𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐓 𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐓⁰²ʰᵉᵐᵐⁱⁿᵍˢ

ㅤㅤㅤ v ──spider web

tw. please read back on the tws
on the intro section. that will be
important for this chapter.

ㅤ

ㅤ

ㅤ

ㅤ

ㅤ

asari

ㅤ

ㅤ

ㅤ

"Asari, I expected better from you," The familiar sound of my mother's bitter voice filled my ears. "Running away," She scoffed, tone filled with contempt, a sly venom that managed to name me and call me her daughter once.

"After what your father has been through, after what I've been through, I would've thought you'd help us through every fucking thing because we raised you good," She was almost growling, and I could imagine the ugly sneer painted on her ugly face, mud-brown eyes staring hell at mine.

Raised you good.

I hoped she didn't really believe that.

"Good evening, miss," The bus driver nodded my way, signalling that I was at the stop I needed to get off on.

I looked out and saw the bus stop where I waited every morning, ready for my arrival so I could walk back home.

"Oh, thanks," I stood from my seat and pulled my earbuds off, clicking out of my voicemails and tucking my phone in my pocket.

I could still hear mom's taunts as I hopped out of the bus, like a devil on my shoulder, a permanent bully from my past, always yelling something cruel at the back of my mind.

I didn't know why I let her haunt me. I didn't know why I hadn't deleted her voicemails or blocked her number. Since I left, she'd sent a voicemail or a dozen every day or two, cursing me out, pleading me back, breaking furniture and letting it be recorded by voicemail.

I liked holding on to my past, but at the same time, I couldn't wait to leave it and be rid of my ghosts.

I liked knowing that I wasn't being forgotten, that I was still being thought of. That perhaps I wasn't all the sob story I left in that town of ghosts everyone knew my family but no one knew my family.

I clung onto the hope that perhaps my old 'best friends' still thought of me now and then, letting their hearts fill with sorrow and sorry; that dad was being overwhelmed with insurmountable regret for all that he had and hadn't done; and mom realising her mistakes in being the constant spinning wheel and pointing her finger to shift the blame.

I hated the thought of being forgotten.

But I hated that my mother had to be the one to tell me she hadn't forgotten. I hated how she blamed me for my brother, for dad and his stupid fucking liquor. It wasn't as though I bought them, he chose to waste her money. She chose to give her money up to him. So why was I always at the end of the pistol? Why was I always hanging on the edge? Why poke her full-of-blame, wrinkly, thin, ugly finger at me when dad was the one -

"You okay there?"

I looked up from the sidewalk, brows furrowed at the stranger's arm crossed against my chest, as if shielding me from walking any further.

"What?" I shook the obsessive thoughts off for a moment and looked up at the stranger, recognition dawning at me as my eyes widened at the sight of Ashton.