"What a mess we made of falling in love."
S. Colinson
*Extreme Trigger Warning*
Ashton DuPont is everything anyone wanted or wanted to be. He was breed to be the heir of a fortune, his life was filled to the prim of unimaginable luxury and old money. His family is well know around the world and one of the top family's living on the Upper East Side of New York City. You would think his 17 year old self would be happy and content with everything he has in his life. But people didn't get why the boy was so quite, so stoic and cold.
The DuPonts' had become influential over generations of all different businesses ventures and investments. They are one of America's richest family's and with that came pressures that no one could see behind their pitch perfect smiles and extreme etiquette.
But behind those smiles laid many secrets, many private affairs that they would hide from public eyes that were craving to ridicule the family.
Reputation was very important to Charles DuPont, everything he would do with this family's last name was important to him. Charles pushed to keep the DuPont name on top, to continue to develop the generational wealth.
Charles worked endlessly to keep the DuPont Company in order with countless business investments and endeavors, neglecting the most important people in his life, just like his father before him. He didn't know any better it was just how he was taught to be, work, charity, and social responsibility.
No time for anything else which included begin emotional, he was cold people close would say.
Until he meet Alice his wife, she had opened him up to live a little to see the good in other things than just working and upholding a name.
Alice DuPont was born and raised in the Outer Banks on a small island called Kildare in North Carolina. Her family was also very rich but not to the extent in which she married into, it was a whole new world that had trapped her in a cage all because of love...
She tried as much as she could to help her husband, to change him make him see life differently. She really thought things would be better because falling in love with Charles was the best thing she experienced in life and would do anything to keep it together.
She grew up in a world with less stress and toxicity, she knew how to have fun and let loose and enjoy the little things in life. That's why Charles love her so much she was an escape in a world filled with responsibility.
When Ashton was born the couple was extremely happy. He was their world and would do anything for him, but deep down his farther knew he would grow up one day to see the hardship that will one day lay on his shoulders and it worried him.
At the age of 8 Ashton's life changed with the death of his grandfather, his father was now in charge of the DuPont Company and would no longer show up to his soccer games, swim meets, and sometimes at home. He was always on a business trip or working with a very important client. His father was always stressed out and frustrated, the responsibilities took a told on his father.
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.
Different in the sense of what he liked, his biggest dark secret was he liked guys. Something he feared his father would never accept because it would ruin there perfect family name. Who would want the heir to a billion dollar dynasty to fall to a boy who likes boys he always thought.
Sure Ashton was smart one of the top students at a prestigious private academy on the upper east side of Manhattan. He had the brains to operate the business after he would go to college, though he thought he would never have the image his father wanted and he felt like his father would never truly see him.
So he wouldn't open the sealed box of his true self to his parents, he hid his true soul in darkness. With the pressure of an abusive household and hiding his true self Ashton need an escape.
He meet Cater through one of his school buddy's, it was something he never thought possible to love someone that much. To have someone hear him, his problems, needs and emotions. Carter was Ashton's escape from his dark life, though everything good comes to an end.
Ashton secret was out of the bag when he almost died because of a crazed car accident that lead to Caters jeep going into the Hutson river. One night of having fun filled with laughter turn to the worst day of Ashton's life. Only one boy made it out alive. It only spread the darkness deeper into the soul of the boy, losing his last hope.
Broken wasn't even the word anyone could use when his parents found him hooked up to machines while the nurses tried to help him at the hospital after the accident. Everything exploded inside the boy releasing his hurt and lost to his parents without even knowing it.
Alice and Charles were in disarray almost like an atomic bomb going off when the got the call there son was in a accident and almost died. When they got there they weren't expecting to hear his confessions of love of the person that he had just learnt didn't make it out of the accident. To see their son that barely showed any emotions anymore cry out the name of his lover.
Ashton didn't care that they knew his Secret anymore he had just lost the most important thing that would always heal him. And now he had nothing, nothing to help him anymore, nothing to get him away from his darkness of life.
His parents both agreed they wouldn't talk about their son confessions, they were just extremely thankful he was alive. They didn't care who he loved or what his sexuality was, but there son didn't know that...
Charles realize that day that he needed to change he almost lost his son for good and he didn't even know his son was in love with a boy. He felt like a failure, not to even know something so deep about his child. To take out everything on his family and not to know what they even truly were going through to hurt them the way he did was it worth it. He knew it was all his fault. He broke this family and didn't know how he could let his sickness get this bad.
Alice was heartbroken to see her baby break the way he wailed and scream to die and not want to live with out his boyfriend. She realized that moment she and her son needed to leave, that she missed out on something so important in Ashton's life. She needed to be there for him to escaped this life and create a better home for her son to know him and hear him....
But also for her herself too, she needed to leave for both of them. The domestic abuse she refused to see has taken its toll on everyone in the family and her poor son was hiding all his emotions in with one person that is gone now. She worried so much that nothing could replace what he just lost but she knew she needed to get out now and fast before she lost her son completely because she knew he just lost the one thing holding him together. Therapist can't fix this anymore, everything she has tried to keep her marriage together has taken her time away from focusing on her son.
Alice's marriage to Charles wasn't helping her son it was hurting him. It taught him to hide himself and to not be who he is. She needed to be stronger for them and call it quits and go back far way to her true Island home....
Little did Ashton know what was going to happen in the up coming months as he healed his wounds physically and emotionally, would he ever truly be happy again..
Note: { Sorry, I know this is extremely triggering and sad but I needed to lay a foundation on understanding the main character and his parents. The background info on the characters was important. I may have been a bit extreme on some of this so I may change it later as I developed this story. We will get to the the good parts of the story soon I promise. This is also one of my first times ever writing so bare with me please lol. }