SEPTEMBER, 1990, OLYMPIA, WA

REAGAN LEANED HER forehead against the cool, semigloss paint of her home's bathroom door, placing both her hands on the frame around it and feeling her eyelids slip shut. Perhaps if she stood there long enough, she would finally be allowed in, where she would be able to actually get ready for work.

It would make my life a whole lot easier, Reagan thought, if this house had more than one god damn bathroom.

"Kate," she called out, rapping her knuckles against the door for the umpteenth time. "I have to shower before I go to work."

Reagan thought that her younger sister would have understood by then. Reagan's job was something of the utmost importance, and it was imperative that she not lose it. She'd been late several times already in the past, all due to the same annoying reason of there being only one stupid bathroom in her equally stupid household.

Suddenly, the bathroom door jerked open and Reagan stumbled forward. Her sister Kate peeked her head out from a cloud of shower steam, clutching a towel around her chest with her hair dripping wet.

"I'm getting ready too, you know," Kate snapped. "Did you forget? It's the first day of my senior year."

As if to further emphasize Kate's point that that very morning marked the first day of the nineteen-ninety, nineteen-ninety-one school year, their twelve-year-old brother Robbie came barreling by them with his oversized backpack slung over his shoulder. He clipped Reagan while tumbling down the cramped hallway, barely having time to shout an apology over his shoulder.

"How could I forget that?" Reagan said with a roll of her eyes.

"Then just wait!" Kate exclaimed, slamming the door shut before Reagan could protest.

"Ugh!" Reagan slapped her palms against the door in anger and spun around, coming to the conclusion that she would not be taking her morning shower after all. As she walked speedily back to her bedroom, the same one that she shared with Kate, she tugged her hair out of the messy braid she'd slept with, cursing her family.

Reagan should have been used to it all by now. In fact, she chided herself over not sucking up her own frustrations and simply dealing with them. She was the big sister, the oldest of the bunch and she usually prided herself on being level-headed. Yet, she'd been quite the opposite in the last year.

They could have at least purchased a bigger home when the twins had arrived. Reagan, Kate and Robbie had already been a handful, and the birth of Raelynn and Kody had only added to the mayhem. The two bedroom home that the Abners inhabited had become far too cramped as it was, with Robbie having to sleep in their parents bedroom.

In an effort to create space that already felt way too nonexistent, Reagan's dad had made the valiant attempt of converting half of the living room into a new bedroom for the babies. It had surprisingly worked. Robbie even got the new room to himself, seeing as the twins had yet to actually leave their parents' room.

But of course, they still only had that one damn bathroom.

She'd been told to appreciate her big family. Even as her friends had once moaned with jealousy over her sibling count, Reagan could not understand what there was to be envious of. She would have traded plenty to be out of the Northwest Olympia shack that she called home. But that was only a pipe dream.

As if her parents would actually let her move out.

Ha, Reagan snorted in her head. Good one.

She was the only twenty-one year old she knew who was being held captive by their own parents. And how selfish they were to do so to her . . .

"Reagan!"

Reagan groaned, dropping her arms to her side with them still slipped into the t-shirt she'd been about to tug over her head. She could have identified her mom's holler of her name from a mile away.

"What?" Reagan shouted back, aiming to make her voice ten times as loud. She stared longingly out of her bedroom window, past the misty morning and out into the budding sunrise. What laid ahead out there, past Olympia and far past the little scrap of land her house sat on?

"I need your help!"

Big surprise. When did Reagan's mother not need her help? She literally lived off of her help with every passing day. And worst of all, Reagan could have slapped herself for waking up that morning with hopes of that day being different.

She stomped down the stairs quickly, half-tempted to not even join her mother in their little kitchen. But she did, deciding once again to play the role of good daughter and swallow back her crabby mood.

"Yes?" Reagan asked, folding her arms and doing a poor job of disguising the agitation in her tone.

