Chapter 8

This was what family really meant, a safe harbor that would stand behind you no matter what kind of storm you were in.

For the next week, I practically locked myself in my room. I poured all of myself into that test translation. The original novel was beautiful, but the wording was incredibly precise, packed with German slang and cultural references. To capture its soul instead of just swapping words around took real skill and a ton of research.

By day, I buried myself in German dictionaries and reference materials. By night, I sat in front of my computer weighing every single word. It felt like I had become my college self again, the Charlotte who could stay awake for three straight days for the sake of a paper.

The light came back into my eyes. It was hunger for knowledge, for the dream I used to chase.

Andrew Shaw and all the mess he brought with him got pushed completely out of my mind. My world narrowed down to words and the sparks that flew when ideas collided.

Every day, my mom made me something different to eat and quietly left it outside my room without ever coming in to disturb me. When I stayed up until dawn, my dad would bring me a glass of hot milk and sit with me for a while in silence. That quiet kind of company gave me endless strength.

A week later, when I finally sent off the finished draft, I felt wrung out. I leaned back in my chair, looked at the pale dawn outside the window, and let out a long breath. I had done everything I could. The rest was up to fate.

No matter how it turned out, I wouldn't regret it. The process itself had already helped me find the part of myself I'd lost for eight years, a Charlotte Quinn with a soul, with ambition, with light of her own.

The days of waiting for a reply were long and brutal. While I adjusted my mindset, I also started planning out my future and looking at apartment listings around Silverlake City online. I wanted a place of my own. I didn't want my parents worrying about me forever.

Andrew's black Land Rover still showed up downstairs every single day, right on schedule. Like an obsessed shadow, he was still trying to keep me under his control. But I had already learned to look straight through him. My heart had already gone somewhere much farther away.

Then one day, my dad got a phone call. He took it out on the balcony and kept his voice very low, but I still sensed the shift in his mood. By the time he came back inside, his face looked terrible.

My mom asked worriedly, "Honey, who was that? Did something happen?" My dad forced a smile and shook his head. "Nothing. Just an old coworker shooting the breeze."

Then he sat on the couch with the newspaper, but he didn't turn a single page for the longest time. I knew he was hiding something from us.

That night, after my mom had gone to sleep, I went into the study. My dad was sitting alone at the desk smoking, and the ashtray was already full of cigarette butts.

Under the dim desk lamp, his back looked more tired and lonely than I'd ever seen it. "Dad," I called softly.

He turned around, saw me, and hurriedly tried to stub out his cigarette. "Why are you still up?" I walked over and sat beside him.

"What really happened with that call this afternoon?" My dad stayed silent for a long time, then let out a heavy sigh. "Lottie, don't worry about it. Dad can handle it."

The more he said that, the more uneasy I felt. "Dad, I'm your daughter. What is it that you can't tell me?" After I kept pressing him, he finally told me the truth.

The call had come from his old principal. Before retiring, my dad had been a master teacher at Silverlake High School, respected throughout the education community and beloved by generations of students. The principal had told him, awkwardly, that the city Board of Education had recently received an anonymous letter.