𝑮𝒐𝒅 𝑶𝒇 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆

Door to the past

Ava

The air inside the holding wing was suffocating. Not because it was cold but because it wasn't. Because it clung to my skin like a secret I hadn't told anyone. I walked past the corridor slowly, my boots making too much noise against the stone. The weight in my chest was familiar now. I had lived with it since Eli and I escaped. Since I found out  my confession could've been spilled like blood across the world. My naive attempt to make myself feel better would've costed my family everything. Name. Fame. Reputation. We would've been tarnished. 

I can imagine the media houses having a field day when my voice echoes in the video saying what kind of a monster my paternal grandmother was. Helen Nash will no longer be remembered as the late wife of ex-prime minister of the UK or one of the most popular murder-mystery authors. While I don't give a jack shit about that bitch I do care about my grandparents and parents. 

But that wasn't why I came here today. I stopped in front of the locked room. Carter was further down the hall, probably punching a wall or staring into the void. But Ashton sat quietly. Always quiet now. Eli hadn't touched him. None of us had. Maybe that was worse because he was at least being sassy and brat when I used him as a punching bag on our basement. 

I nodded at the guard. He stepped aside, unlocking the heavy latch. Ashton didn't look up when I stepped inside.

His eyes were hollow, dark circles bruising the skin beneath. The boy who once smiled beside me on campus, walked with me after class, carried my coffee because "your hands are too small to multitask" was gone. What sat before me was a shadow. But I needed to talk to that shadow.

"I'm not here to forgive you," I said first, pulling the chair opposite him and sitting down. "I don't do that anymore."

He looked up, blinking once. His voice cracked.

"I didn't ask you to."

Silence stretched between us like a wire pulled too tight. I didn't fill it. Eventually, Ashton did.

"You want to know why."

I nodded.

He exhaled, a slow, broken sound. "I don't even know where to start."

"Then start from the beginning."

He stared at the floor as if it had all the answers. "My mum... she was the sweetest woman you would ever meet. Soft. May be too soft for the world. Like she walked through life thinking the world could be kind if she just loved it hard enough."

I didn't speak.

"She married Adam young. He was charming back then, or so I've heard. He had money, looks, ambition. But none of it lasted. He started losing businesses, contracts, power. You know why our last name was not Herran, it's because eventually we had to use Mum's last name to sustain our image. And every time something fell apart, he would come home angrier. Colder. And he would take it out on her first. Then on us."

I felt my hands clench on my lap.

"He never hit us with fists. He was too clever for that. It was worse. Psychological games. Isolation. Manipulation. Some nights he would force Carter to sit in a dark room for hours, saying it was training for a world that hates the weak. Other times, he would destroy Mum's art just to watch her cry."

My stomach twisted.

"We tried to be good kids. We worshipped her, you know? Carter and I, we were Mama's boys. Always trying to cheer her up. Protect her. And every time things got better, every time we started thriving again- new school, new home, something would happen. Some lawsuit. Some scandal. Some financial disaster."