Her mother looked up at her, still in her bathrobe and sporting her auburn hair, the exact shade of auburn that Reagan herself possessed, in a bedraggled mess. In front of her sat three-year-old Raelynn, perched in her booster seat with her mouth wide open while she waited for her breakfast to be served. Her twin, Kody, was on the floor with crayons -- this alone was cause for concern.

"Can you please give the twins their breakfast? I've got to be at work by eight and I'm not going to make it if I stay down here."

"I've got work too!" Reagan spluttered. How had everyone spontaneously forgotten that she too was a breadwinner for the family?

Kimberly Abner sighed and shook her head at her daughter, saying nothing. Instead, she tightened her bathrobe around her waist and slipped past her, leaving her with the instructions she'd given. Reagan would know how to proceed.

This infuriated Reagan. Of course her mother had said nothing. She always said nothing because Reagan was right. She could not remember a time in which she'd been wrong.

It was their faults, anyway. If Reagan did get fired that morning, they would not be allowed to be angry with her because they would be to blame. Kimberly and Richard had coerced their eldest daughter to start working as soon as she'd graduated high school, citing the reason as their inability to pay bills and feed the family with their jobs alone.

They'd cried when they had told her. Reagan had been freshly out of high school, prepared to the explore the world and maybe even try out college. But almost as quickly as she had gotten her diploma had her parents told her that they needed her help. Kimberly had held her hand when they'd had that talk three years ago. With the twins having just come into their lives, they couldn't survive with only the two of them working.

Reagan clenched her jaw as she walked fully into the kitchen, snatching the two waffles that had been sitting in the toaster and tossing them on to a plate.

It was so hard to be mad at her parents when she was so self-aware of how much she really did love them. And not just them, but her siblings too.

Raelynn was speaking gibberish behind her, spouting off a mix of coherent words and baby talk that she had yet to outgrow. Kody was being quiet of course, probably up to no good. Reagan didn't question it. She didn't want to take her frustrations out on the twins.

"Syrup?" Reagan asked, holding up the bottle in front of Raelynn.

"Yes!"

She should have known. All kids were sugar fiends, especially those two.

As Reagan drenched her sister's waffles in syrup and cut them up into bite sized bits with a toddler fork, her father entered the kitchen. He straightened his tie, greeting each of his kids with a kiss on the head.

"Work today, Reags?"

"Yes," Reagan replied impatiently, putting Raelynn's plate down in front of her. "But Mom left me to feed these two."

Richard flicked his wrist to the side, observing the time displayed on his gold watch, perhaps one of the only lasting possessions he owned that hadn't been sold for cash.

"I can kill some extra time before I head out. You go upstairs, I'll take over with the twins."

Reagan raised her eyebrows. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. I'll even strike a deal with you. If you can find a way to play those drums just a little bit more quietly, I'll finish up here."

Reagan cracked a smile. Comments like that, when coming from her dad, did not bother her as much as they would have if Kimberly had said them. It had been Richard after all who'd gifted her his drum set, a memento of his glory days in a band, back before he'd been broke and swarmed with kids.

Reagan and her dad had an understanding. And it had everything to do with the drums.

"I'll try," she offered with a smile, brushing by her dad and retreating back up the stairs.

Damn it. Moments like those made it so difficult for Reagan to roll her eyes and seethe over her familial discord.

It wasn't that Kim and Rich were terrible parents. In fact, as Reagan remembered it, they had been distinctly good parents as she'd grown up. It was only after Robbie was born that they seemed to slip up, sometimes forgetting to be as great as they once were. But the evidence of their time spent doting on Reagan and Kate was still visible, like how they'd insisted they name all their children with R and K names, similar to their own.

It was the sort of tacky thing that had Reagan convinced that somewhere, even if it was buried deep down inside, Richard and Kimberly's love for their kids outweighed their hatred for being poor and helpless. They just had a difficult time showing lately.

When Reagan rounded the corner into her bedroom, she gritted her teeth upon spotting Kate. She was styling her short brown hair into a delicate framework around her face while simultaneously patting a sheen gloss on her lips.

"Don't be mad at me," Kate said right away.

Reagan didn't reply. She crouched down to her knees and grabbed the small, shabby backpack that she used for a purse out from under her bed.

