ASH || ✓

||WRITTEN FOR TEGSA2025||

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Ash Kincaid lived by three truths:

1. Family was a conditional, temporary arrangement.
2. Trust demanded wilful blindness.
3. Ash was what remained following an incineration of life.

He'd perfected the art of tolerance. After a lifetime of abandonment, first by blood and then by those who promised to keep him, his survival depended on one thing. No attachment. No promises. No hope.

However, when the college dorms close for Christmas, he's forced into the chaotic Rossi household where encroaching is the norm, solitude is next to impossible and there's Lala- the Rossi sister who just sketches in furious silence.

The quiet is a sanctuary, their coexistence effortless. He doesn't ask about her paintings and she doesn't pry behind his walls.

Until a silver SUV pulls into the driveway and the woman Ash once called "mother" steps out.

Rundown:

chapters 1 and 2 - major
chapters 3 and 4 - minor
chapters 5 and 6 - minor
chapters 7 and 8 - minor
chapters 9 and 10 - major