“Shoot me” he said.
There she was in a position she thought she would never be in, holding a gun. Sweat was glimmering on her face as the gun felt like a thousand pounds. She didn’t know what to do. Her whole world was crashing down around her. But she can’t panic now; she has to kill him.
“Charlie, are you planning on going to school today?” yelled her dad from downstairs.
Charlie an eighteen years old girl moved slowly from her bed. She made a loud thump on her door letting her dad know that she was awake. Then, she proceeded to look in the mirror. Charlie is about 5’6’’ with long brown hair and brown eyes. She is mixed with Caucasian and African American. She is quite thin even though like all girls she thinks she needs to loose ten pounds. As she looked in the mirror, all she could see were the bags under her eyes. For another night in a row, she did not get any sleep. She has not been able to have a goodnight sleep in about two weeks. Maybe it is all the stress of being a senior and applying to colleges. After picking out a short blue dress with her brown boots, she headed downstairs for breakfast. She could hear the local news from the den as she sat down to eat.
“Did you sleep well?” asked her dad as he set a plate of chocolate chip pancakes and eggs in front of her.
“No!” Charlie replied.
Her dad was where she inherited her Caucasian looks. He was about 6 feet tall and packed with muscles. He had brown short hair and brown eyes like her. He had a nice after-shave beard which Charlie loved about him. His name is Tom Lawrence, and he is 48 years old. He worked as a manager in Delta’s corporate office. He has always been a great father to Charlie.
“Do you know why you haven’t been sleeping well lately?” asked her father.
“No, I just can’t ever get to sleep. Like I lay in bed for hours before I finally fall asleep”
“Well, if you don’t start getting sleep within a few weeks; we’re going to have to take you to a doctor,” her dad said with concern.
After Charlie was done eating her breakfast, she went back upstairs to finish getting ready for school. She didn’t even hear when her dad left for work. Charlie doesn’t know that much about her dad’s job, just that he is one of the many people that keep Delta running smoothly. He is often gone for many days during the week but comes back with the best presents. Charlie has a charm bracelet with a charm from every place her dad has visited. There are ten charms and her favorite is the ivory elephant from India.
An hour and an half later, Charlie was parked outside of Peanuts High School. She was waiting on her best friend Cameron to arrive. She has known Cameron since they were in the 5th grade together when she spilled apple juice all over Cameron. Cameron is about the same height as Charlie with blonde hair and green eyes. She is known all over town for her green eyes.
“Hey, girl! Ready for that math test today?” asked Cameron.
“No, I didn’t get any sleep last night again,” replied Charlie.
“Well, that’s okay. I’m sure you will do fine as math is your best subject.”
As they walked inside the school for the day, Charlie got this cold chill down her spine.
At Delta corporate offices, Tom is getting ready to leave work for his lunch break. As he is leaving one of the secretaries brings him a pile of paperwork to read over by tomorrow. He lays them on his desk for when he returns. The weird thing about Tom is that he never goes to lunch with his other coworkers. Never. For lunch, Tom goes to the corner of Motley Avenue and Ferry Road at the address 1616 Ferry Road Larkin, North Dakota. The building is run-down and abandoned. It hasn’t been used in years. At this address, is where Tom is a notorious drug dealer. Every day for lunch, he comes to sell and trade drugs. Since he works for Delta, he is able to sneak the drugs on the plane without questions asked. Tom has been a drug dealer since he married Helen, Charlie’s mom. He started when Charlie was four years old.
“Shaun, you have the goods today?” asked a tall man. Shaun is Tom’s real name. He uses Tom to cover up tracks in case anything goes wrong.
“Of course I have the goods,” replied Tom as he pulled out a bag of about 5lbs of weed.
“You’re a good man, Shaun,” said the man as he slid Shaun a wallet of 2,000 dollars.
Tom took the money and left to head back to work. As he was driving he was thinking about his first drug deal. He was about 22 years old and just wanted some easy money, and then he was introduced to the art of drug dealing. The only reason he ever married Helen was so he could pretend to have a perfect family to get the job at Delta. He never expected her to get pregnant with Charlie. His plan was after two years divorce Helen, but here he is 21 years later. Tom admitted to himself that he loved Charlie; he never wants anything bad to happen to her.
