Not Broken, Just Bent by Mia Kerick

Author:Mia Kerick [Kerick, Mia]
Language: eng
Format: epub

“DAD! DAD!” I burst into the house, not even stopping to take off my snowy boots. “He’s gone—Timmy’s gone!”

My dad came rushing downstairs. “What? Ben, slow down and tell me what you’re talking about.”

“Dad, Timmy… his whole family… all of them—they’re gone!”

“What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Dad grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me a little bit because I was totally flipping out.

So I stopped to catch my breath. “I went over there, you know, to his trailer… and it was pretty much empty inside. I know that because I looked in. Then this old guy told me that the police came and took all of the kids like two weeks ago!”

My father just nodded. He just frigging nodded!

“And I don’t know where the hell Timmy’s gone to!” I couldn’t believe Dad wasn’t freaking out right beside me. “We need to find out where the hell Timmy is! Like, right now!”

Dad tried to put his arm around my shoulder to calm me down, but I wasn’t having any of that.

“Didn’t you hear me? Timmy is missing!”

“Ben, you need to settle down. Tim isn’t missing. He was probably in protective custody for several days and since then he’s been placed in a foster home, or maybe in a group home.”

“What the fuck?”

“Language, Benjamin, watch your language.” He led me over to the couch by my wrist, more or less forcibly, and we sat down. I tried to catch my breath again, while my dad probably tried to figure out what to say next. “I told you that I had to make that child abuse report. It was my moral and legal obligation to do so, son. And the police had to act on it. What happens after that, well, son, it’s not our business.”

“Not my business? He’s my best friend—Dad, I love Timmy!”

He stared at me strangely for a couple of seconds, then he snapped out of it and said, “I love Tim too. And I’m going to try to be happy that he is getting the help that he needs.”

“But….” I’d wanted Timmy to get help; I’d just wanted him to get his help here, with me. “I thought you were gonna tell the cops that he could live with us!”

“Benny, I did say that. I guess…. Well, I guess they thought it would be best for Tim to go in another direction.”

“Another direction.” I just repeated the two words that had apparently wrecked my life. Then I stretched flat out on the couch and stuck my head on Dad’s lap the way a little kid would do. Staring past his face at the ceiling, I admitted quietly, “But… but I miss him… so, so much. I don’t want to finish high school without him.”

When Dad spoke next, his voiced sounded tight, even choked up with emotion. “Listen, I’m certain that Tim feels the same way and misses you just as much. But he is doing what he needs to do to recover from years of a hell that, frankly, Ben, we don’t know a lot about.

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