Admittedly, he was cute. She tried not to think of him like that because they were roommates, and she didn’t want things to get complicated between them. She didn’t know if she could handle losing him since they had grown so close. Though, she couldn’t deny the warmth that graced her whenever he smiled at her or they met eyes for a few seconds too long.

Gradually, Ying Sheng cleared her thoughts away and then turned away from him to head through the living room and into a hallway that led to her bedroom. She shut the door behind her with a soft sigh, her glow gradually diminishing as silence fell upon her.

Whenever she wasn’t with Liam , it was harder to part from reality, in which she was an unloved daughter, a lonely and a grim person.

Once she switched on the lamp that was on her bedside table, her eyes shifted around the room, taking in the band posters, the mess of papers on her desk, the clothes that she didn’t feel like wearing scattered all over the floor, and the ruffled grey bed sheets that she never made. She wanted to be better than this, but it was hard to find the point of it sometimes.

Ying Sheng peeled off her hoodie and shorts, opting for a red tank top and a pair of black lounge shorts instead. She crawled into bed, her eyes glancing off of the empty water bottles and chip bags on her nightstand.

She typically met up with Liam outside of her room so that he didn’t see the mess. She didn’t want him to think that she was a slob. She didn’t want her space to be messy. She just hadn’t found the motivation to tidy everything up when homework and projects lurked over her head.

On one hand, she was glad for having all of those things to do in her life. They were perfect forms of distraction for her to focus on, but she needed energy and motivation to want to do them, which she lacked most of the time now. It wasn’t a mystery to her why she felt this way. It all went back to her parents.

Now, she managed to skim on by when it came to bills.

Before she moved in with Liam, she could technically have anything that she wanted. Her parents were a rich and successful real estate team that traveled around the area constantly to sell property. They worked long hours away from home, but they loved chasing down the money.

That led to Ying Sheng being left home alone a lot. She just wanted to spend time with her parents for once. She wanted to do fun things with them, like go on vacation, go bowling, or even just grab a bite to eat somewhere. However, they were always too busy for her.

For awhile, she didn’t complain about the lack of time that they spent with her. She knew that they were busy with work, and that adults needed to work. However, she started seeing how her friends’ parents would still have the time to spend the weekend at least with their kids. They made an effort to act like a family, as opposed to her own.

Ying Sheng didn’t even feel like they were a family half the time. She just felt like she was living in a house with two other strangers. They hardly acknowledged her good grades, the volunteer work that she did at local businesses, or if she had a bad day at school or not. She was a ghost, and she remained that way until she couldn’t take it anymore.

Once she got into college, she couldn’t stay silent. She was an adult now, but they were still her parents. She deserved their attention and their care, even if they didn’t feel up to giving it to her. She called them out on how they always chose work over her, and they lashed back out at her ten times harder.

They told her that she would grow up to be nothing if she didn’t work as hard as them. They chastised her for going out with her friends instead of staying in and working. They spat all over her plans for the future, dismissing her bakery idea and saying that she would be dead in the water before it even kicked off.

Ying Sheng could tell that they were disappointed in her, but she was also disappointed in them. It became clear to her that she wasn’t welcome in that house or even in her own family.

At first, she was too angry at her parents to feel upset about the whole ordeal. She couldn’t believe the audacity they had to bring a child into the world only to neglect her and choose work over her. It wasn’t fair, and she was furious that she lost out on a good childhood and didn’t have family in her corner like most other people.

However, she couldn’t change that. She couldn’t make them better people or parents. She was stuck with what she had, which was absolutely nothing. They didn’t care about her. They cared about money and success, and she didn’t factor into that equation.

Gradually, the anger wore off throughout the months that followed, and all that she was left with now was sadness. Despite missing some classes and slacking a little, she was doing good in college, but she didn’t have a family to celebrate that with. Her new friends were wonderful, but she felt alone in the world at times.

Ying Sheng dragged her hands over her face with a sigh, trying to coax the grim feelings away. She knew that she couldn’t control how she felt, but she was just tired of feeling this way. It drained her and crushed her that the solution wasn’t so easy to figure out and achieve. It wasn’t something so cut and dry, and she felt like it was mostly out of her hands.

All that she could do was run from it and fill her life with distractions. If she was moving so fast, she wouldn’t have time to take in the downhill motion of her life. She was going to crash soon again, and she didn’t want Liam to see that. The last thing that she wanted to do was to take him down with her.

Sometimes, she couldn’t help but wonder if she had done something wrong to deserve this. Maybe she had done something wrong to her parents that made them treat her this way. Maybe she didn’t deserve Liam’s kindness, and she would eventually disappoint him too.

The thought made her feel nauseous, her head shaking at herself. She needed to shut her mind off for the night before she slipped down into it too deep. She reached over and turned off the lamp, darkness cloaking her room. Once she tucked herself under the covers, she closed her eyes tightly, willing sleep to come so that she’d have enough energy to get herself out of bed the next morning.

A

/N: Please add my new book, The Beautiful Monster to your library. Thank you