Helen came home after a long day at work at Eclipse Company which is a fashion company, and she the vice president of sales. Helen is where Charlie gets her African American looks as she is about 5’6’’ and 48 years old. She has long brown hair with brown eyes. As she was getting ready to cook dinner, the phone rang. It was one of those information callers. This one particular call struck Helen hard. The information was about a rape center and who to call if you ever get raped. This brought up a tragic incident in Helen’s life. Tom and she were married when they both were twenty-seven. One night Tom came home from “work” drunk. Helen had just gotten done eating her dinner when he came in. She could tell he was drunk as he could not walk straight. This was not the first time he has walked in the house drunk. Tom started kissing Helen, but she doesn’t like it when he is drunk. She started to pull away, but that is when he started to get aggressive. He grabbed her and said, “Don’t move away from me.” But Helen still tried. Tom slapped her across the face then forced her onto the floor where he raped her on September 15. Helen has never spoken about that night to anyone, and when September 15 comes each year, she always gets chills. The one glorious thing that came out of that tragic event was Charlie. After Tom raped her, she became pregnant with Charlie. Tom wouldn’t let her leave him because he was afraid she might blow his cover. But ever since that night Helen and Tom have never had sex. Helen has never told Charlie the true story of her birth, and Charlie must never know.
“Hey, Mom. I’m home,” yelled Charlie as she walked through the door. Helen was in the cooking fixing dinner.
“What’s for dinner?” asked Charlie.
“Fried tomatoes and steak,” replied her Mom.
Charlie went upstairs to wash up. As she was upstairs, she heard her Dad come home. What Charlie didn’t see is that Helen and Tom didn’t even acknowledge each other when he came in. They only pretend to keep Charlie happy. After dinner, Charlie went upstairs to do her homework. As she was seating at her desk, an email arrived for her about college applications.
“Ughhhh” said Charlie. She flopped on her bed which was covered in college letters and applications. She hated this. She didn’t know where she wanted to go. She didn’t even know what she wanted to do in life. As she lay there, she thought about 5th grade when she spilled apple juice on Cameron. She thought how much simpler those times were.
While she was upstairs, her Dad was in his office having a private phone call.
“You need to bring the shipment in tomorrow.” demanded the voice on the phone.
“I can’t, I actually I have a job you know,” replied Tom.
“We need that shipment. We have big sale coming in. If you don’t bring the shipment tomorrow, we’ll kill you daughter.” said the stone cold voice. Then the voice hung up.
Tom stood there scared for the first time in his life. He cared about Charlie; she was his Achilles heel. Tom knew he would have to get that shipment tomorrow.
The next morning Tom was already gone when Charlie came downstairs. Charlie was taking her time as she didn’t have to go to school today because of a teacher workshop day the county makes them do. As she was eating, she saw that her dad left his lunch.
“Mom, Dad left his lunch,” yelled Charlie.
“Oh, well I’ll take it to him,” replied Helen.
“No, I’ll do it. You have to get to work”
“Okay then, if you want to.”
After breakfast, Charlie went to get dress to take Tom his lunch. On the way to Delta, she picked up Cameron.
“So what are we doing today?” asked Cameron
“We’re going shopping after I drop my Dad’s his lunch”
“Okay as long as we go shopping because I need some new shoes”
When they arrived at Delta, they learned Tom had left early for lunch today. As they walked back to the car, Charlie spotted her dad leaving the car the parking deck.
“Hurry, we have to catch him.” said Charlie eagerly.
“Why don’t you just call him?” asked Cameron.
“Because he doesn’t have his phone.”
Tom had purposely left his phone at home, so he wouldn’t be disturbed today. As they followed Tom, they realized they were headed to the sketchy part of town.
“Why is my Dad coming over to this part of town?” asked Charlie.
Finally they reached this boat dock where Tom got out of the car. They parked close behind to watch what was happening. Tom went up to the dock. He was waiting on a boat named Mermaid 101 which was carrying a case of 12lbs of weed. When the Mermaid 101 docked, the packages were unloaded. Charlie and Cameron saw Tom making an exchange with a short bearded man. Then the case was opened, and they saw the 12lbs of week. Charlie couldn’t believe her eyes. Her dad was a drug dealer. All she wanted to was get out of the car, and yell at him to stop. But little did she know, he had longed been doing this.
