The clock on the dashboard said it was just past midnight when they stopped for the night at a motel. Charlie's dad left him in the car while he went in and paid for a room. Charlie idly considered getting out and running while he waited, but the only thing he’d managed to do by the time his dad returned was make his lip bleed by aggressively gnawing at it.

The room had two single beds, a small table with two chairs, and a TV, which Charlie's dad immediately turned on. The bathroom had a shower, a sink, and a toilet, and was painted a faded pink colour. Charlie wanted to brush his teeth before bed, but he didn't have a toothbrush or toothpaste. He jumped when he looked up and saw his dad leaning in the bathroom doorway.

“I meant to get some shit together for you before we left, like a toothbrush and all that, but then I went to stake out the place and you were right there so I just nabbed you. We’ll get some stuff tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” Charlie echoed. Normally that would have been a big deal, but Charlie couldn’t find space in his brain to care about it just then. He probably would tomorrow, though, when he woke up to his mouth tasting gross and his teeth feeling fuzzy.

Charlie’s dad gave him a forced smile. “Yeah, we’ll be fine, hey? Things are going to be a bit rough for a while, but we’ll find some place new and get settled back in. We’re always fine in the end, aren’t we?”

Are we? Charlie wondered. Am I? “Dad… what’s wrong with me?”

That startled a bark of laughter out of Charlie’s dad. “Want me to make a list?”

That was something Charlie liked about his dad. He was honest and straightforward, even if it wasn’t the nice thing to say. Though… Charlie had also kind of liked Travis’ automatic response to that same question — that there wasn’t anything wrong with Charlie.

“No, but, like… why?”

“Doesn’t matter why. You were just born kinda fucked up and that’s not gonna change.”

Charlie made a quiet humming sound and gripped the side of the sink. He considered leaving the conversation there before his dad got angry, but Charlie wanted answers and nobody knew him as well as his dad. “Travis thinks I should get therapy.”

Charlie’s dad scoffed. “All that psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist shit is a scam. You think talking to someone about your problems is gonna make them go away?”

Charlie shrugged. Maybe. Not really. But… if they had some kind of answers, or they could give him some advice to make things easier, maybe it would help.

“You know what they’d do? They’d talk to you for half an hour, then give you some shitty pills to take that only make you feel tired. Tell you to come back in a month. Next time, you’d tell them the pills only make it worse, but they’ll tell you to keep taking them anyway because maybe they haven’t started working yet. For months. And then when you finally convince them the pills aren’t working, they’ll give you different ones that don’t help either and make you feel sick. It’s a shitty carousel that doesn’t stop until you get sick of it and get the fuck off.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, fucking oh.” Charlie’s dad moved towards him and Charlie quickly shuffled back, but he had only been heading for the sink to splash water on his face. “The shit that actually helps, you can’t get from a shrink. I sell people shit that helps, but because some fucking big business isn’t getting a cut it’s illegal.”

If your drugs help, why did you throw me out of the car when you were on them and get us into this mess? If your drugs help, why is my mum dead? Out loud, Charlie said, “Okay.”

Charlie’s dad waved a hand in Charlie’s direction as he turned to leave the room. “Rinse your mouth out before you go to bed. Better than nothing.”

Charlie nodded, swished slightly rusty tasting water from the sink in his mouth, then headed back out into the main room. His dad was slumped in one of the beds, staring blankly at the TV. Charlie quietly claimed the other one.

The show on TV was halfway through and Charlie couldn't figure out what was going on. A look at his dad's vacant expression suggested he was even less tuned in. He wanted to tell his dad about the movie he'd watched with Travis, but then he remembered what his dad had said about him and kept his mouth shut. He didn't want his dad's opinion on that.

Charlie's dad kicked his shoes off but kept the rest of his clothes on. Charlie wasn't wearing shoes, and he felt safer with all his clothes on. They were mostly pyjamas anyway, except for the hoodie he was wearing over the top of them. He pulled his hood up, tugged it down low over his face, and pulled his hands into his sleeves. 

He didn’t want to be here. It hadn’t been that long since he’d been wishing he could return to the predictability of his old life, but that felt impossibly distant now. 

When his people had thrown around the word kidnapping to describe how he had ended up with his dad before, it hadn’t made sense to Charlie. How could his own father kidnap him? After all, he’d been the one to call his dad and ask him to come and get him. This, though… this felt like kidnapping. 

The show they were watching ended and another one started, this one just as meaningless to Charlie's raw mind as the last one. When he glanced over at his dad, Charlie saw that he'd fallen asleep on top of the covers.

