Linked to Their Father’s Crimes

The nausea crept up their throat from the pit of their stomach; the realisation that yesterday was real.

“Alexandra!” their mum yelled again — a bad sign. She always called them Ace, with Alexandra making them feel so incredibly dysphoric.

Their dad — their father, they wouldn’t grant such familiarity to him when he was the one behind all of this — hadn’t been joking when he said that things would be changing in the Echols household. They had, and they’d changed fast.

Ace remained silent as their mum continued shouting their old name. The name they only had to use for their GCSEs and with supply teachers. And, well, their father, but they ignored him most of the time anyway.

“Alexandra!”

Silence.

They forced back tears as they heard footsteps on the stairs outside the bathroom, wishing they had a lock. But no, of course they didn’t.

They wanted to throw up.

“Get out here.”

They didn’t move.

“Alexandra.”

Nothing.

“I know you can hear her, Alexandra.” This voice was their father’s, and it made their blood boil to hear it.

“I don’t know who you’re talking to,” Ace replied slowly. “I don’t know an Alexandra.”

They flung the door open just as their father raised a hand to outside it. Icy grey eyes met blazing violet, neither person possessing the eye colour they had fallen asleep with last night.

“Yes you do,” their father said calmly, the barest hint of a sneer in his tone.

“My name is Ace.”

“Oh, if you really must shorten your name then why not Alexa?” their mum frowned. “Lexi?”

They despised the nickname Lexi, and everyone knew it.

“This is ridiculous,” their father snapped. “Ace is not a name, young lady —“

“Fine! If you won’t call me by my name, call me Alex! I will not answer to anything else.”

It was a dangerous move, but their father seemed to accept it, albeit with an overly dramatic sigh.

“Very well.”

Ace — Alex now, they supposed — swallowed as their parents left the room, turning to the mirror to glare at their violet-eyed reflection.

“Ace is a name, idiot,” they muttered to themself.