Chapter Text
It was an early, bitterly cold morning upstate, the kind of cold that made Ashley wish the blankets would swallow her whole. She could think of a million things she'd rather do than drag herself out of bed and face another day at school, but her mother wouldn't let her miss a single day, despite how much Ashley pleaded. It didn’t matter anyway. She wasn’t sure why her mother cared so much. After all, it wasn't even like she'd planned on living past graduation.
The days dragged on, slow and heavy, and the only thing she found herself clinging to was the soft, secret promise she'd made to herself years ago of peace. Not in some grand escape out of town, moving on to bigger and better things, but in the bliss to come. Her end wouldn’t be dramatic, she'd decided, just slipping away into silence. And the moment she could finally disappear without question, without guilt, was waiting quietly on the horizon. Her excuse? Graduation.
Her alarm clock kept beeping, steady and uncaring, as she pulled herself out from under the covers and blocked out the ever relentless reminder that she'd have to leave the room soon. Her bedroom was the only place she sought out solace. Still, dim, unchanged. Band posters clung to the walls, edges curled slightly due to age despite having been stuck back on too many times. Clothes were scattered where she’d left them, a familiar kind of mess. It wasn’t much, but in its worn-out way, it felt like the only place that didn’t ask anything of her. And lately, that was enough.
She reached for the first pile clothes she could be bothered to pick up off of the floor. A wrinkled Abercrombie shirt and yesterday’s jeans crumpled near the foot of the bed. They didn’t match, but it didn’t matter. Ashley ran a brush through her thick brunette hair swiftly, not too caught up on the presentation of it. Then she picked up her phone. The screen lit up. No new messages, no missed calls, just the little notification showing the battery was fully charged. That used to leave a pit in her stomach when she first got her phone back when she was twelve; a hollow sort of ache. Now, it barely registered. Just another quiet morning, like all the others. Routine, even.
Ashley drifted into the kitchen, shoulders low, movements quiet. A familiar adaptation she'd picked up, preferring to not get in the way. Her mother was already busy at the stove, placing scrambled eggs onto two small plates. Lila and Rueben, the twins, sat at the table, chattering softly between bites. They were only seven, blissfully unaware of the wreck of a family they'd been born into.
There was no plate waiting for Ashley. She didn’t expect one anymore.
At the sink, Kieran, her seventeen year old brother, stirred something into a mug, eyes half-closed, not saying much. He rarely did now. Kaitlyn, the oldest, had left for college months ago. Twenty three and gone. The kind of gone that didn’t really come back. At least, not to a dysfunctional family.
Ashley stood there for a moment, unnoticed. Being the middle child meant exactly that, and it always had. Stuck somewhere in between, not quite needed, not quite missed.
“Ashley, why weren’t you downstairs earlier?” her mother snapped, not even turning fully to look at her. She carried an empty plate to the sink with one hand, wiping her other on a dish towel. Her tone was clipped, the kind she used when she was already two steps into the next chore she'd been tied to.
“It’s already seven,” she went on, as if her daughter hadn’t heard her the first time. “Lazing around in bed all morning isn’t going to get you anywhere, young lady.” Ashley stood in the doorway, arms crossed loosely over her chest. She didn’t respond.
She could’ve laughed, honestly. Her mother had barely glanced in her direction all week, and now suddenly she was full of concern about time and responsibility. The irony and hypocrisy hung in the air, heavy and sharp, but Ashley didn’t bother pointing it out. What was the point?
Ashley watched her mother scrub at the plate with more force than necessary, her jaw tight, shoulders tense. It wasn’t just the breakfast rush. Her mother always moved like that, like the world was pressing down on her and she didn’t have time to let it show.
And Ashley knew, deep down, that the sharpness in her mother’s voice wasn’t just about being worried Ashley would be late or lazing around. It was exhaustion, the kind that seeps in over years, not days. Five kids, a crumbling marriage, a house that never seemed quiet. It had worn her down into something brittle.
Ashley used to take the yelling personally. She would argue back until her throat got hoarse, eyes puffy and red as she defended herself. The short fuse, the cold silences, the way her mother seemed to see right through her. But now… she wasn’t so sure.
Her father had a way of making everyone in the house smaller, quieter, more careful. He didn’t scream, not always, but his words hit just as hard. Cold dismissals, the kind that stuck. He never stayed long in a room unless it was to criticize or remind them how hard he worked while everyone else, apparently, just coasted. Ashley had watched her mother shrink under that weight for years, putting on a brave face for the twins, cooking, cleaning, doing everything and still being told it wasn’t enough.
So no, Ashley didn’t fully blame her.
Still, it didn’t make the sting any softer. It didn’t fill the silence when her mother walked right past her without a second glance. It didn’t stop the ache of being the child caught in the middle. It was a harsh reality. She was too old to be coddled, too young to leave.
Ashley didn’t hear her father come down the stairs. He was always quiet like that. Not in a gentle way, but in a way that made everyone in the room straighten up, like some instinctive part of them knew to brace for something.
He didn’t say good morning. He never did. Just walked past the table, took a mug from the cupboard, poured his coffee, and sat in his usual chair- the one no one else dared to touch.
Ashley didn’t look up. She didn’t need to. She knew his presence by the way the air shifted, how the quiet grew heavier, more strained.
He was the kind of man who filled every room with himself, his opinions, his complaints, his expectations, and left little space for anyone else to exist. When he spoke to her, it was rarely kind, and never without an edge.
“You’re too sensitive.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Don’t twist my words.”
Everything could be her fault if she let it be. And for a while, it was, until she started seeing the pattern. How he only seemed interested in his children when they were useful. When they made him look good. He was proud of Kaitlyn’s degree, not because of her, but because he could brag about it to his coworkers. Lila and Rueben were cute enough to entertain, but only in short bursts. Kieran had already started to fade into the same kind of silence Ashley had learned to live in.
As for her- she wasn’t sure what he saw when he looked at her. Sometimes she thought it was disappointment. Other times, nothing at all.
And yet, some part of her still wanted his approval. Still held onto this small, foolish hope that maybe one day he’d really see her- not as a burden, not as someone to fix, but as a person. As his daughter.
But that hope was shrinking.
Smaller and smaller each year.
She watched him stir his coffee, staring through the window like the rest of them weren’t even there. He liked to act like the house revolved around him, like they should all be grateful for his presence, for his paycheck, for his silence.
Ashley looked away, jaw tight, and picked at the corner of the table.
It was easier to be angry at him than to admit she still cared. That she still wished things were different.
Ashley looked down at her hands resting on the table. Calloused from doing too much, ignored from doing too little — depending on the day. Depending on who you asked.
She didn’t hate her mother.