"Ray," Kate began, using Reagan's childhood nickname that Kate had come up with when she couldn't pronounce 'Reagan.'

"It's fine," Reagan said automatically, standing and facing her beautiful sister. "It's your first day of senior year. I get it. You want to look good."

"It's not about that. When I look my best, I feel my best. And then I do well. And you know this year is my last to do well."

Studious Kate, always putting her grades before anything else. She was without a doubt the family genius, and no one was going to take that title away from her unless the twins turned out to have brains too. But that wouldn't have mattered. As long as Kate was soon off to college, banking on the hope of future success, she could care less about who took over as the family prodigy.

It for damn sure would never be Reagan.

"You always do well, Kate. You're going to do well for the rest of your life."

"You say that as if it's not a possibility for you too."

Reagan resisted laughing, knowing it might come off as mean in contrast to her sister's concerned tone. She grabbed her blue work vest and tossed it over her shoulder.

"Be realistic, Kate."

"I'm serious! Maybe if you didn't spend so much time at those shows . . ."

The shows that Kate referred to were something Reagan never expected her family to understand, maybe with the exception of her dad. They would all never get why the underground punk venues Reagan frequented were appealing, but then again, Reagan did not need her stamp of approval.

She would continue to go every weekend if she had to. They were her escape.

Music in every form was her therapy. And not to mention, the punk music she thrived on was her culture, the very thing that she loved and could make with her own hands. It did not matter to Reagan if she had to stand in a crowd of moshing kids, wearing rings beneath her fingerless gloves in case she ended up having to throw a punch in the face of a touchy guy.

The brazen, loud music she adored was noise to her sister and totally obnoxious to her mother, but it was worship to her.

"Thanks for the advice," Reagan said sarcastically, though she mustered a smile for Kate in return.

It was impossible to completely forget how much she loved her little sister.

She quickly claimed the bathroom in order to brush her teeth and gather her hair into a ponytail, allowing for several falling tendrils to hang around her face. Reagan was glad the mirror was still foggy with steam from Kate's shower. She didn't always like looking in it, especially on days like that one, when she felt hopelessly gross.

From downstairs, she heard her mother yelling at Robbie. By the sound of it, she was instructing him to leave the house before he missed his bus, something Reagan was beginning to think had already happened knowing Robbie.

She went downstairs begrudgingly, a part of her not wanting to face her mom again. It was always the same sickly sweet, loving routine before they both went off to work. Her mother would always wish her a good day, kissing her cheek and squeezing her around her waist tightly. It was like Kimberly had no issue in pretending that Reagan was sacrificing herself to the long haul for her family. There would be no thanks given. That was never a part of their morning ritual.

"Are you going to eat a piece of toast before you leave?" Kimberly asked impatiently as her eldest came into view.

"I'm not hungry," Reagan said simply. She playfully nipped her finger against Raelynn's chin, earning a squeal of laughter in response. The little toddler was covered in syrup, something Reagan was sure her mother just loved.

Kimberly gave Reagan a once over, her eyes flying with scrutiny from Reagan's black motorcycle boots to her messy ponytail. She made a noise of disgust.

"Why do you have to work at that damn place? It's no place for a young girl to be working at, with all those creepy men working there too."

Reagan guffawed, unbelieving that her mother was actually trying to give input on her job choice when it had been the only job she'd managed to get after having been forced to find it in the first place.

"I love the car repair shop," Reagan shot back with a shrug.

Okay, so maybe she didn't love working in a place that reeked of oil, sweat and heavy machinery, but at least it was a jab at Kimberly's critique. And besides, her mother was acting as if Reagan was out in the garage, cradling wrenches and sliding under cars. All she did at the shop was ring customers up at the register and schedule oil changes.

Her mother sighed and gave her a look, the one that included the drooping shoulders, the tilted head and firmly pressed lips. It was a look that clearly showed displeasure, and it was a look Reagan was used to.

She didn't let it bother her. She smiled broadly back and grabbed a banana instead of her mother's toast before bolting out the door.