Wakefulness settled in slowly, and then all at once as the unfamiliar environment startled Charlie awake. Memories of what had happened last night settled in, but none of it felt real. How could so much have changed so quickly?

Before Charlie now was a new life, but all he could do was lay in the bed they’d told him was now his and count the flowers on the bedspread. This bed was bigger than the one he’d had at his dad’s house, softer, cleaner. Better in every way he could think of, but somehow wrong in its differentness. He tried burying his head under the blankets and found that too much light and not enough air filtered through.

Eventually there was a quiet knock on the door, and then a second later it slid open a crack and Charlie’s grandpa peaked in. He seemed surprised to see Charlie awake. For a second it seemed like he might just turn and leave, but then the door opened all the way and he stepped just inside the doorway. “So. You’re up, then.”

Charlie made a quiet, noncommittal sound. He wasn’t up, but he was awake, and he figured that was what his grandpa probably meant.

Charlie’s grandpa looked around the small room. “This place isn’t really set up for a teenage boy, eh? Guess we’ll have to get you some new sheets and curtains and such like. Ones without flowers.”

Charlie looked around the room and found himself relaxed by its simplicity. Just a bed and a nightstand with a lamp on it as far as furnishings went, plus a built in closet that looked large enough to hide in.

The long, flowery purple curtains covered a sliding glass door that opened into the back garden, giving Charlie a welcome sense of freedom. He still wasn't sure how he felt about the rest of the house, but Charlie decided he liked his new room.

Charlie’s hand moved to scratch the back of his neck, though it didn’t itch, and he shrugged. "I don't mind flowers.”

Silence fell for a moment as Charlie’s grandpa shifted against the doorframe, and it was only then that Charlie realised that those were the first words he’d spoken to any of them. Maybe they hadn’t even known he still could speak. His grandpa pushed a smile onto his face that looked strained and not at all real. "Well, I reckon the first time you have friends over and they make fun of you, you'll change your mind about that."

"I'll make nicer friends.”

"Son, even the nicest kid is going to think you're a pansy if your room is covered in flowers."

"Pansy..." Charlie repeated. That was a kind of flower. "What?"

Charlie’s grandpa shook his head and when he spoke, his tone had softened. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get you some new ones.”

Charlie wasn’t worried, he just didn’t understand, but it didn’t seem like an explanation was forthcoming so he let it drop.

“We didn’t know where you were,” Charlie’s grandpa said after a stretch of silence. “With your dad, yeah?”

Charlie nodded.

Charlie’s grandpa echoed the nod. “And your mum. Do you… know what happened?”

Charlie nodded. His throat felt tight. He hoped he wouldn’t have to say what had happened, because he didn’t think he could.

“The police said it was probably just an accident, but then you were gone and we didn’t know. Maybe he’d done something so he could take you, or maybe someone else had taken you. There was a lot of not knowing.”

“I called him. To come and get me,” Charlie said, because that was all he could say. His voice sounded wrong even to his own ears. Unsteady. Thick.

It hadn’t been as simple as that. He’d called and his dad had laughed, told him he was lying, because just a week ago he’d been near hysterical about finding a lumpy bit in his sausage. How could his voice be calm and even if his mother was dead? And he hadn’t had an answer to that, so he’d hung up and he’d waited an hour, or two hours, and then his dad had come and they had left.

“Where were you staying with your dad?”

No had been Charlie’s first word, his only word for a long time and his favourite word for years afterwards. It had been his sword and his shield. Now it felt like a bomb caught in his throat. He didn’t dare release it.

“Charlie? Do you know the address, or the name of the street? Somewhere he might be?”

Silence was a safer defiance. Eyes down, body still. Passive. Charlie tensed when he saw his grandpa move closer out of the corner of his eye. His grandpa paused. His grandpa turned and left the room.

Charlie hadn’t been hot a minute ago, but he was sweating now. They wanted to know where his dad was so that they could get him in trouble. For what? His dad hadn’t done anything. Just drugs, and that had really only hurt himself and people who made the choice for themselves to buy from him.

The peace didn’t last long enough for Charlie to resettle himself. Just a few minutes after his grandpa had left the room, his grandma marched into it and sat down on the bed next to him.

“Oh, sweetheart.” She reached out a hand and patted Charlie’s cheek. “Look at you. You’ve grown so much.”

Charlie rubbed at the lingering tickle the contact had left on his cheek. He didn’t know what to say in response. Yes, he had grown.

Apparently it hadn’t required a response, because she continued talking. “How are you feeling now?”

She paused and watched him, waiting. How was he feeling? Overwhelmed, mostly. He wanted home and familiarity. A bit sore, but a few bruises weren’t a big deal. He tugged at a clump of his hair and shrugged his shoulders. “Fine.”

“Well!” she said and smiled in a way that stretched her lips wide but held no genuine emotion. She was wearing red lipstick and it was slightly smudged at one corner. “I thought today we could go shopping. Buy you some clothes and whatever else it is teenage boys need.”

She was looking at him like she expected a response, so Charlie lifted his shoulders in a vague shrug. He didn’t want to even get out of bed, but he doubted she would accept a no. She never had when he was a kid.

Apparently the shrug had been good enough, because she turned her attention to pulling the curtains open on the large glass door that took up most of one wall. As Charlie squinted against the new light assaulting his eyes, he caught a flash of a small, fluffy animal dashing over the fence. A cat, probably.

“The doctor said you might need a few days to rest, but she also thought you had some kind of mental disability and that’s clearly not true,” Charlie’s grandma continued. “I told her to look up that IQ test you took when you were little. I swear, your mother was so proud of that and I don’t know why. It hardly reflects well on her when her smart child is a complete hellion who’s not exactly excelling at school.”

Smart had never been the thing Charlie was lacking. At least not the kind measured by an IQ test. Puzzles were easy. The real world was far more complex, and just… far more. But he couldn’t articulate any of that, especially not under the critical and unsympathetic gaze of his grandma, so he just kept his head down and let her talk at him until she gave him instructions to take a shower and finally left him be.