Badly Broken

Chapter 34

I was a little uncertain as to how I should approach writing in Charlotte's POV since she's only 10. I work with little kids and I've met some 10-year-olds who speak at a 1st grade level and others that are smarter than me and speak with academic words I've never heard of.

So I decided to just write in my normal style.

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Charlotte's POV

Kai hung up and I was left to sit alone in my ever-shrinking room, lost in thought. The walls felt like they were closing in and my eyes couldn't focus on anything. My mind was swirling with endless thoughts.

I couldn't process what Kai told me. I have a brother...

No. I had two, but my dad killed one. I didn't want to believe Kai. I wanted to ignore all the things that he told me, but no matter how much I thought of it... It just made sense.

I knew that something was strange after my dad snapped at me that one time, but I just brushed it off. I never, never would have imagined it was something like this.

That even played in my head over and over again. It was all I could see with Kai's voice echoing in the background, describing the horrid things my dad has done.

"Ugh, I know he put it in here somewhere," I muttered to myself as I rummaged through all the dressers in my parents' room.

"Where is it?" I whipped my head around the large room, knowing that my dad had put my phone in here before he left for work this morning.

My eyes zoned in on the nightstand to the right of the large, king-sized bed, "There!" I exclaimed.

I rushed over, knowing my dad would get home soon. I yanked the drawer open and saw the back of my sky blue phone case near the very front of the drawer. I grabbed it and did a small celebratory dance.

When I moved to close the drawer, I noticed something in the back that looked like a wallet. It wasn't my mom's because hers was a lot longer and resembled a hand purse, and my dad's wallet was black. Opposed to that, this one was brown and washed out, cracks covering the small square with white poking through.

My curiosity overtook me so I took it out of the short nightstand and opened it. There was no money inside. I went through the little pocket, everything was empty and half of the slots were completely torn, unattached at the side or bottomless.

What surprised me was when I found a small piece of paper folded in the small pocket hidden inside the third, one of the only ones that did not have torn stitches. I pulled the piece of paper out, still standing while facing the nightstand.

I unfolded it three times until I was looking at a color picture that was heavily pixelated and blurry.

I furrowed my brows as I stared at the younger version of my dad. He had a bright smile on his face and was holding hands with two young boys who looked to both be younger than me.

They all looked fairly similar. The one to the right of my dad was slightly taller than the other boy. He had very dark brown hair with the same hazel eyes as my dad and the smaller boy in the picture. The same eyes as me. He was wearing a red sweatshirt and the other was wearing a black one.

I looked closer at the two boys, they really did look like my dad. Maybe they were part of my extended family.

I was taking in the whole image until my eyes narrowed in on the smaller boy standing to the left of my dad, holding his hand.