Broken Descent (Bruno Mars)

Hear Me

For the first few weeks of the school year, Bruno and Phil were knee-deep in work with the studio and record company. Regardless of the changes in schedules, Bruno and Kim still saw each a couple of times a week. They took the girls to the park the same day.

One day, after the park, Charlotte pulled some books out of her bag. With the help of Miss Hunter from the previous year and Bruno's help as well, Charlotte was on the same level as her classmates by the start of the school year. Out of her bag, came a colorful piece of construction paper that she held with a certain expression.

"What's that?" Bruno asked.

"A present...to me!" Charlotte bragged.

"Oh really?" he asked, approaching her. "From who?"

Charlotte proudly handed her gift over to Bruno. Pieces of glitter fell out from the bottom. It was a piece of paper in the shape of a heart. One half was pink, the other blue. It had drawings and stickers all over it. It had "Charlotte + Aaron" written on it too.

"Aaron? The boy who was in your class last year?"

Charlotte nodded. "He really likes me."

So badly, Bruno wanted to warn Charlotte against talking to Aaron, because of the stories she'd told him from the previous year about how aggressive he acted toward the other kids. Just as Bruno was about to grab her attention and speak to her about the way he felt, he got lost in her face. Charlotte was engrossed in the card that Aaron had made for her. The card made her so happy, and Bruno couldn't take that away.

Bruno rested his arm on Charlotte's back, rubbing it a little. He smiled and winked at her. "Of course he likes you. Who wouldn't?"

The next day at school, Charlotte and Aaron played together at recess. They sat on the swings and talked, before other boys from the class approached them. These bullies mostly stood in front of Aaron. They towered and surrounded him. The leader of the group, the tallest boy, put his hands out, pushing Aaron off the swing so hard that he flipped over, nearly landing on his head.

Charlotte got off her swing and gasped, feeling a little burst of fright. Her eyes first looked at Aaron on the ground, but then switched over to the boy who pushed him. Charlotte pushed him one time, and then another, until he was on the ground, fuming with rage.

By the time a teacher came by, the scenario looked completely different to an outsider. Charlotte had helped Aaron off the ground. Aaron and Charlotte were standing up, and the bully was still laying and crying on the ground. The teacher grabbed Charlotte's clenched fist and Aaron's arm.

"This isn't fair..." Charlotte whined on the walk over to the bench.

"Charlotte you can't hurt other people. That's one of our classroom rules. Remember? You need to keep your hands to yourself."

"But..." she frowned.

For the rest of the afternoon, the frown on Charlotte's face persisted. She and Aaron continued to act out, so their teacher sent them to the principal's office. The school tried to contact Aaron's parents, but they did not pick up their phones. Bruno, however, did show up at the school, toward the end of the day.

Instead of talking to her at school, he decided to take her home this time. There would be no instance of Charlotte making up, like there was when she got in a fight with Madison. Bruno tried talking to her on the way home. It took the mention of a certain name for her to finally speak up.

"Charlotte I don't want you to talk and play with Aaron anymore," Bruno said, looking at her through the mirror.

"You don't understand," she said, looking down.

"What about last year? You told me last year that he wasn't very nice."

Charlotte refused to talk anymore that day. She completely shut down. Later that night, Bruno tried to get a few words out. He sat at her bedside, still with a stern expression. She had taped the card that Aaron had made for her on her bed frame.

"Sweetheart, listen to me," he said, watching her face buried in a book. "I-" Bruno began to say until Charlotte surprisingly interrupted.

"You're not listening to me..." she muttered.

"Charlotte did you look at Aaron's arms? He has bruises on him because he's mean to people and they fight back. He causes problems and he gets hurt..."

"Dad you're not listening...you don't understand...you're not listening to me..."

"Charlotte don't defend him...just stay away from him, okay? You never got in trouble before you started playing with him. Maybe you should just play with Madison during recess...and find some other friends in your class. I want you to make better choices about who you make friends with."

The silent treatment from earlier that day continued. Charlotte buried her face back into her book, and Bruno stopped trying for the night.

"Well..." he said, grabbing the back of his head in frustration. "Good night."

When Bruno got to the door, he had hoped that she'd say something, or at least look, but she didn't. The next morning, Bruno dropped Charlotte off at school, and then left for the studio. He called her teacher from the studio so she wouldn't know that he'd be the one to separate her from Aaron.

"If you wouldn't mind," Bruno said on the phone, "I'd really appreciate it if you could separate Charlotte from Aaron. I don't want them to be together."

It was clear that the teacher was successful in separating Charlotte and Aaron. Charlotte began her homework when she got home, and hadn't said a single word to Bruno since he picked her up from school. He set a bowl of popcorn out for her so she could have a snack while she worked. He called Kim to come over with Madison come over to play with her.

"Kim," Bruno said. "I don't know what to say to her anymore or what to do. I feel like I'm failing right now...so bad."

"She'll come around."

"She told me she hated me," Bruno pouted.

"Aww..." Kim said, rubbing his back. "Well that's not true. Madison has done that kind of thing with me too sometimes. She loves you. I'll talk to her."

Bruno went outside to play with Madison so Kim could talk to Charlotte.

"Hey," Kim said, sitting beside her as she colored.

"Hi," she smiled, which relieved her.

Kim decided to cut straight to the chase.

"Your dad told me that you got in a fight?"

Charlotte sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.

"Charlotte, your dad loves you. He just cares about you and wants you to be safe."

Kim didn't make too much progress with Charlotte, but assured Bruno that she would eventually come around. At recess the next day, Charlotte and Aaron broke away and hid in a spot in the playground where the teachers and most of the other kids couldn't see them. Even though Charlotte had been angry at Bruno for several days, and had been pretending not to hear what he was saying, she still remembered what he'd said about Aaron's bruises.

"My dad told me that if I leave bullies alone then they will get bored and they won't hurt me."

"I don't think that will work..." Aaron said. "We do leave them alone..."

"We should try though...even harder maybe!" Charlotte said with enthusiasm until she looked at his arms again. "I just...I don't want them to hurt me too."

Aaron noticed that Charlotte had referred to the marks on his arms.

"They're not from the bullies..."

"Then why do you have them?" Charlotte asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

"I'm...not supposed to say," Aaron replied shyly, looking down and playing with his fingers.