The Blind Boy

32.

a/n: i finally realized four years later that rory and peter would have the same last name. *face palm* we're thriving out here. I guess that's what first edits are for.

Ash wakes up on Monday with a pounding headache.

She – as is her routine – glances over at Tara's bed, which is made, but empty. She's done this so many times that now it's ingrained in her, even half asleep.

She shoots the younger girl a text, groggily rising from bed. Tara has appeared to have grown fonder of Ash, has in the very least started informing her about her whereabouts when she doesn't come home (which is nearly every day now, much to Helen's frustration).

It's a helpless kind of feeling, knowing that there's nothing Ash can do.

Helen doesn't care, in an alcohol-induced kind of stupor to do much of anything. If Ash calls CPS to inform them of Tara's rendezvous with her boyfriend, Tara will be cast off to another district, with a foster parent who might be bad – if not worse – than the supposed 'boyfriend' than she has now.

Ash's stomach twists in chronic distaste. The lesser of two evils. That is their way of life, all because this is the best that the taxpayer dollars have to offer, that the country does.

She sometimes ponders briefly if the UK is better for orphans, for cast aside youth, for abused and neglected children, but she isn't sure – quite frankly, she doesn't think she wants to know.

Her phone buzzes, stirring her from her sleep-addled thoughts. She expects a quick reply from Tara, but it's from Rory.

Morning, he texts. It's paired with a smiley-face emoji that she knows took him an extra five or ten minutes to find.

This is something new too, him texting her twice daily. Good mornings and good nights are starting to become a constant, consistent part of her day.

They're soothing, reliable, and something she's never gotten while growing up. It's silly to be this excited over something as simple as this, and one could even consider them dry, but Ash knows Rory by now, knows that they're anything but.

There is no mention of what transpired between them, only steady, empty, warm texts, and for that Ash is unbearably relieved.

She's still... shy about it all. 

Embarrassed, from the noises and sounds that she's made, by how easily she let it all happen. 

Relieved, like a weight has finally lifted itself off her chest. 

Clueless, as she's never done any of this before (and he has, she's heard the rumors, and ponders if he thinks she's silly).

More importantly, she's wanting more.

Ash feels like she's been thrown entirely from her orbit, like she's weightless, and she's awoken in some parallel universe where's she's wanted, cherished, and treated gently (reverently too, yet somehow at the same time).

She crawls out of bed, designs herself to get ready for school. There's a chill in Helen's home today, with the heater cranked as low as possible – to save as much money as possible, Ash reasons inwardly.

Money, money, money.

Ash thinks that's all Helen cares about. Not lives, but how she can collect from them. How she can take.

Ash shudders as her bare feet touch the carpeting, keeping her blanket wrapped firmly around her as she rifles through her white, paint-chipped cabinet for her clothes. Felix the Fox tumbles to the floor, but she pays him no mind. She really needs to do her laundry soon – it's all piled up in a heap in the corner, leaving the contents of her drawer sorely lacking.