Ashley's POV
Walking through the old beat up house my small footsteps take caution around the broken glass on the floor as I go to the kitchen. I was looking for my Mom, I didn't know she had died earlier, but I sure would later.
I was 3 years old at the time, barely talking, and starting my goofy smiles. It should've been a happy time, but it wasn't.
As I rounded the corner my life would change forever. There sat my father, drunk, something that I hadn't known of before until that night.
"Daddy, where's Mommy?" I shake his shirt.
He turns to look down on me from the wooden table, his eyes red like he's been crying. I didn't know how to react so my lip quivered when he started to drink from a brown bottle again, and start to cry.
"Just go back upstairs Ashley" is the only thing he said.
"Where's Mommy?" I ask again with tears in my little eyes.
"God Dammit Ashley! She's dead, gone! Now go back to your room" he shouts standing up.
He had never done this before so I quickly scrambled away from him, and accidentally fell onto the glass shards cutting my hands in the process.
I ran upstairs and locked my room crying.
I heard loud footsteps creeping towards my room, my heart beating fast in my chest, I had just lost my Mom and my Dad had yelled at me. I was a crying mess, because all I wanted was my Mom back.
Loud knocks came from the wooden door harshly. "Ashley!" He screamed.
"No" I whispered backing away from the door.
"Ashley!"
"Ashley!"
"Ashley! Come on please"
"No!" I screamed still half asleep and terrified from one of the only memories I have from my early childhood.
"Ashley, it's okay. No ones here to hurt you" I look up and see a concerned look on Andy's face.
I waste no time in jumping out of bed and into his arms hugging for dear life. This man has been here for me for a lot, and not once has he tried to hurt me, I trust him with my life now.
He hesitantly wraps his arms around me before relaxing into the hug, and we sit there at 2 in the morning hugging.
"I-I'm sorry" I stutter, wiping away tears before they could fall.
"It's okay Ashley, do you want to talk about it?" He asks with a raised eyebrow.
"Oh um," I bite my lip thinking. If I tell him he should be helpful, and comforting. It wasn't the worst memory I had of my father, because there are worse. "Sure"
I tell him about my nightmare, and just a little about my father because I'm afraid if I speak about him any further he'll find me like he threatened before I was taken away.
"I'm sorry" Andy says putting a comforting hand on my shoulder.
"You don't need to be, he's not in my life anymore hasn't been for a long time. You're in my life, and that's what makes me happier than I even could of been growing up" I say with a smile.
His eyes lighten up and he smiles before saying goodnight and leaving. I fall back asleep glad to have gotten that memory talked about, and I wasn't scared to fall back asleep.
-
I woke up to a smoke alarm beeping.
"What the hell" I whisper getting up and walking down the steps at a fast pace.
I look over and see Andy in his cooking apron waving around a towel at burning food on the stove.
"What's going on!" I hear Derek come down beside me.
"I'm trying to cook! What does it look like? Grab a towel and help me" Andy says frantically.
We both grab towels and hit them on the burning food, if you think about it this is hilarious.
I start to laugh seeing my brothers worried face.
"Why are you laughing?" He says starting to laugh himself.
"Because this," I motion around us "Is hilarious" I laugh again.
"I just wanted to try cooking something new, oh and look what happened" Andy said while laughing.
We got the food in the trash and out of the house, the smoke detectors were off and we were all standing next to each other in the kitchen cleaning things up.
"So much for that, it seems all I can cook is pasta!" Andy exclaims throwing his hands in the air.
"I believe it" I chuckle.
"Come on, let's go get some Taco Bell" Andy says grabbing his glasses and putting them on.
We all go outside and to the car. "I can shotgun!" I shout running towards the car.
"Fine" Derek crosses his arms.
We were all still in our pajamas with Derek pouting in the backseat.
"Cheer up, son" Andy smirks through the rear view mirror.
I see Derek's eyes go wide and he smiles great fully back at Andy.
We go inside of Taco Bell just enjoying a 'family' moment while we eat. Even though we're in our pajamas and Andy's wearing sunglasses at 9 in the morning we all sat at a table and laughed.
"I bet you can't eat this super hot sauce" I say waving in in front of Derek.
"I bet I could" he retorts.
"Do it then" I say handing it to him.
He opens the packet and Andy and I watch as he puts it all into his mouth. He smirks up at me probably feeling victorious.
"Just give it a moment" I tell him.
He looks confused for a second until his face starts to get red and he waves at his mouth.
"Hot, hot, very hot!" He says while pacing around the room waving his hand over his mouth.
"Here, here" I hand him a water cup.
"Thank you" he drinks the entire cup and sits back down.
Andy takes off his glasses for the first time since we've been here and raises an eyebrow smirking slightly.
"Kids..." he shakes his head laughing.
We stayed here not even 20 minutes before our peace was interrupted by people staring, and people with cameras started to show up. Ugh paparazzi, always ruining everything.
"We gotta go, before this gets worse" Andy says putting his sunglasses back on.
I take his glasses off his eyes and put them on my own. "The lights usually hurt my eyes. You'll live" I pat his shoulder playfully.
"Fine, let's go kids" Andy says and all three of us walk out.
Only about 3-4 people were there taking pictures so it wasn't that bad. I waved at them and gave a goofy smile.
We must look hilarious I'm wearing checkered pajamas with a super man shirt on, Derek is wearing plain grey sweatpants, and a red shirt but his hair is super messy. Andy is wearing blue sweatpants, and a white shirt, but his normally slicked back curly hair was all over the place and frizzy. I'm glad my hair was easy to contain with a pony tail.
We made it to our car glad that we got away before too many people showed up before we left.
I pout in the backseat because Derek took the front.
"Did I say you could sit up there?" I say annoyed.
"No, but he did" he says pointing to Andy.
I shoot playful glares at the both of them, but am glad that I got to eat.
"There's going to be articles written about us being in Taco Bell" I say with a chuckle. "I mean, I look great but as for you two," I say pointing to both of them as we walk inside the house "you might want to go look in the mirror" I laugh seeing their scared looks before they run off to different bathroom.
"Oh my god!" I hear Andy shout from the upstairs bathroom before he runs back down with slightly fixed hair. "I looked horrible" he says.
"That I agree with, but don't worry it's not like the whole world is going to see" I say sarcastically.
"Only they will" Andy mumbles.
"Hey, we may have looked bad, but at least we got to eat" Derek says walking back in the living room.
"Now that, is true" I say pointing a finger at him.
With that we went on with our days just enjoying being in the air conditioned house.