By and by, we the readers find out that Charlie has serious problems in his mind, because of something bad that happened when he was a child. It is connected with his aunt Helen, who died in a car accident when she went to buy a birthday gift for Charlie. When Charlie and Sam kiss and she touches him sexually, he gets "flashbacks" of those old memories, which are so strong and confusing that he ends up in a mental hospital. There he is helped to remember and overcome that wound from the past. His family also understands him better now, and it looks like a new, better phase of his life has started.