– Angel keeps a small sketchbook tucked between her mattress and bed frame. It’s filled with doodles, pressed flowers, and little sketches of Neil when he isn’t looking. Sometimes she leaves silly caricatures in it, but she never lets her father see.
– Though she’s shy about performing in front of others, Angel loves to hum or sing quietly when she’s alone
– Because her father insists on plain, modest clothing, Angel collects ribbons, buttons, or scraps of fabric in bright colours. She’ll pin them to her underskirts where no one can see, just so she knows she’s carrying a little bit of hope with her.
– When Neil sneaks around or bends the rules, Angel is often the one covering for him at home. She’ll distract their father with questions or chores if she suspects Neil might be caught.
– Angel has a habit of writing down her dreams on scraps of paper. She hides them in a little tin box, hoping one day she’ll be brave enough to make some of them real.
– Angel spends hours sitting by her bedroom window, watching the neighborhood kids play. Sometimes she whispers lines of imaginary conversations she’ll never get to have with them.
– She lives vicariously through Neil’s stories. Every time he comes home, she clings to every detail about his school, his friends, and the plays he’s in, because she knows it’s a world she’ll never get to see herself.
– Angel has sketched out dozens of outfits she dreams of wearing, bright, playful, expressive clothes. She hides the drawings in the back of her sketchbook, knowing they’ll never be made real.
– The only time Angel lets herself cry is late at night, when everyone else is asleep. She presses her face into her pillow so no one will hear.
– When her father has guests, Angel is often instructed to “stay out of sight.” She’s grown used to fading into the background, unseen and unheard.
– She once wrote Neil a letter about how lonely she feels when he’s gone, but she tore it up before giving it to him, afraid it would make him sad, too
- shortly after Neil’s death she was so depressed that she was to mentally and physically weak to fight against her illness and passed away.
- the reason she’s kept inside most of the time is because of how sick she is and how weak her parents perceive her to be.
