OG| A Whole New World (Station 19)

Chapter 8

'Antidepressants!' Charlotte shouts. 'They're antidepressants,' she says quieter, 'and sleeping pills. I've been on them for seven months.'

'Why aren't they in bottles?' Lucas queries. 'Why are you even on them?'

'I didn't want to risk you coming across the bottles and asking questions, I'm not ready for.' Charlotte says. 'The circular ones are the antidepressants and the oval ones are the sleeping pills.' She continues. 'As for why I'm on them, can we talk about that?' She asks him. 'Now?'

'Of course.' Lucas nods.

'I'll give you two some space.' Vic says, going to walk out.

'Vic.' Charlotte stops her. Vic turns back to face her. 'I want you to hear this.'

'I think it should be just you and your dad.' Vic states. Charlotte shakes her head.

'You're part of this family now, Vic.' Charlotte says. 'I want you to hear it.' Vic smiles slightly and they all walk through to the front room and sit on the sofa. 'I know you asked Ryan to look into why I've been so distant.' She starts. She sees that Lucas is about to say something. 'It's okay. You were worried about me.' She adds. 'It involves Matteo.' 

'I thought you said that this has nothing to do with him.' He looks back at Charlotte. 

'I lied.' Charlotte looks down. 

'Why?' Vic asks.

'I wasn't ready to speak about it.' Charlotte looks up. 'About a year ago, Matteo picked me up from school. Instead of taking me home, he took me to this house in Port Townsend. He locked me in the basement and kept me there for three months. He tortured me, beat me and raped me more or less every day.' Charlotte can see Lucas' face going red. 'Did you hear about Operation Potter?' 

'Yeah.' Lucas and Vic nod together. 

'That was me.' Charlotte says. 'Liam blackmailed people in D.C for full media privacy since mom didn't want my name and face in the media.' 

'Why didn't your mom tell me?' Lucas asks angrily. 'Or the police for that matter?' 

'You know mom.' Charlotte laughs slightly. 'She's never really told you anything when it comes to me.' She adds. 'As for the police, they think that he blackmailed the police into not telling you. The police found me, unexpectedly, on a raid. Matteo was a suspect in a drugs case.'

'Is this Matteo not in prison?' Vic questions.

'No.' Charlotte shakes her head. 'He had a really good lawyer. Everything was thrown out. He got away with it.' Lucas moves next to his daughter. 'I was put on the sleeping pills a couple of weeks after being found. I couldn't sleep at all. I still can't.'

'What about the anti-depressants?' Lucas queries. 

'I was put on them a couple of months after being found.' Charlotte responds. 'Shortly after going back to school, my swim coach found me trying to overdose in the locker room.' She looks at Lucas with tears in her eyes. 'I know I should have told you but I-'

'It's okay.' He puts his arm around her shoulder. She starts crying. 'I understand why you didn't tell me.' Vic sits the other side of Charlotte and puts her hand on Charlotte's back. 'Promise me that you'll always speak to me, if not someone else, when you're feeling down or you feel like you want to hurt yourself. Okay?' Charlotte says nothing, she just nods. 

.

It's a few hours later, Charlotte is lying on her bed on her phone when she gets a text message from Jason.

From: Jason

Look outside babes x 

Charlotte looks at the message confused before getting off her bed, walking to her window and looking out to the street (her bedroom is in the front of the house). She sees Jamie standing on the front lawn waving at her. She just smiles and shakes her head and walks out of her room, down the stairs and out to him.