Serena put her hand to her mouth as she looked down at Dan. He looked terrible. He looked like he had drank too much and then been punched by Nate and then hit over the head with a frying pan. That was to say nothing of the broken heart that you couldn't visibly see. It was written in his face, in his eyes, in the anger of his hands gripped around her arms.
For once, she decided that she would listen and step aside. Her presence was only going to further aggravate Dan who was drunk and unable to be reasonable at the moment. Nate had the situation under control now and Serena felt confident that he would take care of Dan. Though at the moment, she was so angry at him, he could walk home for all she cared. She wouldn't have even bothered to call him a car but she left them to it. He was Nate's problem for the moment.
She thought about saying something to Dan but she knew it wouldn't matter. He was too out of his mind to absorb anything. She wasn't even sure that if he sobered up that it would help anything. He was so hopped on anger these days. It made Serena uncomfortable because she felt the escalation coming down the pipeline and here it was.
In her bedroom, she closed the door behind her before she let the tears come. Not too many, just enough to help her get a grip on what had just happened. Outside she heard a car pull up and some voices that were unmistakably Dan's and Nate's. She walked to the window but couldn't make out anything they were saying. She only knew that she breathed out a sigh of relief when the car drove away with Dan inside.
She felt like a failure, worse than a failure as she collapsed on top of her bed and wiped the stray tears away. She never wanted to be like her mother and though it was only one divorce, it was one step closer to her mother's record.