In Chap­ter Thir­ty-Two of “If These Wings Could Fly,” the pro­tag­o­nist, Leighton, is awak­ened by a man’s harsh demands, high­light­ing the chaos and ten­sion in her home life. The chap­ter begins with Leighton dream­ing of light­ning split­ting the tree in their front yard, only to be jolt­ed awake by the sound of her door slam­ming against the wall. The man’s voice is men­ac­ing as he insists they need to cor­rect their chores and fol­lows through by dis­turb­ing her younger sis­ters, Juniper and Camp­bell.

Leighton pleads with him to spare the girls, but his response reveals a cycle of frus­tra­tion and vio­lence. Despite her moth­er stand­ing near­by, mouthing apolo­gies, Leighton inter­nal­ly rages against the sit­u­a­tion. After push­ing past the man, she takes Juniper to the liv­ing room where they sit qui­et­ly, wait­ing for orders amid the bright lights illu­mi­nat­ing their home. The man returns, toss­ing their fold­ed tow­els on the floor, demand­ing they show him the cor­rect way to fold them.

Each sis­ter tries but fails to meet his expec­ta­tions, with Juniper vis­i­bly upset. In a moment of cold resent­ment, he directs his anger towards Leighton, call­ing her vile names and throw­ing a vase against the wall to punc­tu­ate his threats. This erup­tion of aggres­sion is met with Leighton’s pain and deter­mi­na­tion not to show tears. She feels the pres­sure to per­form per­fect­ly: she folds the tow­els metic­u­lous­ly while sup­press­ing her emo­tions.

After every­one else heads upstairs, Leighton cleans the bro­ken glass and turns off lights around the house, lost in thoughts of her chaot­ic real­i­ty. When she gazes in the bath­room mir­ror, she notices the empti­ness of the shelves once filled with their tow­els, rein­forc­ing the sense of dis­ar­ray in her life. Exhaust­ed and ter­ri­fied of an uncer­tain future, Leighton choos­es to study for an impor­tant cal­cu­lus exam rather than suc­cumb to sleep. Yet her focus wanes as she wres­tles with the para­dox of want­i­ng to escape her trou­bled home while fear­ing for her sis­ters’ well-being should she choose to leave. The chap­ter ends with Leighton star­ing help­less­ly at the dawn­ing light, filled with dread about her unchange­able world .