What if he just… left? He could just sneak out and find someone to help him and go back to trying to live a somewhat normal life. Or an abnormal one where he got to go to school and have a friend and fear only things that couldn’t really hurt him.

Charlie kept one eye on his dad as he walked as quietly as he could to the door. He was glad now that he wasn’t wearing shoes, that he was used to moving in a way that didn’t draw attention to himself. He watched his dad’s face as he flipped the lock and then slowly pulled the door open. His dad didn’t stir. Charlie slipped outside and left the door slightly ajar so that his dad wouldn’t wake up when he shut it.

Now what? It was late and nobody was around. Charlie slowly wandered along the path away from their room, wanting to put distance between himself and his dad even if he didn’t have a solid plan yet. 

A light on inside a room up ahead caught Charlie’s eye, and he realised it was the office. Of course. They’d only checked in about an hour ago. Someone probably stayed at the front desk overnight. They could call the police for him.

Charlie wanted his music, he wanted Travis, but he didn’t have either so he hummed to himself as he walked towards the office and tried to piece together what he was going to say in his head. He knew he would freeze up if he didn’t figure it out before he was face to face with a stranger. This whole situation was just so complicated. Maybe he could just tell them to call the police. The police figured everything out last time without Charlie even having to speak.

A shadow fell over Charlie a second before a hand clamped firmly around his upper arm.

Charlie knew it was his dad before he was even spun around to face him. There was half a moment where he wanted to fight, but his mind and body had already relaxed into a tense calm by the time his back hit something solid. The vending machine he’d been shoved into rattled its disapproval behind him.

“What are you doing out here?” Charlie’s dad asked. His voice was quiet and steady. His hand pressed down on Charlie’s chest.

Charlie didn’t like to lie, didn’t like how it complicated things, but he wasn’t bad at it either. The vending machine glowed bright behind him. “I’m hungry.”

“You’re hungry,” his dad echoed. His voice was flat. His expression didn’t shift.

Charlie’s gaze dropped to the ground. “My grandma and grandpa always try to make me eat weird food. I don’t like it so I tell them I’m not hungry, but I am hungry. They have cereal but they won’t let me just eat it and I just want things to be simple a-again.”

Charlie barely managed to get the last words out. He was crying. His dad’s hand was no longer holding him in place, so he slid down to the ground and buried his face against his knees. His lie had veered too far into the truth at some point and now everything was overflowing — all the anxiety that had built up from living with his grandparents crashing into the disaster of his current circumstances.

“You told me you wanted to go back.”

Charlie’s leg twinged with the need to kick out, but he knew better. “I just want things to be okay. To have… something. Things keep happening, dad.”

“If things stopped happening, you’d be dead. You wanna be dead instead?”

That could have been a threat, but his dad’s tone didn’t have enough of an edge to it for it to sound like one. Charlie shook his head.

“Good. Me either.” He tapped Charlie’s leg with the toe of his boot. “You can pick one snack, then we’re going back to the room.”

Charlie didn’t really want a snack. He wasn’t actually hungry. He got to his feet and stared at the vending machine for at least two minutes before pointing to a packet of plain chips. His dad paid, took hold of the sleeve of Charlie’s hoodie, and led him back to their motel room.

Once they were back inside the room, Charlie’s dad locked the door, bundled up the pillows and blankets from one of the beds, and marched into the bathroom. He dropped them on the floor before turning to Charlie. “You’re sleeping in here tonight.”

Charlie clutched the little packet of chips in his hand. He didn’t need to ask why. He knew why. He went and sat on the blanket on the bathroom floor.

“Good,” Charlie’s dad said as he stared down at him from the doorway. “Now, I want to be very clear. I’m doing my fucking best here and I expect you to do your best as well. Do what I say and don’t you fucking dare do anything that looks like you’re trying to sneak off, or I swear you’ll spend the rest of this fun family road trip drugged unconscious and wake up with a lock on the outside of your new bedroom door. Do you understand me, Charlie?”

Charlie nodded. The chip packet crinkled in his hands.

“Good. Now I’m gonna shut this door and put one of the chairs against it, then I’m going the fuck back to sleep. You’re gonna stay here and you’re gonna be quiet until I come and get you when it’s time to leave tomorrow. Got it?”

Charlie nodded again. The door shut and a moment later Charlie heard his dad getting the chair into place. Whether or not it was jammed properly, there would be no getting out without waking his dad.

Charlie made himself a nest in the shower stall and snuggled down. If he was going to escape, he would get only one more chance before things became much, much harder. Next time he would need to have a plan.