Broken (Twilight Fanfiction)

Chapter 5

I reached the porch as the front swung open. Charlie beckoned me in with his finger and I shuffled past him, trying to make myself seem small. It worked as he grunted and closed the front door.

He shoved me upstairs and he let me go to the bathroom. I washed my face and cleaned my teeth and used the toilet. I dusted my clothes and the door opened to reveal Charlie, belt in his hand.

"Hurry up," he said. "I want to get out. I'm going over to Billy's and I won't be back until late."

I wasn't surprised by this. Every Saturday Charlie goes over to his old friend, Billy Black, and catch up. Charlie only goes over there so Billy doesn't come here so he doesn't find out about me. He knew that I was Charlie's daughter, but he didn't know about the abuse and neglect. Plus, since an accident that caused him to be in a wheelchair, Billy couldn't go to places that much as many places won't wheelchair accessible.

Charlie followed me into my room and I turned to see the belt in his hand, his fingers gripping it tightly. I stared in terror at the black belt, its buckle clincking.

"If you somehow escape you will get the suitable punishment. Do you understand?" He threatened in a cold tone of voice.

I nodded and bit back my sign of relief when he put the belt through his trouser's loops. He glanced up at me before shaking his head and leaving the room. He closed and locked the door behind him, and two minutes later the front door slammed shut.

Like I could escape, anyway. Even if I could unlock the bolt on my door, where would I go? I had no car to drive out of this town and away and I had nowhere to go. I could go to La Push, where the Indian reservation was and where Billy was living. He had a son called Jacob, who I used to be friends with before my mother's death. We had spent all of our time together, making mud pies when we were little to swimming in the sea at the La Push beach, First Beach. He had stopped coming over when I stopped hanging around with him as Charlie threatened to beat up Jacob. Charlie had threatened to beat up all of my friends I used to have before my mother's death; that's why they ignore me now as I didn't hang out with them anymore and I was a target of bullying by Jessica and all of her friends.

But if I did go to La Push, Billy could tell Charlie and Billy might not believe me about being abused and neglected by his best friend. Charlie might catch me and lock me up again, his punishments becoming worse as I disobeyed a direct command from him.

I spent the rest of the day doing mindless school work. I had a English assignment, a Trig homework and a Spanish assessment to prepare for. It took me an hour to do the English assignment, thirty to forty minutes for the Spanish assessment, and I left Trig for last. Trig was my worst subject and I gave up halfway through. All of this was supposed to be given in a couple of days ago, the days which I decided to not go to the lessons. Friday had mostly been about the teachers lecturing me and letting me have until Monday to do all of it. I was glad as it gave me something to escape reality for a few hours.

I was disappointed when I finished everything and I carefully packed my school books away, double checking and triple checking that I had everything ready for Monday. I signed and laid back onto my mattress, staring blankly at the ceiling as I had nothing else to do.

After five minutes of staring, I sat up and checked my hair. It was unclean but I couldn't do anything about it as Charlie rarely let me have a bath unless the social worker's coming round. But the social worker doesn't have any interest in me, only interested in catching up with Charlie as they were both now mates. He clearly ignores the neglect I was getting and he pretends to not see the bruises if he sees one on show like on my face or if I'm wearing short-sleeved tops.

I untangled all of my knots and used my broken hairbrush to straighten it. It might be broken, but it's the only thing I'm allowed to have in the room except my things for school and the mattress. I brushed my hair and let it hung loose as it didn't matter as no one was going to see it.