Let You Go - Riley Green

- 1 -

Carly Pearce as Charlotte "Lottie" Cross

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"You're wastin' your time. Y'ain't even good at it." Chuck spits, tossing another empty beer can into the direction of the trash can, grunting when it bounces off the rim and onto the linoleum kitchen floor. "A singer? Yeah right. You're wastin' your breath and you're wastin' my time."

Lottie stands with a trembling lip that she hides as she clears her throat. "Fuck you." She whispers back, surprised by her own words.

"Excuse me?" Chuck grips his fourth beer tight in his rough hand. He stands, that angry look that only she can cause makes an apparence on his face. "What the hell did you say!?"

"Fuck you." She repeats, clenching her jaw and not backing down when he gets in her face.

"You can't talk to me like that! I'm your father!"

She scoffs, tears forming in her eyes. "Oh yeah? Some fuckin father you are." Chuck back hands her. She blinks back her tears as she cups her bright red cheek.

"Get out." He says in a low voice.

"What?"

"Get out!" He screams in her face, spit flying from his lips and landing on her flushed freckled skin. "Now! I don't want you here no more!"

Lottie scoffs again, spinning on her bare heel to head to the bedroom she shares with her older brother, Calvin.

Within half an hour, she's got her minimal amount of valuables packed up. Lottie has her book bag on her back, her duffel slung over her shoulder and her guitar case tight in her left hand.

"You're still here?" Chuck snaps, standing from his ratty recliner. "I thought I told you to get the fuck out!"

"Relax, asshole." She says, stepping into her boots. "I'm gettin' the fuck outta here." She slams the trailer screen door behind her.

"Don't ever come back, Charlotte." Chuck states from the front step. "Ever!"

"Save your fuckin' breath, Chuck!" She yells back, throwing her bags in the back hatch of her 1970 GMC Jimmy. She turns and flips her father off before she steps onto the lift of her SUV and closes the door behind her. Lottie holds herself together up until she makes it to her best friend's front door.

She knocks on the door quietly, waits a few seconds before she pounds her fist against the nice wood frame. "Riley!" She shouts but it sounds like a choked cry. "Riley, please!"

The door opens and an older woman almost immediately pulls Lottie in a tight embrace. "Oh baby, what's wrong?" Riley's mother, Karen says, running her hand over the back of her messy hair. This woman loves Lottie as if she was her own child. Her son and this girl have been best friends since they were able to walk.

She used to be pretty close with Cathleen, Lottie's mom, in high school but things started to change when Cathy got pregnant in high school. She had Calvin when she was sixteen but ultimately went back for her GED. Karen helped Cathy study for it and before she tested for it, she got pregnant again with Lottie.

Cathy and Karen reunited when she wanted to try for her GED again. While Karen helped her high school friend out, that's when their children met.

Riley and Lottie have been attached at the hip ever since that day.

Lottie sits back on the couch, wiping her face before she looks up at the woman she wishes was her mother. "What time is it?"

"Almost eleven." She responds, tucking some stray hairs out of her face, her hand rubbing up and down her arm.