0 comments/ 3943 views/ 1 favorites Tormented Soul Ch. 01 By: vetus_animus There is no sex in this story, hence posting it in the non-erotic section. ------------------------------------- Paul and Emma Roberts were enjoying a rare quite Friday evening on their patio. There were no school events to attend or shuttle their kids to. They did not have a party or social event to attend and no work to be taken care of at home. Their five kids busy with homework or tied up with various technology based entertainment. Paul and Emma were tall, athletic and moderately successful in business and society. Paul was the owner of his own insurance business while Emma worked as an office manager for a home healthcare agency. They had just hit 40 and were the parents of five children, four girls and one boy. Both were attractive and looked five years younger than they were. Emma was particular proud of how she managed to keep her body in shape after five kids. Granted it had changed but it she was still a very good looking woman. There were two older girls Patrice and Kathleen; Charles, the only boy, and then two younger twin girls Diana and Susan. All the girls were very attractive, blonde haired blued eyed, carbon copies of their mother. They were all outgoing, popular and had no shortage of friends although their father kept the boyfriends to a minimum. Patrice was a senior high school. She was a National Honor Society member, played both volleyball and basketball and was most likely going to be class valedictorian. Kathleen, a year younger than Patrice, was a Junior and also National Honor Society. She played the cello in the high school orchestra. Diana and Susan were in the 8th grade they were both honor roll students and cheerleaders. Basically they were on the same track as their older sisters Then there was the middle child Charles or what he was most often referred to as Charley. He was a 14 year old freshman attending the same school as his older sisters. "Are you sure he is my son?" Paul playfully asked his wife after taking a sip of his bourbon. They had already had more than a couple of drinks plus some wine at dinner. "Of course he is." Emma replied, punching him lightly in the arm then smiled and asked "What are you accusing me of?" "Why nothing dear" he held up his hands in mock fear, "but maybe the hospital screwed up and switched babies on us. It has happened before." "That is a terrible thing to say, I know he is a bit of a black sheep." "That is one way of putting it." "Ok, he is not like us our or other kids." Paul looked at her over his drink and raised his eyebrows. "You are so polite." Emma took a big gulp of her drink "I am a mother but your right, how could we have four perfect children and one like him? The girls are all attractive, popular, get excellent grades and are good in sports. Our son Charles, and he is our son, is not as good looking, not a very good athlete and not even an average student." Emma said with a bit of frown. "Did I drink when I pregnant with him?" A more somber Paul replied. "I worry about him. He has no friends much less a girlfriend and is not likely to with his shyness and looks. He certainly is not going to get into a good school with his grades and we can definitely rule out any athletic scholarship." "Well it is not like we have not tried. We have tried putting him in scouting, little league and helped with schoolwork, we are paying big bucks to have his teeth straighten but he still has a lack of confidence and shyness. We cannot buy him athletic ability or perfect eye sight. He has almost zero self-confidence; sometimes I think maybe he needs therapy." "No," Paul responded. "Charley probably feels different enough. Therapy will only make it more obvious he is not like the other kids. He will be OK I guess; he will just need more of our help than the other kids to make it. He will not become a brain surgeon or a Nobel Prize winner but he won't starve." "And we have the four girls to brag about in the meantime "His wife added. It looks Patrice will get accepted to Stanford." Paul thought he heard something and turned toward the sliding screen door that led back into their house and said "crap" Emma turned to see what he was looking at and quickly raised her hand to her mouth. She watched the back of her son as he slowly retreated backed into the house To be continued... Tormented Soul Ch. 02 This story picks up where chapter 1 left off, neat how that chapter thing works . -------------------------------------------------- Charley's bedroom was in a different part of the house. It was part of the add-on/renovation that they had to do when his parents were surprised by the arrival of his twin sisters. Half of the attached two car garage was turned into a bedroom with an in house doorway for Charley. Being the only boy meant that Charley had his own room while his sisters were bunked two to a room. He also never had to worry about hand me down clothes. That was not a problem for any of the kids now. As his parent's income increased none of their kids would ever be caught in hand-me downs again. Things were tight back then and dad only sprung for one extra bathroom that Charley had to share