Bouchard / Costagliola Boy Unraveled

1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4835-6279-7
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten

By all outward appearances, Henry's new family is perfect. But appearances can be deceiving, and it isn't long before Henry becomes a servant in his foster home. The couple that vowed to care for him instead chastise him for his 'demons'. When they're away at church, their children devise new and terrifying ways to torture him. In the darkness of the basement where he sleeps, Henry's disturbing nightmares send him on a frantic search for someone named Charlie. But who is Charlie? And what does he have to do with Henry?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bouchard, Chris

Costagliola, Brunella

Leseproben

Sarah yelled something, but he wasn’t listening. What was the point? It was over. Charlie didn’t bother to catch the front door after he shoved it open, letting it slam against the side of the house. He walked through the doorway, turned around and almost ripped the door off the hinges as he slammed it shut. He knew she wasn’t happy with the relationship. He needed her a bit more than she needed him, and he imagined that had been enough for a while. Feeling a little like he was a project more than a boyfriend. But as time had gone on she obviously needed something more. Charlie understood why she was seeing someone else, but it still upset him because he did love her in his own stupid way. He knew their relationship was done. He felt guilty because Sarah was right—Charlie did talk to Jenny a few times, hoping that they would get back together and if they did, he would have left Sarah anyways. He loved Sarah, but he couldn’t fall in love with her. He loved her like a friend and the sex was good, but that was it. She never captured his heart the way Jenny did. Jenny was everything that Charlie hated about women. She was beautiful, sexy, and manipulative. She had what he wanted and she knew that he would do anything to get it. He loved and hated her for it. How was that even possible? It was with Jenny. If Charlie had tried to totally walk away, Jenny would have found a way to get him back. Sometimes it felt like Jenny even controlled his dreams, as he only ever dreamt about her. He was in love with Jenny, maybe even obsessed with her, but sometimes he realized just how crazy that made him. Sometimes he felt like he needed to be with someone normal; someone like Sarah. The downside seemed to be that once he’d had the pleasure of playing chess, checkers just didn’t seem as satisfying. A life with Jenny was about strategy, sacrifice to get the upper hand, controlling the board and protecting the king. Somehow the strife, thinking 5 moves ahead, never knowing what she was going to do next was addictive. With Sarah he felt like he was just going through the motions, hopping over the other color until the game was over. Charlie did love Sarah in his own way, but in his heart he was truly in love with Jenny. He left Jenny about eight months ago and ended up moving in with Sarah. He just started thinking Jenny was too much trouble to be worth it. Playing her mind games and trying to shatter any moment of calm with drama as if it were her lifeblood. Jenny told him she would never forgive him for breaking her heart after two years of trying to find a reason to stay, but he knew she still loved him. They talked quite a few times in the last month or so when Sarah wasn’t around. Jenny told her parents what was going on and they were pretty upset with him. No, they weren’t just upset; they were furious. Whenever they saw him slow driving past the house, they would yell at him. Tell him to go somewhere else or they would call the cops and say he was crazy and needed to be committed. Even though Jenny was in her mid-thirties, she still lived with her parents because she was going to college to be a doctor. So, if he couldn’t get near them, he couldn’t get to her. It was that simple. He didn’t like cops and he certainly did not want to get committed. He wondered on what grounds they could commit him - being crazy in love with their daughter. Jenny may have just been the love of his life, but Sarah was the logical choice. He had enough chaos in his life and didn’t need more of it in the form of a life partner. Partners were supposed to bring stability to one another, not drama. It seemed at this moment, though, that maybe he had thought he was safely strolling on the levy with Sarah when in fact the ice beneath his feet was growing thinner by the day. Walking down the front steps, Charlie looked over and saw his neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Bitfield, the couple who always seemed to wear complimenting attire, he in a red plaid sweater and she a matching fitted button down blouse with a white ruffle collar. They were shoveling the front walkway, although there was only a dusting of snow on the concrete. They were not out there to clear the path—they had clearly overheard the whole argument and were out to get a closer look, which was nothing new. They