Tom put the case in the car and drove away. Charlie and Cameron followed him to 1616 Ferry Road. Tom got out of with the case walked inside the building. Charlie and Cameron decided to follow him. They followed him up two flights of stairs and down two corridors. Then Tom stopped. He loaded a gun which he always does in case things don’t go as plan. Then he walked into a room where Charlie and Cameron followed him. There were ten other guys in the room, and then Charlie saw something she never wanted to see, her mom tied up in a car.
“So you decided to get the case after all. I had to have a punishment for you if you didn’t, so I brought you wife because we couldn’t find your daughter.” said the same tall man from before.
“I told you I would bring the case,” replied Tom.
“Well, we wanted to make sure. Hand over the case, Shaun, for $1,000.”
“$1,000, which was not the plan. The price was $15,000.”
“Well the deal is off because you were a little late in bringing the case.”
Charlie and Cameron couldn’t believe their eyes. Charlie wanted to do something but couldn’t think what. What was her father’s name? Who was he, and was he really her father?
“Fine, I’ll take my case to someone else, Chris.”
“Do that and we’ll shoot your wife.”
The guy over by Helen pulled out a gun and held it to her head. Helen was terrified and couldn’t believe she’s been living with a gun dealer all this time.
“Shoot her I don’t care; I’ve never loved her.” said Tom.
Charlie couldn’t believe what she just heard. It crushed her heart.
“Stop. Don’t shoot her. Sto………..” yelled Charlie as jumped from behind the wall.
But it was too late. A gun shot had been fired, and Helen laid there with a gun wound to her leg. Charlie was so relieved, but now she was standing in room full of drug dealers and liars including her own father.
“Well, well, well, it’s like a family reunion,” said Chris.
Tom looked at Charlie with panic in his eyes, but all Charlie was looking at was Helen as blood was gushing from her leg. She couldn’t move to help her mom because Chris was pointing a gun at her.
“So, Tom do you want your daughter to die too or is she not your daughter?” asked Chris.
Tom was quiet as he was thinking on what to do next. He didn’t want Charlie to get hurt, but he wanted a good profit from this case.
“Go ahead and shoot me. As I can’t live with liar.” stated Charlie with a cold voice facing Tom.
“Oohh, that’s cold, Shaun. So what are you going to do?” asked Chris.
Tom handed over the case. As one of Chris’s guys took the case away, Chris went over to Tom and kicked him and punched him over and over again. Tom didn’t fight back.
“If you ever try to threaten me again, there won’t be a next time,” Chris said.
Chris took Tom’s gun and slid it to Charlie.
“Do what you want me him; he’s nothing piece of crap.”
Chris and other guys walked out leaving Charlie, Helen, and Tom in the room. Cameron had followed the other guys where she heard them say they were heading to the Hartford Train Station. Cameron called the police to tell them about the drug dealers.
Charlie looked at Tom, who she thought was his father.
“How could you do this to us?” she screamed.
Tom uttered, “I needed some money when I was 22 because I was in debt with some guys over a poker game. I needed some easy money, and that’s where I ended up with those guys.”
“And you couldn’t quit.”
“Once you’re in; you’re always in.”
“But you never loved my mother. Did you ever love me?” asked Charlie in a whisper.
“Yes, I loved you very much.” said Tom.
“You’re a liar. I hate you!” screamed Charlie as she held up the gun. She doesn’t know when she had picked up.
“Shoot me,” he said.
There she was in a position she thought she would never be in, holding a gun. Sweat was glimmering on her face as the gun felt like a thousand pounds. She didn’t know what to do. Her whole world was crashing down around her. But she can’t panic now; she had to kill him.
Her finger pulled the trigger, and the bullet sailed through the air, and it hit Tom right in the middle of his chest. Charlie dropped the gun as she began to cry. Tom lay a few feet in front of her, dead. She rushed over to her wounded mother where they wept together until the police came.
Six months later, Charlie is standing at the entrance to Cannon University in South Dakota where she is going to major in Social and Human Services. Her mother is next to her crying. Charlie finally chose a college away from the place where lies were told. Helen finally told her about the time Tom raped her. As Charlie stood there, a tear ran down her face as for a moment she wished her father was her, but then she walked into her new life.