#Chapter 106: Tongue Tied

Darren The silence in the room felt suffocating. My father’s hand trembled faintly as he scrawled across the notepad, the pen moving unevenly. His movements were jerky. Unnatural. Not at all like the calm and collected man I used to know. Meanwhile, Arthur stood in the doorway. I didn’t look at him, but I could feel his presence as he watched my father write. Something was wrong here. When my father finally set the pen down, I reached for the notepad and my breath caught in my throat when I saw the words he had written. “Charles did it. All of it.” The words stared back at me, mocking me. My grip tightened on the edges of the paper, my pulse roaring in my ears. For a moment, I forgot how to breathe. “Dad,” I murmured, my voice breaking through the heavy silence. “What does this mean?” But he didn’t respond. Of course he didn’t respond. He just returned his gaze to the window, his body slumping in the chair once more as if he’d used his la