The Scars She Hides

Part 20 - Sabotage and Spaghetti

CHARLOTTE

The spaghetti was to die for.

The conversation?

Made me want to kill myself. ( A joke. Self harm and suicide are serious. We are here for you and support you.)

It was obvious that Holden had coached his mother on what topics to steer clear of.

It was also obvious that his father had forgotten or did not care, because he was plowing forwards, with nothing but the unwavering desire to know more about my personal life.

"So. Charlotte." Bronson set his fork to twirling his spaghetti while he loaded his question.

"How did you and Holden meet exactly?" He sounded suspicious. I pushed some salad around my plate nervously while I tried to think of an acceptable answer.

My brain was a wonderful help. Well you see, it all started when I faked my grades to skip PE, and then bribed your son into fake tutoring me for a whole semester. Isn't that what every parent wanted to hear? I pulled the salad back to the other side of my plate, trying to reload my brain page and come up with a different answer. Your son is the only male I currently find not dangerous, and I have a enormously one sided 'not-crush' on him. So that is why I have been continuing this faux friendship with a college student. Don't worry, I'm already 18 so its legal officer.

Nope. Not that one either.

Holden jumped in before my salad could make another journey across the glass surface.

"She needed some help with math at the beginning of the semester, so I was tutoring her for my service hours." Holden supplied to his father.

"And your still struggling with math?" He directed at me, confused, wondering if I was as stupid as I looked preforming the salad triathlon instead of answering him myself.

"Uh, no, not at the moment- no." That answer didn't seem to make Bronson feel less suspicious of my relationship with his son. He raised his eyebrows at me, and then at his son.

"Charlotte here is currently tutoring me." Holden chimed in. "She has been helping me rewrite my senior project proposal the past couple of weeks."

"Are you good at writing Charlotte?" Gene lit up, excited at the turn the conversation was taking. I nodded my head, and received a smile from her. A little relief cracked the tension in my chest. 

"I bet you like to read then." She hummed happily, like she had found a new friend. I gave Gene a small smile of my own, confirming her assumption.

"You like to read?" Tiffy exclaimed, making me jump a bit in my chair. "I love to read! I have done the most book reports in my class!" Tiffy bragged a bit about her reading marks, and how many stickers she had on the class book report poster. 

Tiffy had been quiet most of dinner, sitting with one hand tucked underneath her legs, and the other messily twirling her pasta. This was the first time she had actually joined in on the conversation.

She pointed her pasta covered fork in my direction across the table. "What is your favourite book?"

I felt like this was a test. If I named an adult book she had never read, any hopes of winning this scary child over would be gone for good. If I named a kid book, and she was insulted at my assumption of her reading level, I'd still lose. She was 10 years old, but had the 'most book reports' in her class....

"Harry Potter?" I answered, sounding more like a question. Tiffy pursed her little lips at me, considering.

"What house are you?"