with his younger sisters. He had asked his father about building another but it was a money issue besides when his two older sisters went off to college their bathroom would open up and they certainly would not need a four bathroom house. Charley learned how to deal with the problems of sharing a bathroom with two teenage girls. During the week he set his alarm to get up early and kept his personal toiletries in a shaving kit he kept under the sink. He had not started shaving yet, he only had light peach fuzz. One thing he learned was all those who talked about how dirty teenage boys are never shared a bathroom with teenage girls. He had also learned to like the early mornings, being up a ready for school before his sisters had even woke. It was one of his favorite things to sit at the table in the morning as his mom put together breakfast and his dad read the paper. His mom still believed in the traditional breakfast. Nothing from a microwave, no toaster pastries for the family unless it was one of the weekends were mom and dad "slept in". He enjoyed the smell of the coffee even though he could not stand the taste. Until it quit working his mom insisted on the using the old stove top coffee pot her parent had used. There was something reassuring about the steamy gurgle of the old percolator mixed with the quite voices of his parents as they waited to have their first cup. This was Charley's alone time with his parents which was hard to come by in a family with five kids. They didn't talk much about him but he liked listening to their discussions. He could no longer enjoy those mornings. Charley walked slowly back to his bedroom. It had been a year since he last cried and he had promised himself no more but he was close to tears now. It was one thing to have your self-doubts and insecurities reinforced by the teasing and bullying of other kids, even on occasion your own sisters. It is a whole other level to hear your parents voice them also. Charley had thought he had made some progress. Seventh and eighth grade had been hell. The natural cruelty of kids was compounded by his parents attempts to involve him in athletic and group activities where is physical and social shortcomings were only more highlighted. Finally, either from listening to his pleading or just tired of being disappointed in him they allowed him to quit those activities. His freshman year in high school was looking pretty good, relatively speaking. So far he had managed to navigate the social minefield that is high school without calling any attention to him-self. He was almost a non-entity. He belonged to no clubs, had no extracurricular activities and really had no friends. Thus far his classes had no group assignments. During lunch he managed to find himself a place out of the way; where none of the social castes held sway or roamed the halls. Charley's school work had improved. He was still not honor society material but for the last grading period he had even managed one A. Sure it was in health but it was an A none the less when he had not seen many of those. Charley was not a stupid individual. He had figured out what part of his problem was all on his own and that was his self confidence. His regular assignments were Ok but it was taking exams he had big problems. He would rush through them always second guessing his answers and changing them even though he knew the material. He started forcing himself to slow down and quit second guessing himself. He was not always successful but he had made progress. It was somewhat hurtful that his parents had not seemed to notice the improvement in his grades but to be honest compared to his sister's Charley's grades still looked dismal. Added to that was the day the grades came out one sister had a game and another had a concert performance so it was a busy evening at the Robert's household and there was no reason for barely average achievement to get much notice. Charley enter his room closed and locked the door. His room was not a typical teenager's room, it was clean. Charley was a bit of a neatness freak in that regard. There were no clothes left on the floor, everything was put away and neat. He had a few posters on the walls of cars; the local pro football teams and much to his mom's chagrin their cheerleaders. His dad managed to persuade her to let him keep it up arguing that at least he showed some interest in girls. Charley was interested in girls but getting the courage to talk to one was another story. He turned out the light and lay fully clothed on the bed staring up into the darkness. He fought hard against it but the tear drops fell from the corners of his eyes. His own father questioned his parentage while his mom thought he was brain damaged not to mention they thought he was ugly, uncoordinated, dork. His older sisters barely acknowledged his presence in school though to be fair they rarely saw each other. It was the same with his younger sisters when he was in middle school. At home they were only together at meal time were discussion centered on them and their activities. He had no activities so there was not much to discuss. He spent most of his time in his room on his computer. He just played