Chap­ter 32 begins with Leighton abrupt­ly wak­ing up to the sound of a door slam­ming against the wall, fol­lowed by the harsh voice of a man in her home. Her dream of light­ning split­ting the tree in their front yard is shat­tered by this sud­den, jar­ring dis­rup­tion, drag­ging her from a peace­ful slum­ber into the chaos that defines her real­i­ty. The man’s voice, harsh and com­mand­ing, insists that the house­hold chores need to be cor­rect­ed imme­di­ate­ly, dis­rupt­ing her younger sis­ters, Juniper and Camp­bell, and cre­at­ing a tense atmos­phere. Leighton’s pro­tec­tive instincts kick in as she pleads with him to spare the girls, but his response is one of anger and frus­tra­tion, reveal­ing a deeply ingrained pat­tern of emo­tion­al vio­lence that has become all too famil­iar. Leighton, unable to escape the ten­sion in the room, silent­ly seethes with rage, feel­ing help­less as her moth­er stands by, mouthing apolo­get­i­cal­ly, but unable to inter­vene. The chap­ter imme­di­ate­ly sets the stage for the over­whelm­ing sense of pow­er­less­ness and fear that Leighton has come to accept as part of her every­day life.

In an attempt to gain some con­trol over the sit­u­a­tion, Leighton push­es past the man and takes Juniper into the liv­ing room, where they sit qui­et­ly, anx­ious­ly wait­ing for the next round of orders. The bright lights that flood the house feel stark and unfor­giv­ing, ampli­fy­ing the already oppres­sive atmos­phere of fear and uncer­tain­ty. When the man returns, his actions grow more errat­ic and aggres­sive as he toss­es their fold­ed tow­els onto the floor, demand­ing that the girls show him the cor­rect way to fold them. The under­ly­ing ten­sion is pal­pa­ble as Leighton’s heart sinks, know­ing that no mat­ter how hard they try, it will nev­er be enough. Juniper, who is clear­ly upset by the con­stant fail­ure to meet his harsh expec­ta­tions, becomes vis­i­bly dis­tressed, her qui­et sobs fill­ing the room. Leighton tries to keep her com­po­sure, but the man’s anger soon shifts to her, and he calls her vile names before throw­ing a vase against the wall, as though to punc­tu­ate his cru­el words. This erup­tion of aggres­sion shocks Leighton, but she res­olute­ly holds back her tears, deter­mined to main­tain her com­po­sure, even as every word and action from the man chips away at her emo­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty. As she metic­u­lous­ly folds the tow­els, try­ing to prove that she is capa­ble, Leighton sup­press­es the emo­tion­al tur­moil threat­en­ing to over­whelm her, try­ing to meet his impos­si­ble stan­dards, all while bat­tling the intense inter­nal con­flict that comes with liv­ing in such a tox­ic envi­ron­ment.

After the oth­ers retreat upstairs, Leighton is left behind to clean up the shards of glass from the bro­ken vase, her mind swirling with thoughts of the chaos that dom­i­nates her home. She method­i­cal­ly turns off the lights in the house, each click of the switch ampli­fy­ing the silence that fol­lows the explo­sion of emo­tions. As she glances into the bath­room mir­ror, the emp­ty shelves once filled with tow­els serve as a strik­ing visu­al reminder of the empti­ness in her life. The absence of the tow­els sym­bol­izes the absence of peace and secu­ri­ty in her world, rein­forc­ing her feel­ings of insta­bil­i­ty. Exhaust­ed and emo­tion­al­ly drained, Leighton decides to study for an impor­tant cal­cu­lus exam, try­ing to find an escape in her stud­ies, but her focus slips as the weight of her home life drifts back into her thoughts. The para­dox of her sit­u­a­tion becomes clear­er as she wres­tles with the desire to escape from her trou­bled home life, yet fears what would hap­pen to her younger sis­ters if she were to leave. The chap­ter con­cludes with Leighton star­ing into the ear­ly light of the morn­ing, over­whelmed with a sense of dread about the unchange­able world around her. Her inter­nal strug­gle becomes a pow­er­ful sym­bol of the ten­sion between the yearn­ing for free­dom and the crush­ing sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty she feels toward her sis­ters. The emo­tions of help­less­ness, exhaus­tion, and fear cre­ate a vivid por­tray­al of the com­plex­i­ty of her world, leav­ing read­ers to reflect on the impact of a dif­fi­cult home life on a person’s sense of iden­ti­ty and their abil­i­ty to hope for a bet­ter future.