Ainsley Briar was not born.
She was assembled.
From the moment her lungs drew air, her parents began the craft of shaping her.
Her mother, Elizabeth Briar, elegant and calculating, believed that children reflected their upbringing like mirrors. And her father, Sebastian Briar, meticulous and immaculately dressed, believed in results, not emotion. Between them, they carved out a daughter not of flesh and will but of expectation and fear.
The house Ainsley grew up in was silent. Not peaceful, just quiet in the way feelings are unwelcomed in a room. The floors were waxed until they glowed. The dining room table gleamed, touched only on holidays. Laughter was something Ainsley saw on television, never between the walls of their home.
When Ainsley was five, her mother took a photograph of her in a pale pink dress for the family's annual holiday card. Ainsley smiled broadly, displaying pearly white teeths. Elizabeth lowered the camera.
"Again," she said, voice raising by a tiny fraction. "This time, with grace."
Ainsley didn't know what grace was, but she learned to mimic it. Lift your chin. Relax your eyebrows. And smile. Small. Composed. Correct. Click.
She was praised, then. A soft pat on the shoulder. Approval. It felt like warmth through glass. It didn't reach her, but it glowed faintly in her chest.
That was the first time Ainsley realized that pleasing them gave her relief. And so, she began to build herself around that relief.
By age twelve, Ainsley played piano with precision. No missed notes. No hesitations. Her schedule was full of tutors, language classes, etiquette lessons.
Her friends, if you could call them that, weren't children but other gifted prototypes, lined up at recitals and charity events like ornaments. Their conversations were rehearsed.
She once scraped her knee running too fast during recess. Her nanny had scolded her for the blood on her uniform, but it was her father's disapproval later that stung the most.
"A lady," he said coldly with eyes unkind, "does not run wild."
A lady. A concept Ainsley had heard so often, it became her blueprint.
But inside, something resisted. A whisper beneath the surface, aching to scream. She buried it, because there was nowhere safe to let it out.
The hands grew heavier as she grew older.
They weren't just metaphorical, they were real, too. Her mother's hands twisting her hair into tight braids, yanking the strands if she flinched. Her father's hands adjusting her chin during school photos. Teachers' hands placing awards on her shoulders while congratulating her parents more than her.
Even when alone, Ainsley felt them. Ghosts shaping her. Guiding her smile, straightening her spine.
And somewhere along the way, she forgot how to cry.
Ainsley learned early that love was not something given freely.
It had to be earned.
Every reward was tied to a performance. Stickers on her violin sheet music only appeared after faultless play. Praise came only when she wore the dresses her mother picked without wrinkling her nose. A tight, approving nod from her father was the rarest treasure of all, usually reserved for moments when she spoke like an adult and not a child.
At eight, Ainsley asked if she could try painting. Not because she had a deep love for it, but because she liked the colors. The idea of swirling blue and gold without lines made her feel light inside, like maybe something didn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.
Her mother hesitated. "Painting is messy."
"But I'd be careful," Ainsley promised.
Elizabeth stared at her, that long, unreadable silence that always made Ainsley's stomach twist. "If you must," she said finally, "you'll do it in the garage."
So Ainsley painted in the cold garage with an old sheet beneath her feet and brushes too big for her hands. And she was careful, so, so careful. She wiped the jars, rinsed her fingers, stayed within the canvas. But when a single streak of red somehow splattered on her dress sleeve, Elizabeth's reaction was quiet fury.
"You ruined this," she said. Not thedress. This.
Ainsley scrubbed her sleeve with tears in her eyes, her throat tightening until her breath came in short bursts. Her mother didn't yell. She didn't need to. The disappointment hung heavier than any slap could.
That night, the paints were thrown out. Ainsley watched from the window as the garbage truck rolled away with them. Something hollowed in her chest. She never asked to paint again.
She became careful.
Not thoughtful, careful.
She monitored her tone, her word choices. She learned to scan a room for her father's eyes before speaking, to sense when Elizabeth was in one of her "fragile moods" and avoid noise. She read books she didn't like, wore sweaters that itched, ate spinach in bitter mouthfuls without complaint.
By ten, Ainsley's voice had a rehearsed cadence. Her drawings were never shown. Her room was spotless.
She was perfect.
Or rather, she was becoming what her parents believed perfect to be.
But even then, in the quietest parts of her mind, there were moments, small, flickering ones, when she wished someone would ask, "Are you happy?"
No one did.
At night, Ainsley would lie awake in bed, her tiny hands gripping the blanket like a lifeline. The ceiling above her seemed impossibly far, like a sky she'd never reach. She imagined running away. But where would she go? She had no friends, no relatives who weren't cut from the same cold cloth. She barely even knew who she was beyond the smiles and grades.
Sometimes, she would bury her face into her pillow and whisper, "I don't want to be good."
Just once, she wanted to cry loudly. To spill juice on the rug. To draw something wild and ugly on the wall. To scream.
But she never did.
The hands, those invisible, all-shaping hands, were always there. Not just on her body, but in her mind.
And Ainsley, small and quiet and careful, stayed in place.
Because she didn't know how to leave.
Because she didn't know she could.