single person games. No chat rooms or social networking for him. He did not even have a Facebook page, what would he do with it, network with whom? In a family of seven people he was alone, now more than ever. To be continued... Tormented Soul Ch. 03 Emma had recovered from her shock and started to go after Charley but Paul grabbed her. "Where are you going" he asked. She pulled away tears starting to form. "I need to go to him, we hurt him and I need to make it right" "And say what to him? That we were only kidding, we didn't mean it? It was only the alcohol talking?" Paul pulled into a hug "We screwed up big time and we need to think this through. Let's get some coffee and see if we can fix this." Keeping one arm around her he grabbed their glasses and led her into the kitchen. He had her sit down at the table while he put the glasses in the sink and started the coffee. He missed the old stove top percolator they had, sure the drip coffee makers made good coffee but they lacked character. While he made coffee he spoke. "I don't think we can make this right." His wife just sat listening, the tears going down her cheeks. "What could we say that we make him feel better?" He then took a seat next to her and stared off at the kitchen wall. "Put yourself in his place, what if you had heard your parents say the same things about you? What if you heard me telling somebody that you were a lousy lover, wife and mother? What if I said you were stupid? You might with effort forgive them as drunken ranting but would you be able to forget?" "Then what do we do? My son is in his room hurting; we caused it and we need to fix it. We cannot just ignore it and hope it goes away." "We apologize anyway, and try to make it up to him. I don't mean spoil him or buy him everything but make sure we treat him as we do the other kids. You and I can't fix it but we have to hope that time can." They spent some time discussing how and when to approach Charley while drinking their coffee. They decided on the sooner the better. They went Charley's room and noticed no light was coming from underneath the door. Emma knocked and turned the handled finding it locked. Emma knocked lightly "Charley, can we come in?" Charley did not want to talk to his mom right now but he knew he could not keep her locked out. He got up from the bed, dried his eyes on his shirt turned and the light and unlocked the door. Emma and Paul were in anguish when they saw their son. Charley's eyes were red from crying and if ever a person looked emotionally beaten it was him. Emma was unable to contain herself and grabbed him in a hug, crying and muttering how sorry she and her dad were that they did not mean it that they had drunk too much. She started stroking his hair. She did not seem to notice that Charley did not return her hugs. Paul started to speak "Look Charley, I know you heard your mom and I said saying things we should of no have said. We had been drinking but that is no excuse. You are our son and we have always been proud of you." Charley extracted himself from his mom and sat on his bed, fighting back the tears his voice was raspy when he spoke, his head was down "Some of what you guys said was not anything I have not already heard at school." His voice started to break then he looked up at his father "Why are you proud of me?" Paul was brought up short for a moment but was able to respond. "You are a good kid, you have never caused me or your mother any grief, and you stay out of trouble." He paused and pulled up the chair from Charley's desk to sit in front his son while Emma sat on the bed next to him taking his hand in hers. "So your grades are not as good as your sisters and yes, we would like for you to do better but I remember I really did not start to make really good grades until my junior year in college when your mom lit a fire under me when we were dating. She said she was not going to keep dating an underachiever." At his he paused and smiled at his wife. "I have no doubt you will come into your own and do quite well and make us proud. You are Roberts after all. You are not in competition with your sisters or on a time schedule. I only hope you can forgive me and your mom for our own moment of stupidity." He stood up and then moved the chair back to the desk. Paul then bent over his son and kissed him on the forehead. "Your mom and I love you please do not doubt that." He held his handout to his wife. She kissed Charley on the cheek and gave him another hug. "Goodnight son, I love you." they left the room closing the door. As they walked down the hall they heard the lock click they turned and saw the light no longer coming from under the door. They started back down the hall, Emma sighed "We tried; but I feel so stupid." Paul hugged her. "There are no perfect parents. We made a big mistake but we can only do so much to try a fix it. We cannot let it govern everything we do. Right now I am exhausted. Let's go to bed." The weekend was a quite one, like Friday it was free of extracurricular activities, which was unusual. Charley kept to his room surfing the net and playing games, only coming out to eat. He didn't say much at meal time only responding to question which