’m doing my best, but she looks for reasons.”
Emily and I had learned to cut those calls short without being rude. We didn’t let them turn into long debates about who was right. Our answers stayed short and clear.
“Mum, I’m in a lecture, I’ll ring you later,” Emily would say, checking the time. There might still be twenty minutes before class, but she didn’t want to hear another long complaint.
“Dad, I’ve got work due, let’s talk at the weekend,” I’d reply, eyes on my screen. I knew if I let them go on, the call would last an hour and then I’d have to calm them down.
“Later” and “at the weekend” never happened. We made excuses with studies, part-time jobs and friends, and the calls became less frequent. We didn’t feel bad about it. We were protecting our own peace, knowing we couldn’t change what was happening between them.
We really did have lives of our own now, full and separate from their storms. Every day was shaped by our own plans and interests, not by waiting for the next explosion next door.
Emily threw herself into psychology. She enjoyed learning how people think and why they act the way they do, and how to help when things go wrong. In her third year she started volunteering at a centre for teenagers from difficult homes. She ran small groups, helped them talk about their feelings and find ways forward. She saw pieces of our own story in the kids she worked with, and tried to give them the attention and support she’d once needed herself.
I got into IT early on. Programming drew me in with its clear logic and the way you could build something that actually worked. I spent hours at the computer, picked up new languages and joined student coding events. In my fourth year our team came third in a regional app competition. That gave me a boost and confirmed I was on the right track. I took a part-time job at a small tech firm and proved myself quickly. Working on real projects taught me how to collaborate, manage time and handle unexpected problems.
We started making plans that didn’t revolve around Mum and Dad’s fights. Emily wanted to set up her own practice one day, helping families communicate better. I was thinking about starting something of my own. We talked through ideas over tea, drew diagrams and filled notebooks. In those moments we felt steady. We had direction. We had a future that belonged to us.
When Mum and Dad tried again to pull us into their latest crisis, ringing in tears to say how badly things were going and how they couldn’t understand each other, we answered calmly and directly. We’d already agreed how to handle it so we wouldn’t get sucked back into the old roles.
“That’s enough, Mum and Dad. Deal with it yourselves,” Emily said firmly. “You’ve got your life. We’ve got ours.”
“But you’re our children!” Mum cried. “You should be supporting us!”
“If you acted like adults instead of kids, we would,” I told them straight away. “You chose to remarry and you’re still making each other miserable. If you can’t live together without fighting, why keep doing it? Get divorced properly and live apart.”
The words might have sounded harsh, but Emily and I just wanted to get on with our lives in peace.
