Ashlyn Winters had never felt so alone in her life. She sat in the backseat of her father’s car, staring out the window at the passing scenery. The trees and buildings blurred together as they drove down the highway. She was leaving everything she knew behind - her friends, her school, her home - and moving to a new city where she knew no one.
It wasn’t the first time she had moved. Her family had split apart when she was just seven years old, and she moved away from her mother. But this time was different. This time, it was just her, her father, and her little brother Draco.
Ashlyn’s father was a successful businessman and inventor who owned a company called Winters Technologies. He had decided to move the family to a new city where he could expand his business. Ashlyn didn’t mind moving - she was used to it by now - but she was worried about Draco. He was only twelve years old and had never lived anywhere else.
And then there was the lie. The big lie that Ashlyn had been keeping from Draco for years. The lie that their mother was dead.
In reality, their mother was alive and well, living with Draco’s twin sister Amira and their younger brother Oliver in the same city they were moving to. But Ashlyn had been made to keep up the lie for so long that she didn’t know how to tell Draco the truth.
As they drove closer to their new home, Ashlyn felt a knot form in her stomach. She knew that things were about to get even more complicated.
Ashlyn looked at her phone and saw a text message from her mother. She had sent her a picture of Amira and Oliver, smiling and holding a sign that said “Welcome to Paris”. Ashlyn felt a pang of guilt and sadness. She wished she could see them, hug them, and tell them how much she missed them.
She quickly deleted the message and turned off her phone. She didn’t want Draco to see it. He was sitting next to her, playing a game on his tablet. He seemed oblivious to the fact that his life was about to change drastically.
Ashlyn wondered how he would react when he got there. Would he be angry, hurt, confused? Would he start hating them for lying to him? Would he want to stay with their mother or their father? How would he get along with his siblings?
She wished she could talk to someone about it. Someone who understood what she was going through. Someone like, maybe her sister, who had a little brother of her own to handle. She always wondered, why couldn’t her parents just raise all four of them together?
She knew the story – after having four children, they made a strategic decision to split apart, hoping they would find a special someone, a better one, to help the other raise two of the children. While they both agreed with the idea at the time, they didn’t realize until much later that they would miss each other too much, and began to worry about how a potential new partner would treat their children. It was a gamble that they took, thinking it would be best for everyone, but it turned out to be a mistake that haunted them for years. They never told their children the truth, fearing they would hate them for abandoning them or resent them for lying to them. They kept their other family a secret, hoping that one day they would reunite and explain everything. But fate had other plans for them, and their secret was about to be exposed in the most unexpected way.
They made the decision on a whim, without much thought or planning. They simply divided their children by gender, thinking it would be easier that way. The father, Ashton took the older son and the older daughter, while the mother, Angelina took the younger daughter Amira and the younger son Oliver. They didn’t consider the personalities, preferences, or needs of their children, nor the impact of separating them from their siblings and one of their parents. They just wanted to start a new life, with new partners and new families. They thought they were doing what was best for them, but they didn’t realize how selfish and cruel they were being to their children.
“Why are we even moving anyway?” Draco asked Ashlyn.
Ashlyn hesitated, searching for a plausible answer. She knew the real reason why they were moving, but she couldn’t tell Draco. Their father had lied to them for years, telling them that their mother was dead and that they had no other siblings. But Ashlyn knew all along, since the day of the divorce. She had been entrusted with it since she was seven, and did a good job with it so far.
She wanted to tell Draco everything, but she was afraid of how he would react. He was only twelve, and he had idolized their father. He had no idea that the rest of their family lived in the same city. Ashlyn wondered what would happen when they inevitably ran into their mother and their other siblings. How would they cope with the shock and the betrayal? Would she still recognize them?
She glanced at their father, who was driving the car. He caught her eye and shook his head slightly, making a slicing motion across his throat. He was warning her not to say anything. He had made her promise to keep his secret, if she ever told Draco or anyone else. He said he was doing it for their own good, that he wanted to start a new life with them and find a new partner.
Ashlyn felt a surge of anger and resentment towards him. She hated him for lying to them, for tearing their family apart, for making them move away from their friends and their home. She hated him for putting her in this position, for making her choose between him and her brother.
She looked at Draco, who was staring at her expectantly. She forced a smile and said, “We’re moving because Dad is going to start working from his main office here. He thinks it will be good for us to have a change of scenery.”
Draco nodded, accepting her explanation. He didn’t seem to notice her fake smile or her nervous tone. He trusted her completely, as he always did.
Ashlyn felt a pang of guilt and sadness. She wished she could tell him the truth, but she didn’t know how. She wished they could be a happy family again, but she knew it was impossible.
She turned away from him and looked out the window, hoping that things would somehow work out in the end.
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