Charlie...

Charlie was a friend of my brother's.  He was in and out of our house a lot at one point.
He was 14, with a big brain and a big mouth...and parents who doubtlessly beat him up...I think his mom may have brought boyfriends around who abused him sexually.

I once told him that if he never needed to talk about anything, I'd listen...I wanted to "adopt" him in an emotional sense.  He really didn't seem to have anybody, and I knew he was living in chaos.
I kept hearing about how he was getting wilder and wilder...getting into harder drugs.
Then I heard he'd been present at a murder, that this had somehow earned him a trip to prison.
I found out today that he'd hung himself. Just released from prison, 19, killed himself.
So random...
Some of us make it out alive and able to heal.  Some of us don't make it out of our soul-destroying families...
I'm just so very sad for that young man... I wish there was something I could have done to stop this.