Red Dirt Heart 3 Read Online Free PDF

somewhere in the house, Ma chipped me for swearing, and Travis threw his head back and laughed. I stomped back inside to my office and ignored him for a while longer, and eventually the thumping stopped.
    Only then did Travis call out, “Charlie? Charlie, you need to come see this.”
     

CHAPTER THREE
More than just memories.
     
    Two cardboard boxes sat on the kitchen table.
    Old, dusty, forgotten.
    I had no clue what was in them, and I was almost too scared to look. Obviously put in the roof cavity for safekeeping—or so no one could find them—these boxes hadn’t been touched in years.
    My name and date of birth in my father’s handwriting on the side of them was what stopped me.
    Scared me.
    “Charlie,” Travis said quietly. He was beside me, as was Ma. Bacon, who had helped retrieve them, was now gone. “Did you want to open them?”
    I nodded, then shook my head. “I don’t know.”
    “You don’t have to,” he whispered. “I can put them in the shed until you’re ready.”
    I thought I was past this. I thought I’d come to terms with my father, his hurtful, no-toleratin’ words, his disappointed stare. I thought I’d accepted my past and moved on. Hell, I’d even acknowledged I was as stubborn as my father—even proud of it. I’d dealt with the homophobic comments and stares exactly how he would have dealt with someone who didn’t agree with him.
    I knew that streak of no-bullshit front-foot-leading arrogance came direct from my old man, and I was okay with it.
    And yet whatever he kept hidden in these two boxes rendered me back to square one. I was a scared kid again waiting for his words to hurt me.
    “I thought he’d said all he could say,” I heard myself say. I’m not sure I meant to say it out loud. Trav put his hand on my back, and I looked at him. “What if there’s just more ‘you’re such a disappointment’ in there.”
    Trav lifted his chin, as though the thought offended him. “Charlie, his words can’t hurt you anymore,” he said. I think he’d said that before. “You know that, right? You have the power over whatever is in these boxes. You decide, not him.”
    I found myself staring at him. He was exactly right. “How’d you get so smart?” I asked.
    “I’m not that smart. I just know how your mind works. I knew exactly what you were thinking, Charlie.” He kissed the side of my head. “Did you want to open them?”
    I nodded and looked over to Ma, who was smiling at Travis. “You okay, Ma?” I asked.
    She still looked tired, but she turned her gentle smile to me as she sat down at the table. “I’m fine,” she said. “I just worry when you worry, that’s all.”
    I pulled out a seat, but rested my knee on it instead of sitting down, and pulled the first box over. Without being asked, Travis sat a cup of tea in front of Ma, and they both waited for me to open the first box.
    I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe letters, legal documents, maybe even financial documents we hadn’t found when we cleared out his room.
    What I found made me both smile and frown.
    I reached into the box and pulled out the first thing. It was a teddy bear. Old, faded, a bit worn, and it looked like it’d been dropped in the mud. I didn’t recognise it.
    “Oh, that was yours,” Ma said quietly. “Up until you were three, you carried it everywhere.”
    “I don’t remember it,” I said, putting it on the table.
    Ma picked it up and looked the bear over. “Your father took it off you after your third birthday. Said you were too old to be carrying ’round a stuffed toy.”
    I shrugged. That didn’t surprise me. Not one bit.
    “Now this I remember,” I said, pulling out a sawn-off plaster cast. It was dirt-brown, frayed and smaller than I remembered. “My first broken arm,” I said with a laugh. “Remember, Ma? I came off my motorbike.”
    Ma glared at me. “Of course I remember. How could I forget?”
    Travis took it and looked it over. “That’s disgusting.