Kyle's POV
Room 270…Room 271…
Here it is, room 272. This is Charlie's room. I walk in and see her on her bed. The room has 3 other patients with her at the right corner, next to the window. She perks up as she hears me footsteps. Her face brightens up tremendously, she must be really happy to see me.
"Hey Charlie, how have you been doing?"
"I've been better. The doctors say I can start seeing visitors now that I have been properly 'evaluated'." She says with air quotes. "Which basically means just asking me pointless crap. Are you OK? How are you feeling? Do you wanna talk about it? Urgh…" She throws her head back into her pillow in annoyance, but then again I would too if I was kept in a psychiatric ward.
"So I'm your first visitor?" I try to lighten up the mood.
"Well no one else gives a shit enough to come. Honestly, I'm just glad to talk to someone who isn't trying to feed me meds."
I take a seat onto the plastic chair next to her bed and start talking to her more. This is the first time we actually talk after the incident and I get to know her a bit more. She's 2 years younger than me, a junior at a local high school. She probably would have been another student in the background if it wasn't for her gender identity and some bigoted assholes from her school, I guess there's always gotta be one in every school.
"Well, there's always douchebags ripping on us for things we can't change. Sometimes you've just take it and stride." I tell her, "You would not believe how much shit I went through just because I'm Jewish."
"Do tell." She is now intrigued, she really seems interested when I talk about my life in South Park. Why anyone would be this interested in some crazy white trash mountain town is beyond me.
"Well, since my family's the only Jewish family in town that excludes me from any Christian holidays, which includes Easter, and worst of all, Christmas. My mom tried to ban all the Christmas stuff once, I heard it was once of the worst Christmases they've ever spent, but I wouldn't know, that Christmas I ended up spending some alone time in a mental ward, tied up in a strait jacket for believing in Mr. Hanky, the Christmas poo. Which is totally real by the way." I say with a bit more force at the end than I intended.
She laughs and puts a hand on my shoulder, "Calm down, man. I believe you. I mean, it's South Park. A living piece of shit wouldn't be too unbelievable." I honestly can't tell if she's being sincere or sarcastic.
"Anyways…" I continue. "…I also had this kinda 'friend?' named Eric Cartman. He was the biggest, most manipulative, racist fuck I've ever met. Trust me, the number of times he's tried to kill me are unbelievable and he even tried to exterminate all the Jews once."
"Jesus, what is he?! Some sick reincarnation of Hilter?" She says in shock and eyes widen in horror.
"He'd probably take that as a compliment." I roll my eyes at the memory of my horrible 'friend'.
"Then why did you hang out with him?" She brings up a common question, one I could never find a good answer to.
"I don't know, we grew up together so I guess we were kinda stuck together. Life was definitely easier after he moved but there will always be some other asshole ready to take his place."
"I wish I could make things easier for me, too bad it'd take more than just some sad fuck moving and leaving me alone. I keep wondering if it was a mistake, to set myself free. If this part of me had just stayed hidden, then maybe things wouldn't be so fucked up right now. My family would still love me, I'd still be accepted by my peers…"
"But would you have been happy?" I ask her. "I can't tell since I haven't know you for that long but if you decided on changing, that must mean you weren't happy and you were trying to change that."
All of a sudden, I hear loud stomping as a man comes running down the hall. He looks in and locks eyes with Charlie, his glares shooting daggers as he stomps over to her. She seems terrified. I walk to him cautiously, trying to calm him down but he shoves me aside, knocking me into the other bed. He swings his fist and it hits Charlie in the face, hard. He keeps going, blow after blow onto her face, her body, her stomach. She winces from the pain and tries to turn away, shielding herself with her arms but he pulls her hair, tugging her face out of her safety zone as he continues his assault.
I stand back up and rush to him, catching his fist before he give her another black eye, "What the fuck are you doing to her?!"
He scoffs and turns to me, one arm grabbing me by the collar and glaring me right in the eye. "Is this your new boy toy?"
"Don't hurt him, Danny! Please!" She's crying now, begging for my safety. I'm getting more pissed off by the second. This is what she deals with every day at home? No wonder she almost jumped.
"You're fucking pathetic. Dad wouldn't even come to see your sorry ass. I have to come here and deal with your stupid medical bills because you decided to be an unstable little bitch!"
"Dude, I'm only warning you once. Shut up and lay the hell off of her!" I scowl at him.
