Don't Say Goodbye (Navy Book 2)

Chapter 5

Charlotte's father, Frank Temple, had been a wonderful man and she only had fond memories of him. He had died in a car accident when she was eight years old. Everyone had said it was a tragedy; that he had been taken to soon.

Her mother, Tabitha, was as straight laced as they came. She was born into an old Virginia family. One of wealth and high social standing. She was never without her pearls or her high heels. As a child Charlotte had been fascinated by her and worshiped her. As she got older she realized that she was a woman who felt very little.

When Charlotte's mother remarried, just two short years after her father's death, the man she married was also from an old Virginia family. Tabitha had known him as a girl and he was considerably older than she was. Her family had been ecstatic, and pushed the marriage forward as quickly as possible because Captain Gerald Wren was going nowhere but up and was considered an excellent catch.

It was a second marriage for both of them and it had not been a love match. Gerald had only wanted a wife to make him look good and Tabitha had wanted someone to take care of the bills.

With Gerald came a son and a daughter. The son, Brad, was a five years older than she was and the daughter, Laura, was three years older than she was. They were not welcoming and tried their best to act as if Charlotte didn't exist. With Laura this never changed. The fact that she chose to go away for school, and the differences in their personalities made friendship next to impossible.

Brad was a different story. He couldn't care less about her until the summer of her fifteenth year. He had come home from Annapolis bored and more than willing to make Charlotte's life a living hell. He had terrorized her for two long months. Accidentally walking in on her in the bathroom or her bedroom, catching her by surprise when she was alone, and saying lewd and horrible things. He had even left dirty magazines in her room on several different occasions.

Then one night, her mother and stepfather had been out and he had been home alone with her. She had gone to bed early just to get away from him but he followed her to her room and forced himself on her. At the age of fifteen all of her innocence was lost in a matter of ten agonizing minutes of hitting, clawing, spitting and screaming.

When her mother and stepfather got home that night she told them what had happened. They had not believed her at first but the evidence that Brad had left behind had been too obvious to deny, or so she had thought.

Her mother had told her to go clean herself up and go to bed. Her stepfather had not said a word.

A week later it happened again.

Brad had laughed at her when she threatened to go to the police.

"Who's going to believe you Charlotte? You already told my father and your mother and they didn't even believe you."

"Yes they did."

"If they did believe you they didn't care did they, because here we are again."

That fall she was shipped off to a boarding school in the North East. No one suggested that she come home for the holidays or summer breaks. She was given a credit card and a bank account that allowed her to live as freely as she liked at the age of fifteen. When she graduated and told her mother where she had wanted to go to college she had been sent a check for a massive amount of money with a note full of good wishes.

That had been seven years ago. Since then there had been no direct contact with her mother, other than Charlotte passing on her current address by way of a careless impersonal Christmas card.

Charlotte had become Charlie, a name her mother would hate.

*******

The following Monday Charlie felt well enough to venture out of her room and into the park. She found her favorite tree and relaxed against it, enjoying the neighborhood noises and the sunlight as it played with the leaves. It was still a little cold out so she was bundled up in her normal sweatshirt and jeans.