Ashton Finch and Myles Hale: The backstory
The afternoon Ashton Finch lost everything was one he’d never completely forget. The details had gone fuzzy over time, but he remembered what had happened, he remembered the burning anger and confusion at the back of his 11-year old mind. He recalled the adults and the paramedics trying to comfort him, but their words were like distant rain. Ashton remembered sleeping in a room all by himself until more adults took him to his parent's funeral. They passed in that horrible house fire, someone explained to him, though he already knew. He didn’t cry that day, but the flames of anger at the back of his mind ignited. After the funeral, Ashton was handed over to foster care. He kept moving, family after family, house after house. No one seemed to want to mind the kid who never talked or smiled, the kid who didn’t seem to care about anything for years on end. They put him in all different kinds of therapy in hopes of fixing the broken boy, but no therapist could coax h...