didn’t hesitate to start trouble whenever they had a chance. The husband looked up from his walkway and gave him a look of disgust. Charlie thought of giving him a farewell salute with his middle finger, but ignored him instead as he climbed into his 1988 Buick Century and started the engine. He would have liked to play some music, but the cassette player went out shortly before the radio and he no longer instinctively reached for the dial. The engine was on its way out and the thing smoked like a chimney. It was loud, but it rode like a Cadillac and felt like a tank. He couldn’t remember how many times absentminded teenage drivers had backed into him in a parking lot and he had just driven away, unscathed, as their cars sat there crumpled. He was always happy when they begged him not to report the accident, so that State Farm could jack up their rates. Charlie never wanted to wait for the cops. They always seemed to think that he was up to something, and if it had been just ten years ago, he probably would have been. I love this car, he thought. Charlie put the column shifter into the drive position and pressed his foot down hard on the gas pedal, screeching down the street. He drove down to the public library and put the car in park. Charlie made note of how empty the parking lot was for such a mild late afternoon day as he questioned his next move. Calling Jenny was nothing close to rational thinking, but he decided he had nothing to lose. The secret was out. Charlie reached into his pocket. He dug deeper, feeling around the lint. His cell phone was missing. Replaying the events of the day, he realized that he had left his phone sitting on the arm of the couch. His first instinct was to put the car in drive, but he decided against it. It would be a bad idea to go right back to the house after what had just happened—the neighbors might call the police, and that was the last thing he wanted. It’s not worth it. I’ll get it tomorrow while she’s at work. Charlie sat in his car, toying with the idea of getting drunk. He pushed the thought away, convinced the consequences far outweighed the glory. He had come far in the last couple of years, and he never wanted to go back. Charlie opened the glove box and took out a listing of local support groups. He always carried the book around with him, but he hadn’t been to a meeting in months. Most of the meetings weren’t in session until later that night. There was one right down the street, but he would have to wait a few hours. Charlie decided to go inside the library for a while and get his mind off of things. He had always loved the smell of books and somehow the towering shelves filled with them made him feel safe. Who knew what terrible and wondrous things he might read in a book, but he could always take comfort in the fact that it wasn’t real; even the true crime stories were 85% pure fabrication. If I have to stay in my car tonight, I will. That was real. It was cold, but while the past few nights had dropped low enough for the first light snow, it wasn’t expected to get below forty that night. He could survive a night in his car if he had to—he’d always had a high tolerance for cold weather, and the way he looked at it, whatever didn’t kill him…The Buick had a big back seat that was moderately comfortable. He knew it from experience because he had slept in it a few times before. Man, I love this car, he reminded himself. Charlie turned off the car and stepped outside. As he walked toward the library, he reveled in the warmth of the sun, confident that the temperature wouldn’t drop lower than forty degrees during the night. He pulled on one of the double doors, letting himself into the foyer, which was decorated with reading posters and local artwork. There was a small bookcase with a variety of cookbooks and self-help titles scattered randomly between the top two shelves. He was instinctively drawn to the idea of free books because so few things in life were free, but despite being surrounded by every genre of fiction and non-fiction he always had trouble settling on what to read. Charlie opened the door leading to the main section of the library and was greeted by the hushed voice of the librarian, who whispered “hello” as he entered the room. “Hello,” he replied, walking past the circulation desk without stopping. Her eyes followed him until she was sure that he didn’t need assistance, then slowly drifted back to the book she was reading. The overhead lights produced enough light to perform surgery, but that hadn’t stopped Charlie from falling asleep while reading there in the past. He made his way over to the fiction section and scanned the shelves, but nothing was interesting enough to catch his attention. It was hard for him to focus because he was thinking about how he was going to get back on his feet now that he had no place to live. Charlie selected a book titled Mixed Blood at random, and entered the lounge area where he could sink down into a comfortable cushioned reading chair with an accompanying ottoman; the leather was cracked but functional. It was better than one of the...