Chapter Fifteen
Ashley
I stayed in my bed well into the next day. No one had come up to ask if I wanted breakfast and I hadn’t given any indication that I was still even there.
The family had left me completely alone. Screwed up as it was, I was happy that no one had come looking for me. I was tired of trying to keep everyone together and if someone had come up and knocked on my door, with the way I was feeling right now, I would have probably cursed them off, gotten into my car and driven back to school, where I actually felt like I belonged.
The only reason that I didn’t do that right now was because I didn’t want to get up. I knew that I couldn’t concentrate enough to drive and didn’t want to have the responsibility of anyone’s life being in my hands. I feared what choice I would make.
It wasn’t that I felt suicidal, or that I hated my life. In short, I just wanted to go back to the life that I had built for myself; but at the moment, I feared that I would not be able to keep myself in control if I drove.
Plus, as the alcohol wore off, I became more aggressive. I would have never passed a sobriety test, probably not even into the next morning, which was yet another reason that I didn’t want to risk driving.
I was underage and it was summer. If I was caught, I would likely only be released to my father. I wouldn’t be able to go back home, to my school and if that were to happen, he would have to listen. I would be grounded and he would have a reason to be angry with me.
After all these years of being a spineless, psychotic freak, I bet that would be just the time where you would finally decide to stop screwing your wife and be a good parent, I thought with disdain.
However, it was still one of the main reasons that I didn’t get up and leave that night, so I supposed the threat of being caught had done its job.
As my head began to switch from its slightly buzzed condition to that of having a major hangover, I groaned and looked around the room. My face grew callous and my eyes were almost vengeful as they took in everything that surrounded them.
I can’t believe I used to like this stupid room, I thought, but then quickly felt bad about it, considering that the reason I had not changed it was because it reminded me of my mother, the only pure part of my past that I had left. My mother was great. She was kind and understanding. She would have known what to do.
But she’s dead, I thought as I whipped my head around and groaned again as a sharp sting of pain trailed my slightly blurry vision.
For a moment, I felt as though I was going to throw up, but I was able to quickly ease myself back into a state of calm, at least enough so that I did not.
Still, to me, this house and now, everyone in it was like a cruel and harrowing remake of the broken family that I once belonged to.
What is wrong with these people? I thought, but realized rather quickly that I didn’t even care to know. There really would be no point in knowing, because after this summer, I was likely going to sever any strands of family and commitment that I was still tethered to, if there were any left at all, tell my father that he was going to have to lay in the bed he made, and that I wanted no part of it.
I no longer cared about him and I had never cared about my stepmother, but my stepbrother gave me a different feeling entirely. Whenever I thought about him, I felt my hands clench around my pillow and squeeze the life out of the middle, as though I was wringing that jacked-up asshole’s neck.
However, the more I thought about him and had this reaction, the more devastated I felt. I didn’t want to think this way about him, mostly because I didn’t want to feel any connection to him.
If you didn’t like him, you couldn’t possibly hate him, I thought after getting angry that once again, my hands had flexed and reacted in such a violent manner.
I really wasn’t a violent person, but throughout the night, during which I didn’t sleep at all, I couldn’t help but feel these hostile flairs rise up in me.
I wanted to scream and I wanted to cry, but above all, I knew, deep down in my heart, if when I emerged out of my room and found a pair of solemn faces, telling me that Tyler was eaten by a shark or had otherwise succumbed to his fate, there would be a part of me that would think he deserved it.
After all, how much of a terrible person does it take to hurt your own stepsister; someone you are supposed to at least kind of get along with and accept as family, even if you don’t particularly see eye to eye. I realized that I wasn’t and would never be flesh and blood, but I thought if he could do this to someone who had trusted him and had confided in him, then what could he do to the rest of the world?
It didn’t take me long to realize that Tyler was an all-around terrible person and I was stupid to think that I could be the one to help him. It wasn’t like he was dumb; in fact, I felt as though Tyler was really quite intelligent, at least in the sense that helped him get laid.
He obviously knew his way around a woman enough to be able to charm her and that was scary enough, considering that I now knew he didn’t care about anything but getting in my pants.
He seemed so genuine. I ringed the pillow between my hands again, so furiously that I heard a few stitches snap, but I didn’t care. The feeling of wanting to kill him with my bare hands, so that he could never spew another lie again, only gave me more strength.
Unfortunately, that was also accompanied by more rage.
When I was finished though, I plunged my head into the pillow and screamed in it until my voice grew hoarse. I didn’t care if the rest of the house heard me. I didn’t even care if they came up to check on me, because I wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction I assumed that they would be seeking if they came up here to check on me anyway, so it didn’t matter very much.
Still, it felt good releasing the anger via my screams, even if more just built up inside of me, like a never-ending spigot of rage to which I was the bucket underneath, only to be dumped and then filled again.
I couldn’t remember the last time that I felt so increasingly angry. In a way, it was freeing, but in another way, it made the house, which held so many awful, jeering memories close its walls in around me.
During the late morning hours, I must have succumbed to sleep though, because I was able to be awakened.
My head popped up off of the strangled pillow at the sharp knock and immediately the pain in my head, as well as my nauseous stomach, returned.
“What do you want?” I screamed, not caring at all who it was or why they were there. Even though I addressed the person behind the door, I hoped that perhaps they would realize what kind of a mood I was in and decide that it wasn’t worth the effort to aggravate me any further.
However, to my dismay, I received an answer from the last person on earth that I ever wanted to hear from again.
“Ashley, open the fucking door…” Tyler said in what seemed to be a careful tone, despite his lack of discretion in his language. “I’m here because I want to apologize.”
I glowered at the door and was sure that if I was able, my eyes would have burnt the door, as well as Tyler in a matter of moments. However, since I wasn’t yet crazy enough to wait for laser vision to work, I tried another approach; hopefully one that Tyler would be able to relate to. “Tyler, you can take your apology and shove it up your ass. I’m done with you.”