“I’m sorry, Ashley. But the decision is yours.”
“I’m happy here.”
“Alex and Peter are great.”
“I’m not going back.”
Liam cried, “They aren’t your real family!”
“Come home with us, okay?”
“We kicked Riley out of your room. We won’t
make you leave again.”
I said, “It doesn’t matter.”
“I have my own room here.”
00
“It’s bigger and better, and no one will take it
from me.”
“Datar inn’4 mhanthar hit I think of him
<
7:37
“Peter isn’t my brother, but I think of him as
one.”
66
“There’s nothing like having a big brother. Even
if it’s just a brother–type relationship.”
“It might be weird, but I trust him with my life.”
“I also know what it feels like to not have that.”
“Actually, I’d probably say that family isn’t
blood. Maybe you could’ve changed our blood
at any time, then changed us all together.”
“Maybe then, you two could have been an
actual brother/sister.”
Liam looked hurt.
He said he was joking.
“If you wanted to do something with a big
brother I could’ve changed it with him and we
>
7:37
brother, I could’ve changed it with him and we
all would’ve got there in the ond.”
But even now, even more than I wanted to do
something with Riley.
Petor scoffed. “You’re stupid! How could you let
someone trick you so easily?”
“Or you didn’t trust your own sister.”
“You don’t deserve to be Ashley’s brother. Your
didn’t protect her.”
Liam and Daniel wanted to say something.
But Alex’s security guards dragged them away.
- 16.
They found me at college.
I told them the same thing.
<
7:37
I won’t go back.
The last time, Daniel asked, “Ashley, can’t you
forgive me?”
“We’re family.”
I looked at them.
“I wish I wasn’t your daughter.”
I left a few tears when I was alone.
Maybe that was too much.
They never came back.
Jake found me.
66
He kneeled in front of my dorm and said he was
wrong.
<
He cried and said he lost the key.
He cried to my mom and I said he was lost
without the key.
After I left, he knew he loved me.
He said Riley was evil and he realized.
He begged me to forgive him.
I watched him through the window.
I didn’t go down.
He knelt there all night.
He was sorry, but I had to forgive him.
There was guilt.
He had to live with it.
r
- 17.
Jake stayed a long time.
He said he would not come home without my
apologies.
Until there was no death orders.
When he was finally going home, his death was
announced.
I cried at that thought.
After I was gone, she knew.
Her life was gone.
She turned back as I was turning to run off.
In the next months, I met the one and the only best person for my life and turned back after
the host thing possible bad bannonod
<
Before I could tell anyone, the best woman I
could’ve asked for turned to dust,
As I knew she would and the one and the only
person for me.
As what was going to happen, because they
were both going to turn back.
Back from where I was turning around running
from and get together and finally do the dance.
Dance what they had been destined to do.
As they were finally getting there
When I was asked to dance with them both.
But Jake was taken out of the hospital once
and for all after my parents got mad and kicked out and now they weren’t coming back.
What was going on in my mind that I just said
<
no for once?
As what was going to happen, because they were both going to turn back.
Back from where I was turning around running
from and get together and finally do the dance.
Dance what they had been destined to do.
As they were finally getting there
Then Jake was taken out of the hospital once
and for all after my parents got mad and kicked