"Don't call him a her!" He lets go of her and yells at me. "He is supposed to be my brother, he's supposed to be a man. What kind of man wants to cut off his own fucking balls?! He's a goddamn disgrace!"
"No! You're the disgrace. For beating your little sister who's in a hospital, for making a scene in said hospital and for threatening to beat up a friend of hers that actually cares! Now let me the fuck go before you join her in the hospital!"
Soon, some security guards come in and take Danny away. He screams obscenities as the guards pull him out of the room. I turn back to Charlie. Her knees now tucked up to her chest and her arms in front of them, connected in a circle, wrapping herself into a small, sobbing ball.
I pat her on the back as a show of comfort. I still faintly hear her sobs and sniffles. I feel awful, getting an idea of what she goes through day by day. After what feels like forever, I hear her rigged breathing calm down and her sobs disappear. Her head pops out of her knees and I see the damage her brother has done to her. Her face is covered in bruises, some of them blood red while others are already turning black and blue, her lip is cracked and bleeding, she's got a black eye on her right.
I must look mortified because she just gives me a hollow smile, the ones you know are fake and just for show, and says, "It's OK, this happens all the time. I'm just lucky it's just Danny this time."
"It's usually more than one?!" I shout in shock. I must have been pretty loud because everyone in the room looks at me, even some of the nurses in the hall are glancing over to us.
"Sometimes, it's my dad. Sometimes it's Danny or my uncle Nathan. On some days, if I'm lucky, they double team me, back to back. My mom cries a lot but after they leave, she always comes to hug me, saying it's OK and that they do it because they love me."
"Bull fucking shit! No one beats the living crap out of the people they care about. Your family is abusive, Charlotte. I don't want to see you hurt again."
"But they're my family, Kyle. I have nowhere else to go."
We sit together in silence, she's right. I'm not sure if reporting them for abuse would work since I've only seen her brother beat her and it could be pretty easy to just push it all to Danny. That wouldn't save her from the rest of them.
I'm pretty sure that I can't take her in, she's 16 and her family still has custody over her. If I try and take her away from them, they could report us for kidnapping or something. I doubt she'll have any money if she tried to get her freedom from them legally. The silence is becoming unbearable, so I decide to break it.
"What do you want me to do, Charlie? How can I help you?"
"I don't know." She answers dazedly. "You saved me, but I still don't know how long I can hold on. This is something I wouldn't wish on anyone, I know I'm not the only one, they deserve a second chance too."
"Now that you mention it, I remember one of the reasons I came to visit you." I'm not sure if this is the best moment to bring it up, but at this point no moment's a good moment.
I take a deep breath and explain to her, "Charlie, the student podcast called me up and invited me to appear as a guest. I'm pretty sure they're gonna ask me about you and the incident." I look her in the eyes. "This is your story and I won't say anything if you don't want it going on air."
"No…" She shakes her head. "Tell them, Kyle. Tell them everything I've said, everything I'm going through and everything have happened here today."
"Are you sure? I don't know who will hear it and I don't know what will happen once everything's out."
"My guess, either two things. One, nothing much changes, I'll still be on the short end of the stick and those sick bastards are going to use it as ammo and rip on me for being a pussy-"
"You are not a pussy, Charlie. You're a survivor. What I seen today more than proves it." I cut her off.
"-Two," She continues like I hadn't just interrupted her, "people might actually give a shit for once. People might stop and look around to see that some people are broken but not yet beyond repair, and those who are trying to do what I almost accomplished, maybe they'll give it a second thought. They can't rely on someone like you to show up at the last minute and stop them before they could give themselves another fighting chance."
"You think the odds are worth it?" I raise an eyebrow.
"You think risking your safety to save me was worth it?"
"OK." I sigh, "I call the nurses so they can treat your wounds. Stay strong. Charlie." I stand up and wave goodbye.
"Thank you Kyle. For doing this and for visiting me."
A/N: That's a little insight into Charlie's life so far, along with Charlie and Kyle's friendship. Next time we wrap up the interview with Kyle.
1000 views! Thanks to the people who are enjoying this so much.
OK, can we talk about the latest episode for a moment? Talk about a turning point, when the episode started I was getting so pissed off, then halfway through I started enjoying it again, laughing and thinking that they do know what they're doing... Most of the time, Stan and Kenny are still background characters this season and I'm still upset about that.
As always, if you like this story feel free to check out the drama it's based on, "It's Okay That's Love" by SBS.
Take care, Loves.