were few. As he was normally the quite one his sisters seemed not to notice. His parents had decided to give him some space and left him to himself. Monday morning was the first sign of real change. Charley got up early as he normally did but did not go out to the kitchen to share the morning with his parents. Instead he stayed in his room. Paul and Emma only exchanged glances neither wanting to talk about it. Emma was close to tears. His sisters arrived in the kitchen before he did and they noticed Charley's absence, at least Kathleen did as they normally sat next to each other. "Where's the freak?" Emma slammed the spatula down on the stove "Would you kids please quit picking at each for at least one morning!" The girl's and Paul all looked at her with a bit of shock. Emma's back remained to them her shoulder hunched over the stove. Kathleen's comment was not out of the ordinary as the kids picked on each other as all siblings do. Everybody was silent for a moment then Paul stated "Your mother is right; you kids need to quit sniping at each other. Diana, go tell you brother he needs to get out here for breakfast." Diana shouted "Charley, breakfast!" Paul sternly stated "I said to go get him. How many times have I talked to you about shouting? Now get to it." Diana gave a frustrated sigh and went after her brother. Emma had not said anything else but started putting breakfast at the table. Diana and Charley joined them shortly and everybody dug in for breakfast. Breakfast was quieter than normal. The girls were subdued given their parent's seeming bad moods and Charley never said much anyway. Conversation centered on the activities for the coming week, who needed rides and what events need to be attended by the parents. In the past Patrice and Kathleen would have brought up, once again, how much easier things would be if they had their own car. The general mood this morning was such that they kept quiet about it. Their parents had already decided they would each get a car when they went to college not before. Paul studied his children from over his coffee cup. There was not much chatter now, the clink of utensils on plates was the predominate sound. Sadly, he thought, Patrice and Kathleen were no longer children. They are young women and, in his opinion, acted very mature for their age. He still made sure to meet their boyfriends and prayed every night that they were not sexually active. Who really knew anymore? Soon they would be going off to college and that made him feel old. The twins were also growing up way too fast He still kept them under a tight leash but even his wife was beginning to try to get him to lighten up with things like makeup and clothing. Thinking to himself "When did it become acceptable for young girls to dress like sluts? Thankfully their school required uniforms. God help me when they start dating. It is surprising the older girls have not given me any gray hairs yet." Paul then looked at Charley. "Poor kid, so tall and skinny nothing fits him right. He must have hollow leg because as much as we feed him he never seems to gain weight. I sure wish there was something I could do to make things right. No child should have to be so miserable." Emma was doing her own thinking. She felt terrible about the harm she had done to her son. It was tearing her up inside and she had no idea how to make it better. She watched her son eat his breakfast. Other than not being the first one in the kitchen he did not act any different except he seemed to avoid looking at either of his parents. She thought to herself "How did I get to be such a horrible mother? No mother should think much less say such things about her own children." She took her seat at the table glancing at Charley. "Despite what Paul says there has to be some way of making this up to him; making everything all right." Charley did not look different this morning than any other morning except the sadness in his eyes. She realized that there was always some sadness there and it hurt her to know she had increased it. Charley had finished eating and cleared his place at the table, before disappearing back into his room. He had not said a word to anybody. He returned a short time later with his book bag. Looking toward his mom but not at her he asks. "Is it OK if I walk to school?" Emma was shocked and heartbroken at the same time. She had always driven the kids as their schools were her way to work, or at least not to far out of the way. She took Charley's request to walk was a statement he did not want to be around her. She was close to tears and about to tell him no when Paul spoke up looking at Emma. "That will be fine son, have a good today at school." Charley mumbled a goodbye and left. Emma moved to window, partly to watch him leave and partly so the other kids could not see her tears. Paul got up and stood behind her with both arms around her. They watched as Charley left with his book bag over one shoulder, his clothing hanging from his tall skinny frame as he walked down the sidewalk. No he didn't walk; with his shoulders drooped and head down he trudged off toward a place he did not want to go to from a place, it seemed, he no longer wanted to be.