FAR FROM NORMAL ── REGGIE PETERS

23. ACCEPTANCE

     The two of them were sitting at other ends of the living room from one another, Ashley trying to distract herself by fiddling about with her phone screen and Ashley's father, none the wiser, had a book open in his hands, a fantasy novel Ashley had bought him a few Christmasses ago which he had read at least four times now - he would always tell Ashley he loved it so much that whenever he reread it, it felt like he was reading it for the first time all over again.

     Ashley took a deep breath, her heart pounding. She couldn't believe she was about to do this, but it was better now than never - her father was going to figure it out eventually, maybe when Ashley slipped up and said the band name or when she was talking and she mentioned Luke or Reggie without even realising, so what better to hear it from her directly rather than through the slip of a word.

     "Sunset Curve." Ashley watched as the book her father was holding in his hand dropped onto his knee at the mention of the band name. He didn't even look up to her, just closed the book and placed it onto the side table.

     "What did you say, Ash?" Her father still wasn't looking at her but Ashley could tell his voice was shaking - there was no going back now. She had to go on.

     "Sunset Curve." Ashley repeated herself, voice shaking slightly. "I figured it out. The band that Alex was in before he died, they were called Sunset Curve."

     There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch out forever until Ashley's father lifted his eyes to meet hers. He didn't look angry or mad or frustrated - he looked upset. Of all the emotions, Ashley's father was upset.

     It hurt her to see him look like that. Ashley's father was a proud man and he rarely ever showed his emotions in front of his daughter. She had only ever seen him upset a couple of times and each time she did, it hurt more than the last.

     "Who told you that?" There was a crack in his voice as he spoke up and Ashley started to regret mentioning it to him. "Ashley, who told you?"

     "Nobody told me, dad." Ashley sat herself up on the sofa more so she wasn't slumped against the cushions. "I'm seventeen now. What, did you think I was never going to figure it out? This is my big brother we're talking about here, of course I was going to figure it out at some point. I was desperate to know, okay?

     "You never told me anything about the boys that got me into music, no matter how much I asked it of you. You were never even planning on it. So I did it myself, I searched and I found something which led me right to them."

     There was another moment of silence and Ashley could see her father still trembling. She was afraid of what was about to go down between them.

     "I thought I told you the search wasn't worth it, Ashley." Her fathers voice was no longer soft, but he wasn't yelling yet either, which was a bonus. "I told you specifically that I didn't want you rooting into the past for them when there was nothing any of us could do about it. Sure, I couldn't shield you away from Alex because he's your brother, but the boys? I could shield you from them. I could shield you from the harm it could bring if you ever knew too much about them.

     "Did you never think there was a reason I kept it all from you, Ash? Did you never think maybe I really was trying to protect you? Yet, no matter how hard I tried, you still found your way around the one house rule that is so solidly built into life in this this home it may as well be a part of the plaster."

     His voice grew louder the more he spoke so he was on the verge of yelling by the time he had finished speaking, but Ashley couldn't believe he was making the situation about himself. After everything, he was still making it about what he wanted, what he had tried and not what Ashley had ever wanted.