OMG, I just love the whole setup of the opening- these two children painting purple highlights and oceans in their living room. It's so charming and I really like how you pulled it off, saving how old they were.

I also really liked this paragraph. Dinner that night was the typical quiet affair it had been for as long as Hope could remember. Her mother forbade all but the most banal comments at the dinner table, because in Hope’s family, conversation led almost inevitably to disagreement, then to argument, then to one or more of the siblings being sent to their room while their mother fumed and popped antacid tablets like they were candy.

That is just so perfect. Angsty, and charming also.

And I agree that Charlie came off as sympathetic, despite being Charlie and all. I very much enjoyed this! Thank you for posting~.