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The rest of the journey is spent largely in silence Her dad smokes, or concentrates on the road ahead, or co to on the radio just to fill in the gaps in conversation, while Sash drifts in and out of everything, happy to let herstepbrother, re more frequently than is healthy, to check her phone just in case Dante’s decided to leave a e She does it soto hear from someone important, not that Sash bothers to answer him

When they get home, and the familiar facade of Sash’s adolescent house coht has fallen completely and he still hasn’t called

At first glance, Sash can’t see what reet her with Ghost, their albino Labrador by her side, gives her a war dinner

When the trunk of the car has been unpacked, her belongings stored tey to shift the the stairs slowly behind her

“What the fuck?” Sash says when she sees it “Are you serious?”

Henry shrugs his shoulders, as though relinquishing himself of any responsibility

“I told you there were changes”, he says

What was once her bedrooone, her bed has been removed, even the book shelves have come down In their place, a chunky printer stands proudly, a huge flat screen monitor mocks her from the desk on which she used to do her schoolwork, the re desperately to the surface the only indication it has lived another life An office chair that looks like it doubles as a lazy boy spins easily as she turns it, while the door ripped off her walk-in wardrobe to house folders and files of someone else’s information feels like a sword in her side

This here she danced for hi it like this,pulled away froh it didn’t happen at all

This day couldn’t get any worse First that ass-hole Dante leaves, then she gets kicked out of her apartment, and now this, a home office where her bedroom should be

“Dad?” Sash coes These are- This was my room”

“It’s been a while, Sash”, her dad says, defending hi back”

“Where ao?”

“We’ve put you in your brother’s roo as you need it Or until he needs it back Or whatever You’ll work it out”

He turns and heads back down the stairs

“Dante’s room?” Sash says “You turn my bedroom into an office, and you leave his alone?”

“You get yourself comfortable”, Henry says, keen not to continue the conversation “Come dohen you’re ready”

Dante’s room is almost completely untouched It is exactly as she remembers it Clean, ordered, precise She dumps her rucksack on the floor, and collapses into the bed The sheets even smell of him She twists over and screams into the pillow, suddenly overwhel stepbrother This is why she wanted to stay away from him in the first place She knew this would happen, even if she didn’t believe it This was low even for hi exactly what she denied hio, only to run at the very first chance of freedoet aith that

“Coward”, she says aloud “Fucking coward”

Dinner is depressingly bland She ive up She’s neither hungry nor in the rown up in this house, Sash doesn’t feel like she belongs to it Looking around now, she has trouble finding anything that ht indicate she was once a resident There are no pictures of her or her brothers, none of her artwork from school or any of her awards from the various different dance competitions she dominated in her youth All she can see is a picture of Dante and a collection of crap that must be her stepmothers Ghost curls up at her feet Henry chews his lass

“It’s good to have you back home”, she says eventually, and with that, her food already cold and forgotten on her plate, Sash can do nothing else but excuse herself quickly, rush upstairs two steps at a time, curl up on Dante’s bed in a fetal ball, on sheets that have the temerity to still suttural tears

She cannot escape hioes She is destined to be forever reminded of the man she can’t help but love, and hope desperately that one day he ht show her that he feels the same way too

Chapter 2

In 2006, when Sash was eleven, her father anda divorce Sash reh it were yesterday It’s one of several defining moments in her life, which she can picture with crystal clear, alh-definition clarity If she closes her eyes, she’s there again, sandwiched between her two brothers on the worn leather sofa, her favourite blue dress on, and a glass of water held tightly to her chest as though the thing ht run away if she let it

Sash knew things had been difficult between thele moment they’d ever fall out of love She had school friends whose parents had divorced She had her older brother telling her exactly as going to happen, the pair of theu to it, but still she didn’t want to believe it

Her mother moved to a new house, and then a new city, and then eventually she moved out of state Her older brother blained he’d done, and herever she did, until he was old enough to find his oay Her younger brother was too young to be too far away from his mother, and because of that, his mind was made up for him Sash was torn between the two She was closer to her father, but she didn’t want to have to choose She didn’t blame either of them for what had happened, and neither of them tried to make her take sides

Her mother took a temporary apartment up the road, while her dad stayed at home and the house went on the market Sash decided to stay with him, simply because her brothers didn’t Half a year later the house was sold, her one, and Sash and her dad moved to where she would would eventually spend the rest of her childhood Almost ten years later, she’s still only seen theer brother is at University in Chicago, her older brother an engineer and herthe world Somewhere, on another side of someone else’s life, she apparently has ht sends a chill down her spine

Sash’s dad took the divorce badly He was always a bigger than average drinker, but in the years that came after Sash’sti on She just didn’t have anything else to coh to know that not everyone had a bottle stashed away in the car, to drink every day at work,

she knew she had to do soether, but her h she told her about the extent of her dad’s drinking, herto worry about She tried to talk to him about it, but he just pushed her away She phoned helplines anony the calls as soon as they asked for more inforo and live with her mother She even threay the bottle one tiht another and hid it in a different place She waited, and it didn’t go away

Eventually, left with very few other options, she decided to take another approach It wasn’t getting worse He wasn’t violent with her He still had his job, still had the house, still ht, pick her up from dance class and keep the house relatively clean Heway more than he should have, and he may have been depressed, but he never drank in front of her, never forgot his duties as a father and never once let his responsibilities slip Sash lost herself in dance class, carried on as usual, forget about her father and let the rest take care of itself

It took hiet over it and move on, but eventually, four years after they’d decided to split up, when Sash was an aard fifteen year old girl, rown up then many of her friends, he met and married Dante’s mother, Tracy

Tracy had been o years earlier when her husband died in a helicopter crash, co in Boston

By all accounts, he was a wo the sad news, the only thing that Tracy was upset to hear was that his life insurance was destined not for her, but for their only son A bountiful payout to be gifted to him as soon as he turned twenty one Tracy had stood by hih thick and thin, despite the fact she kneas cheating on her, not because she loved him, but because he had a well paid job and a company credit card, which had provided for a life she was happy to grow accustomed to