Stacey, The middle one

The family dynamic

My parents, Rosanna and Tristan, Ro and Tris, as they called each other, weren’t bad people. Just tired. Life had taken them places, and then dropped them back down in a town that didn’t care where you’d been.

Tristan worked on a building site most days, his body chiselled from years of lifting, hauling, and hammering under grey skies. He was strong, that much was obvious, but it was the quiet kind of strength. The kind that came home every night with aching shoulders and silence. He smelled like concrete dust and menthol rub. He wasn’t the talkative type, but I always knew when he was really stressed. He’d sit at the kitchen table long after everyone else had gone to bed, staring at unpaid bills like he could muscle them into disappearing.

Ro, though, she’d been a different woman once.

Back in her day, she was a dancer. Not just ballet recitals or community theatre stuff. Proper dancing. Cruise ships, worldwide tours, flashing lights, men in suits whistling from the wings. She used to be part of an adagio duo, boy lifts girl, spins her around, makes it all look easy. And Ro made it look good. She was bendy, bold, and never shy. The kind of woman who knew exactly what rooms she could command with just a look. Men lined up for her, and she never apologised for enjoying the attention.

“People called me names,” she told me once, glass of wine in hand, eyeliner smudged from the day. “Slag, tease, dancer with a dirty rep. And you know what I said? If people already think so low of you, why waste time trying to impress them?”

She laughed when she said it, but I saw the edge behind it, too. There’s defiance, and then there’s resignation. Ro had a bit of both.

Marriage was a kind of calm for her. A pause. She used to joke that after all the wild nights, wedding vows felt like taking a nap. “Don’t get me wrong, your dad and I, we still get on,” she said, with a smirk. “But sometimes, he’s so tired I need a whole drawer just to keep things interesting.”

I pretended not to hear that. I was 13 when she said it.

Ro didn’t hold back. She was that kind of mum. The one who didn’t believe in sugar-coating life or hiding who she used to be. But sometimes I wished she’d seen me a bit more clearly. Not just as the kid who didn’t need much. Not just the one who could cope.

But it was hard to compete with someone like Ro. She’d lived a hundred lives before she became a mother. And maybe she thought that was enough.

Maybe she thought her stories were loud enough for the both of us.

Harry was always trying to disappear.

He’d mastered the art of the quiet return front door creaking open at 2am, trainers in hand, jacket zipped to the chin. He moved like a ghost through the house, slipping past the kitchen where bills and late notices piled up like accusations, and up the stairs that groaned no matter how soft your step was.

He didn’t say much anymore. Not to me. Not to anyone, really. He spent more time with his boys than he did at home, always riding around in beat-up cars that coughed more smoke than they burned fuel. They passed around cheap weed and, worse, listened to music that pulsed like a warning, heavy bass, distorted vocals, lyrics that didn’t even pretend to hide the high.

Mum... she let it happen.

She’d seen enough of the world to know when to push and when to let go. “He’s just finding his way,” she said once, flicking through her magazine while the smell of something burned in the oven. “Better he’s out there than locked up in here.” She said it like a joke, but her eyes never left the page.

Dad, on the other hand, didn’t find it funny. Every time Harry stumbled in smelling like smoke and sour energy drinks, Dad would lose it. His voice, usually calm and flat, would erupt like a cracked pipe. He’d shout about respect, about rules, about the electric bill, and how many damn times he had to fix the bathroom door.

Then, like clockwork, he’d storm out of the house. No coat. Just rage. Sometimes he’d be gone for half an hour. Sometimes till morning.

But he always came back.

And when he did... the house would fill with a different kind of noise.

The walls were thin, cheaper than wallpaper, practically, and the sound travelled. Furniture bumping, muffled moans that got louder and more chaotic by the second. Ro had no shame. She was a vocalist. And Tristan, for all his exhaustion, apparently had enough in him for a short, furious comeback.

Two minutes. Maybe less. And then silence again.

I’d lie there under my covers, eyes open, heart tight. Not from disgust. Just... weariness. The kind of bone-deep tired that doesn’t come from lack of sleep but from feeling like your whole house runs on drama and survival. There were no quiet resolutions here. Just blow-ups and aftershocks.

Harry would vanish again the next day. No apologies. No explanations.

And I’d still be there. Same quiet room. Same creaky bed. The same girl caught in the middle of everyone else’s chaos.

It was like living in the static between stations. A constant buzz. Everyone tuned into their own mess while I stayed on mute.

But I was starting to feel something shift. Like maybe I didn’t want to be quiet anymore.

Maybe it was time someone heard me.

Even if I had to scream.

If you left me and Blu in a room together for more than ten minutes, something would crack. A vase, a remote, maybe just our tempers, but it always ended in shouting. Or tears. Or both.

He was the golden child. Everyone said so. Teachers beamed when he walked into a room. Perfect attendance, glowing reports, and handwriting neat enough to frame. Parents’ evening? A standing ovation. Mum would come home with her lipstick smudged and eyes glassy, clutching his report card like it was proof she’d done something right. “Blu got top marks in everything,” she’d sigh like she’d won the lottery.

And me? I was lucky if they even glanced at mine.

Nobody bullied Blu. Not even the mean ones. Megan Simms once tried to trip him in the corridor and ended up smiling instead, like his presence had hypnotised her into forgetting what kind of person she was. He had that thing, whatever it was. Charm. Light. Power. People bent toward him like flowers to the sun.

And I hated him for it.

I hated how easy it was for him. How he could roll his eyes or mumble a joke and be forgiven instantly, while I spent my whole life walking on eggshells, trying not to be too much, or not enough. I hated how he could cry and get held while I cried and got asked to stop being dramatic. When he broke something, it was an accident, but when I did, it was “careless.”

He didn’t even have to try. That was the worst part. He was everything I wasn’t, and never would be. Beautiful. Beloved. Seen.

Sometimes, I looked at him and saw the future everyone expected him to have, university brochures, graduation photos, job offers, and travel. And then I looked at me. The invisible middle. The filler chapter in our family story.

We didn’t speak much. When we did, it ended fast.

“Why are you always mad?” he asked once, his voice small and confused.

And I wanted to scream, Because you stole everything I never even got to have!

But I didn’t.

I just shrugged and left the room, slamming the door behind me. The house rattled in response, and somewhere downstairs, Mum shouted something about respect.

The truth is, it wasn’t really Blu’s fault. He didn’t ask to be the favourite. He didn’t choose the spotlight—it just followed him. Like sunshine. Or fire.

But when you’ve spent your whole life in someone else’s shadow, it’s hard not to grow bitter. Hard not to want to scream just to see if anyone turns their head.

I didn’t want to hate him. But I did.

Because he got everything I had to survive without.

And maybe one day, that would break us both.