ASHLEY'S SECRET DIARY - LEON AUSTIN

7 years old. It started with one innocent assignment: “Write a few lines about your dad.”  

Ended with me sticking my tongue out at Miss Petunia and drawing a dinosaur instead.

I don’t even know where to begin. Maybe with the feeling that stayed behind: a lump lodged somewhere between my throat and my stomach, like I’d swallowed too many thoughts all at once.

Tevvie and I had just walked out of the concert, skin still buzzing from the music, when I met him. Leon Austin. That Leon Austin—the one whose posters probably still live in dusty teenage bedrooms, the man who once toured the world under something called The Promiscuous Tour. And… I think he might be my father.

Okay. I know I’ve written “I think so-and-so might be my father” before. More than once. But this time, the coincidences stacked up like dominoes holding their breath.

He didn’t give me a confession. No dramatic “I’m your dad, kiddo.” Just… the bare minimum. And yet there was something in his presence. A kind of resistance, almost defiance. Like someone who’s seen too many storms to care about what’s left wrecked on shore. He stood there, solid, unshaken, with the face of someone who wasn’t about to apologize—for the past, for the mess, for anything.

And me? I was my usual Ashley: brilliant, ironic, biting. I masked the tremors with jokes, wore my sarcasm like armor. But inside… there was an earthquake.

A part of me just wanted to shut up for once. To look at him—really look—and memorize every line, every curl, every silence he didn’t bother to fill. As if staring long enough would pixelate the truth into focus.

But I’m me. The troublemaker. The girl who can’t resist poking holes in heavy moments just to see if they’ll deflate. So, of course, I kept talking. My jokes sparking out like static, my laughter too loud, too bright. Neon to drown the panic.

And all the while I searched his face for clues—any resemblance, in the tilt of his head, the way his hands moved, even in the pauses between words.

And he… he gave me the impression he’d noticed something too. Like he caught an echo of himself in me but couldn’t place it. He told me to talk to my mother.

So I walked away feeling both lighter and heavier at once.

Lighter, because now his face—that face—exists in my story.
Heavier, because I can’t pretend it doesn’t matter anymore.

It does.

And sooner or later, I’ll have to corner Mum about that aftershow party—ask her if there really was a penguin too. (She’s always going on about a llama, but come on, this is way more important.)

This won’t let me go. I’m pretty sure she’s about to cast a silence spell on me—or maybe just a please shut up curse.