Being Wrong | ✓

Part 23

They'd finally arrived home from Charlie's psychiatrist's appointment three hours ago, and Charlie hadn't left his bedroom since. He'd just been laying on his bed with his grandpa's jacket wrapped around his shoulders, listening to the same tape on repeat. The songs themselves didn't even matter at this point. It was all just sound for his mind of chew on so that it didn't chew on itself.

Charlie looked up as his bedroom door opened a crack and his grandma poked her head in. All he could think was here we go, but he stopped the tape and pulled out his earphones.

She stepped into the room and gave him an uncertain smile as she held up a flowery photo album. "I was going through some old family pictures and I thought you might want to take a look."

He actually did. His dad hadn't had any pictures. He nodded and sat up.

She seemed unsure what to do when she actually reached his bedside. Charlie offered her one of his pillows and she climbed onto the bed and settled in next to him.

"This is your album," she said as she settled it across her lap. "We have others, of course, with your mother's baby pictures. You can look at those later if you like, or perhaps we could go through them together, but — this one. This one is all the pictures we have of you."

Charlie hadn't really considered that they might have any pictures of him. Or at least not enough to have bothered with an album. He'd only ever really seen them once a year for Christmas.

His grandma opened the album to the first page and Charlie's eyes immediately found his mother's face. She was holding a baby in her arms — presumably Charlie — so new to this world his skin was still flushed red.

His mum looked so young. He'd known she'd only been fifteen when he was born, but seeing the picture made it real in a whole new way. She'd always seemed like such an adult to him, but when he was born she'd been younger than he was now. And when she'd gotten pregnant...

She'd been fourteen, the same age that Travis had been when all those bad things had happened with his brother's friend. And Charlie's dad had not been fourteen. He'd been at least a few years older.

Charlie had never really thought about things like that before. His mum had never said anything to suggest it was a problem. He'd just... accepted it as normal and fine. But it wasn't normal and it definitely wasn't fine.

His grandma had flipped through a few pages before Charlie zoned back in. He was a toddler in these pictures.

"It was so hard to get a good picture of you once you became mobile," she told him. "You were firmly set on whatever you were doing and heaven forbid anyone try to pick you up. And that is why we have two pages of pictures of you collecting pebbles from the garden. You didn't care for any of the presents we bought you, but you went home with all your pockets full of rocks."

She flipped the page. "The next year, you were banned from playing with the rocks after you started throwing them at people."

"Oh. That's fair."

His grandma let out a quiet, sad laugh. "You were such a naughty child. I still don't know if it was because your mother raised you poorly or if there was some deeper problem there. Whether there perhaps still is, I suppose."

Charlie fidgeted idly with the sleeve of his grandpa's jacket, picking at a place where the stitching had come loose. "I don't know either."

"You know, you hardly spoke at all until after you started school. Your mother said you talked more at home, but I never heard it. Perhaps your difficulty with self expression was why you were so volatile."