Stoic • Rafe Cameron

Prologue

Ashton always looked up to his father, but continued to be dismissed because there was more important things to tend to.

Ashton grew super close with his mother, they were two peas in a pot. His mother was his person, Alice would do everything with him. She filled the void with her husband by taking care of her son and showing him how to live life, but she wasn't able to heal the craving the boy had to be seen by his father.

Alice started to see changes with her husband 3 years after her husband took over the family company. He would work extreme hours and always go on a business trip, she tried to convince him to take more time with his family. She begged to do things instead of just going to a charity gala or some fancy dinner.

But she was always yelled at in responds that she had no clue what it takes to raise this family. He would scream at her, telling her she was selfish for wanting him to waste time. He would convince her this is how a normal life of a DuPont should be. She just never thought the yelling would lead to something worse.

Alice became depressed and began to drink a lot, it started with a glass of wine at night, then two, and ultimately lead to a bottle. She began to not have the energy or urge to get up early in the mornings to take Ashton to school. She would just have the driver take him.

At the age of 11 Ashton was on his own emotionally and psychically not only was his dad not always around but his mother would always be in bed. The maids told him to let his mother rest that she was sick, which wasn't true she was hungover and upset. 

He would wake up in the middle of the night to hear her crying, it broke his little heart to see his mom like that. He had no clue what was happening behind those double doors of his parents room when his father would come home from work and he would hear yelling and smashing of things.

When Ashton was a teen he started to become ridiculed by his father. Different things he would do if he acted a certain way or wouldn't want to go to some important function. His father never laid a hand on him yet, but Ashton would flinch just from the sound of his yelling tone.

His mother would jump into the father and sons fights and take it to their room instead, forgetting all about there son.

It was intentional though, Alice knew why, she didn't want her son to see it. The blinding rage that was within Charles, he took his frustrations out on his family, the last thing Alice wanted was for her husband to hurt her son.

Alice stopped drinking after the incident. Worst fears coming out when she was having an argument with her husband and he threw her through the glass shower door.

It was loud enough for Ashton to hear across the house. He ran to his parents bathroom to see his father kicking his mother repeatedly in the stomach. He snapped he knew they yelled and argue but not to this level not to finally see his mothers hidden bruises. He fought his father that day and it was bad, it almost sent him to the hospital, his father redirected all his rage into the boy.

After the incident Ashton became extremely quite and distance he would stay out of the house and try to hangout with his friends at school as much as he could. He's upset his mother hid this abuse from him, yea he thought there marriage was rough with yelling and throwing things he just never thought it was his mother that was the one begin thrown around. Ashton didn't understand why she didn't leave his father. Why would she stay with what he was doing to her and to him.

Ashton feared his father more than anything in the world, so he hid as much as he could, scared to stand up for himself or his mother, traumatized would really be the word. He always knew he was different from classmates and friends, especially in the privileged lifestyles they all had.