Ronnie stood against the wall of the Heritage Center, angry about something Aspen had said. She doesn’t remember what it was anymore. It doesn’t matter. They’d gone to Anchorage for a cosplay event with some friends, though they were only Ronnie’s friends. Earlier that day, Aspen got into a fight with her parents and ran off. It’s not worth talking about. She had no one to confide in, and no one to call for help. “Let’s just go,” she said, feeling very small in front of Ronnie, who towered over her. Aspen isn’t short. Ronnie played sports and went to the gym. “I’m tired. I want to go home and go to bed.” There wasn’t much that Aspen knew about Ronnie. She’d tried to leave him before, after a particularly bad argument.

He was drunk. Aspen always wondered where he got booze. He’d just turned nineteen, and hid a bottle of beer in his cup holder as he drove. Aspen was never afraid to stand up for herself until it involved Ronnie. “I don’t want to go home. Come on; let’s go back inside.” Some people are so unpredictable. They can be kind and compassionate one minute, and threatening the next. She’d been struggling to figure out how to end her relationship: not because she didn’t love Ronnie, but because she feared for her life. Everyone says boys are mean to girls because they like them. When boys pulled Aspen’s hair and tugged her bra straps in middle school, everyone said it was just because they liked her.

Aspen was never afraid to tell others how she felt about something. Ronnie had a way of making her doubt herself, even when there was nothing to doubt. At the beginning of their relationship, Ronnie made her feel beautiful and safe. Things weren’t like that anymore, and Aspen wasn’t sure when exactly they had changed. He grabbed her arm too tightly. When Aspen feels stressed, she shouts.

“I want to break up!”

She’d never shouted at him before. She would rather have died than admit to her parents that she was afraid of him. Ronnie had his hand inside his pocket. He always wore a jacket, even in the summertime. Ronnie had no siblings. He was quite spoiled in this way. “You can’t break up with me, Aspen. I own you.” He had a knife in his pocket; a glare from the sun hit the blade. He could kill her easily. She had nowhere to go. There were many people there.

Aspen’s phone was almost dead. She’d made plans to spend the night at some friends’ houses, but Ronnie never wanted her to go places without him.

“Why do you have a knife?” Aspen stepped back, tripping on a rock, falling backwards onto the ground. Ronnie stood above her, his hand around the knife’s wooden handle. That was all Aspen could see: the handle. “Ronnie, what’s the knife for?” She’d never seen him with a weapon before. She suspected he had crimes involving weapons.

“You’re so stupid, Aspen.” Ronnie snorted, squatting on the ground in front of her. When a group of people ran out of the Center, Aspen’s phone rang again. “You’re mine now. If you try to leave…” He balanced on his feet, pulling the knife from his pocket. It was a very big knife. Aspen didn’t know how she hadn’t noticed it before. People laugh too loudly. Aspen could hear them from across the parking lot. You’d think, with all the people around, someone would have noticed what was happening. “I love you,” said Ronnie. It always sounded like sugar. It always made things better.

The people you love don’t make you feel unsafe. Aspen is disobedient, and needs to learn to do what she’s told. Her parents say this all the time, too. People give her too many conflicting tips about life. She should stand up for herself. She should respect her elders. With so many different messages coming from so many different people, it’s impossible to know what to believe. Ronnie held the knife in front of him, spinning it between his fingers. Aspen sat on the ground, even though she could have gotten up. Her legs felt frozen to the cement underneath them.

I only shout at you because I love you. You know that, right? I love you and want to help you improve yourself.

It’s easy to tell someone you love them. Aspen has heard her mother say it to her father many times, and she doesn’t love him at all. Aspen’s parents don’t believe in divorce. People think it’s better to stay together so the children don’t suffer, but children suffer more watching their parents’ dysfunctional relationship than they ever would without it.

It was warm. Ronnie stood too close to her. He continued to spin the knife in his hand, so that its blade skimmed the top of her head. He wasn’t Ronnie. He looked like Ronnie, but Aspen didn’t know him anymore. Maybe she had never known him at all. It all happened so quickly. When the blade swung by her ear, she lifted her foot quickly and slammed it into Ronnie’s stomach. He grunted; Aspen snatched the knife when it hit the ground.

You are nobody’s property. Nobody has control of your body but you.

Things never turn out the way you expect them to. He’d grabbed her by the throat and squeezed until she couldn’t breathe, laughing when her feet dangled off the ground. Aside from him, she had no one. He would have watched the life drain from her face without batting an eye. He would have pretended nothing happened. He hadn’t noticed her pick up the knife. A benefit of having overprotective parents is learning to be sneaky. Aspen’s vision was going blurry. She struggled to breathe, and he just watched.

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She wasn’t thinking. The blade of the knife lodged into Ronnie’s chest when Aspen brought her arm up, and blood poured out when she removed it. Nobody wants to die. Most people don’t want to cause harm to others. He stared at her for a moment before letting go of her throat; she watched him stumble backward onto the ground. Everything spun. The sound of blood gurgling in Ronnie’s throat still rings in Aspen’s head.

