Chapter 28: You're not broken

“Don’t upset your stepmother,” Her father whispered to her, “You don’t want to make Daddy unhappy again, do you?”

His breath smelled of bourbon, and through the door crack, she caught sight of the woman with red hair, naked and lying in Charlotte’s spot.

“Keep this between us, okay, sweetie?” He grinned, and she recognized the look in his eyes, the one he had when he couldn’t remember her name, “I’ll get you a present on my way home tomorrow.”

And she was fourteen, and he smelled of the alcohol he promised he wouldn’t touch, and there were bruises on her arms from where he’d grabbed her, a hand on her mouth to keep her scream locked inside.

And he wouldn’t let her go until she nodded; Until she promised not to tell her kind stepmother who sang lullabies to her daughters, who’d lost one husband and married a monster in his place.

She was fourteen– and she realized that her father was a liar.

And so was she.