Being Wrong | ✓

Part 2

It hadn't been as simple as that. He'd called and his dad had laughed, told him he was lying, because just a week ago he'd been near hysterical about finding a lumpy bit in his sausage. How could his voice be calm and even if his mother was dead? And he hadn't had an answer to that, so he'd hung up and he'd waited an hour, or two hours, and then his dad had come and they had left.

"Where were you staying with your dad?"

No had been Charlie's first word, his only word for a long time and his favourite word for years afterwards. It had been his sword and his shield. Now it felt like a bomb caught in his throat. He didn't dare release it.

"Charlie? Do you know the address, or the name of the street? Somewhere he might be?"

Silence was a safer defiance. Eyes down, body still. Passive. Charlie tensed when he saw his grandpa move closer out of the corner of his eye. His grandpa paused. His grandpa turned and left the room.

Charlie hadn't been hot a minute ago, but he was sweating now. They wanted to know where his dad was so that they could get him in trouble. For what? His dad hadn't done anything. Just drugs, and that had really only hurt himself and people who made the choice for themselves to buy from him.

The peace didn't last long enough for Charlie to resettle himself. Just a few minutes after his grandpa had left the room, his grandma marched into it and sat down on the bed next to him.

"Oh, sweetheart." She reached out a hand and patted Charlie's cheek. "Look at you. You've grown so much."

Charlie rubbed at the lingering tickle the contact had left on his cheek. He didn't know what to say in response. Yes, he had grown.

Apparently it hadn't required a response, because she continued talking. "How are you feeling now?"

She paused and watched him, waiting. How was he feeling? Overwhelmed, mostly. He wanted home and familiarity. A bit sore, but a few bruises wasn't a big deal. He tugged at a clump of his hair and shrugged his shoulders. "Fine."

"Well!" she said and smiled in a way that stretched her lips wide but held no genuine emotion. She was wearing red lipstick and it was slightly smudged at one corner. "I thought today we could go shopping. Buy you some clothes and whatever else it is teenage boys need."

She was looking at him like she expected a response, so Charlie lifted his shoulders in a vague shrug. He didn't want to even get out of bed, but he doubted she would accept a 'no'. She never had when he was a kid.

Apparently the shrug had been good enough, because she turned her attention to pulling the curtains open on the large glass door that took up most of one wall. As Charlie squinted against the new light assaulting his eyes, he caught a flash of some small, fluffy animal dashing over the fence. A cat, probably.

"The doctor said you might need a few days to rest, but she also thought you had some kind of mental disability and that's clearly not the case," Charlie's grandma continued. "I told her to look up that IQ test you took when you were little. I swear, your mother was so proud of that and I don't know why. It hardly reflects well on her when her smart child is a complete hellion who's not exactly excelling at school."

Smart had never been the thing Charlie was lacking. At least not the kind measured by an IQ test. Puzzles were easy. The real world was far more complex, and just... far more. But he couldn't articulate any of that, especially not under the critical and unsympathetic gaze of his grandma, so he just kept his head down and let her talk at him until she gave him instructions to take a shower and finally left him be.

#

After his shower, Charlie put the clothes he'd been wearing since yesterday back on. He patted at the shoulder of his hoodie, trying to get some of the dirt it had picked up when he'd been pushed out of the car off, but there was no escaping the fact that it wasn't exactly clean. As much as the idea made him mentally cringe, his grandma was right. Clothes shopping was necessary. But maybe it could be made at least a little easier.