I didn’t know what to do.

Six hours is a very long time to wait with blood on your clothes. After watching Ronnie bleed out behind the Heritage Center, Aspen was sick on the side of the road.

I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t want to die.

Even Ronnie’s own parents were afraid of him. This is what Aspen had been told by the police officers who questioned her. He’d been on their radar all of his life, pretty much, for all kinds of different things. Aspen didn’t get in trouble for killing him. He would have killed her first. Everyone is acting as though Aspen is lucky to have survived. She hasn’t left the house in a week. In the summers, she used to love hiking and bicycling. This summer, she feels afraid to leave the house. Ciel says it’s normal to feel that way after a traumatic event, and that he’s seen people die too. He wasn’t there. He didn’t see the way the life left Ronnie’s eyes.

She’s using Juno’s old bedroom. Most of her sister’s things are gone, but it still feels like an invasion of privacy. Aspen would never admit it, but she sometimes misses Juno. She was a pain in the ass, but it does kind of suck that she’s gone. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. Aspen’s relationship with her parents will never go back to the way it used to be, with or without Juno.

Aspen’s home alone, and sits in the living room. She used to love being home alone, and now it just makes her feel afraid. After summer, she starts her junior year of high school. Her parents expect her to graduate high school and go to university, like her siblings. Her teachers expect her to have her entire career planned out by the time graduation comes along. Ciel always wanted to work with art. Juno always wanted to work with animals. Aspen doesn’t even know what she wants to eat for dinner.

When Ciel returns home, he’s with a redheaded woman: probably the one he’s constantly talking about. It’s annoying, but at least he doesn’t seem to be obsessed with his dead wife anymore. She says nothing to Aspen, but looks at her for a while before looking away. She’s suspicious, maybe. Around strangers, it’s smart to be.

“Hi, I’m Aspen.”

It’s never been all that hard to be social. Juno, who sucked at it, used to beg Aspen to help her talk to people. Even some adults don’t know how to make friends or make conversation. Aspen wasn’t always a social butterfly. In high school, she forced herself out of her comfort zone, and turned out to be surprisingly good at it. She knows little about Bellamy: except her name, and her aloof nature. Aspen can be aloof, too.

Ivo hasn’t been home for a few days. With any luck, he won’t come back.

Ever since her last encounter with Ronnie, Aspen jumps at loud noises and sudden movements. She can never admit to her parents what happened; they’ll rub in her face the fact they were right. There’s no telling where she’ll end up after high school. At least once a week, Ciel receives a call from their mother, asking about her. He never gives a straight answer.

Bellamy wears a lot of purple, and a lot of makeup. She sits next to Aspen, but keeps a lot of distance. “Hi, Aspen.” She looks kind of folded in on herself, and keeps to herself while waiting for Ciel to return. He’s not gone long, and Bellamy becomes less stiff when he gets back.

“Will you be out long? You said you’d take me to the lake for my birthday.” This weekend, Aspen turns sixteen. Summer is nearly over, and she needs to make new friends when school begins again. Aside from her brother, she doesn’t really spend time with anyone at all. She used to have friends. When she started dating Ronnie, they all slowly dwindled away.

It’s hot. Even with the breeze, Aspen feels uncomfortable and sticky with sweat. Ciel grabs his keys and cigarettes from the counter. “I didn’t forget about you, don’t worry.” He doesn't have much of a social life anymore. In high school, he went out almost every weekend. That’s the price of getting older. “Oh, by the way, Aspen?” Before moving in with her brother, Aspen hadn’t seen him in a while. He’s a lot more responsible than she remembered. “I’m proud of you.”

The door always closes loudly. Aspen’s head spins.

I just want someone to be proud of me. I try so hard, and do everything I’m asked. It seems like no one even cares.

There’s no point in doing things that go unappreciated. You can do a hundred things for someone else without getting acknowledged. Aspen isn’t the best student, but she tries her best, and even stays after school sometimes to get extra help. There’s no reason for this, since nothing she does will be good enough for her parents, anyway. The pavement is hot on her feet. The door slams shut behind her. Bellamy sits in the car, looking at something on her phone. Ciel stands against the driver’s side door, having a cigarette before leaving, like he often does. Aspen has nothing to say.

Running down the front sidewalk to the car, she hugs Ciel, surprising him. She never hugged her siblings growing up. “I love you,” she says, before running back up the sidewalk and into the house.

Aspen misses Juno. Some days, she’d swear her sister was still alive. Juno’s voice appears inside her head at random times, and it sounds like it’s coming from right beside her. Juno had a distinct voice you could pick out in a crowd, and it remained lingering in a room far after Juno had left. Aspen spent so much of her childhood and teenagehood fighting with Juno instead of making memories. In her old bedroom, Juno has printed photos with friends Aspen never met. She shouldn’t snoop. Life goes by too quickly.