6:30am Charlie awoke to the aggravating sound of her alarm clock.

"Fuck off." The brunette mumbled into her pillow, still very much asleep. "I heard you the first seventeen times." She added, before finally turning her attention to the irritating object and slapped the 'OFF' button with her hand.

Every school day morning she had the same routine and today was no different. Walk to the washroom and start the water to heat it up. Grab a towel from under her sink and place it on top of the closed toilet seat. Undress, place pajamas on the counter and step into the water, before quickly realizing it was too cold and turning the knob another inch to the left to turn up the heat. It always calmed her to know that things were the same, even though she was kilometers - or rather miles, as she should start referring to them - from where she'd grown up.

She'd never admit it, but Charlie had a shower song.

Now, this is the story all about how

My life got flipped-turned upside down

And I'd like to take a minute

Just sit right there

I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air.

She always found it embarrassing that she remembered these lyrics so easily; she never really watched the show when she was younger and even when she did, she'd usually miss the opening sequence. She knew the water drowned out her voice, so she was never worried someone might hear her, so she sung - or rather rapped- it anyway.

Charlie's hair was extremely thick, so she always had to 'de-knot', which took several minutes. Clean and condition it, followed by rinsing each product out, which usually took the longest.

She hated her hair, but she knew it wouldn't look right any other way. So she stuck with it and its laborious upkeep.

Around fifteen minutes later, she emerged from the shower. Towel dried her entire body and once most of her skin was fairly dry, she wrapped the towel around her hair to halt any drips of water that would drip from it. A brush of the teeth and an application of deodorant later, she removed the towel from her hair and wrapped it like a dress around her chest. She always claimed that this was the only time she would ever be in something remotely dress-like.

She threw on some undergarments, a pair of jeans with a leather belt, a plain heather grey T-Shirt, a pair of plain white socks and to finish off her outfit, she placed a red and navy blue flannel shirt on her torso, to cover her somewhat bare arms.

Back in the bathroom, she parted her hair more or less to the side and placed hair cream in her curls. It didn't matter what season it was, her hair naturally frizzed. So she could never leave the house (presentably) without stuff in her hair to hold it down.

Her morning routine never took more than thirty minutes, so by 7am she was downstairs eating cheerios.

Mrs. Gauthier was the first of her parents to appear from their bedroom, she walked down the stairs dressed and ready to go to her job as a pediatric surgeon at the Lima General Hospital.

"Hey hon, how was your game last night?" She said cheerfully, her French accent nearly masked. She walked over to give her daughter a peck on the forehead, before heading to the coffee maker.

"Not bad, we won." Charlie mumbled, her mouth full of cheerios and milk.

"So I guess nothing's changed then, huh?" The older brunette giggled, turning away from the coffeemaker to nudge Charlie on the shoulder.

"Yeah, I guess not." Charlie replied after finishing off her bowl of cereal.

"Good morning." A deeper, clearly French voice said, coming from the stairs.

"Morning dad." Charlie returned, knowing she had to say something or he would assume something was wrong.

Her parents then went into their morning routine, which consisted of what seemed like a million kisses and several pats on the bum.

"Hey!" Charlie nearly yelled, clearly embarrassed by her parents touchy-feelyness.

"What?" Both of her parents turned towards her.

"Um…" She needed to think of something to get them to stop. "Where is Chris?" Her younger brother was the first thing that popped into her head.

"Hey, Christian? Vous n'avez que dix minutes pour obtenir votre âne sortir du lit ou vous serez en retard pour l'école!" Her father, Étienne shouted from the bottom of the stairs, towards her brother's room a storey up.

"Can't you let a guy rest in peace?" He replied, emerging from his bedroom still in his sleepwear.

"No, not if that guy has school in twenty-five minutes." Her mother, Diane replied.

"Yeah and if he doesn't go to school today, that means he can't play in tonight's game." Her father added, taking a sip of the coffee that'd been made for him. Her brother had played AAA hockey back home and was ready to be drafted into the OHL, despite his mother pleading that he instead go play in the NCAA in a few years.

Since the move he'd tried out and made the McKinley high boys team and the Ohio Junior Blue Jackets, which was another AAA team, even though he'd have to drive over an hour to get to the arena, he knew it was his best option to get some recognition from scouts.

Most would think that playing hockey four or five times a week would be a lot for a fifteen year old to handle, never mind adding in school, but Chris was like a robot. He was a star defenceman for every team he'd played for and he earned mostly A's in school. It was pretty easy to say he was a perfect child, despite his inability to wake himself up in the morning.

"Ugh, whatever" Chris replied, walking into his washroom to get ready.

"Which reminds me, how was your game last night?" Her father asked, turning his attention to her.

"I already went over this with mom." Charlie replied.

"Okay, but you have to remember, I have not yet mastered the skill of mind-reading. So you'll have to communicate through words with me." Étienne returned playfully.

"It was fine, okay?" She answered, before asking the question she'd been thinking about since the night before. "Where were you guys though?"

"Sorry about that, I had a critical patient who needed surgery, so I didn't get back from the hospital until late." Her mother replied thoughtfully.

"And I had to hand the first five-thousand words of my new book in for review." Her father had been a senior editor for the Toronto Star and had written numerous editorials, before he pitched a story to an Ohio based publishing company and was signed on to write the book and to work as an editorial writer for the Lima News. He loved writing, so he didn't really care where he did it.

"I assume you found a way home from the arena though?" Her mother asked.

"Yeah, I got ride with a girl from the team and a couple of her friends." She replied, not bothering to add in that they'd gone for dinner and that one of them lived only a few houses down.

Chris came down the stairs, just as Charlie finished her sentence.

"Okay, I need two things. A banana and a ride to school." Chris stated while grabbing his backpack, which was hanging from the banister.

"Make that three things, you forgot manners." Their mother added jokingly.

"Haha, very funny… May I please have a ride to school?" He re-stated.

"Not from me, sorry. I have pedes rotation this morning, so I have to be there in…" Diane looked at her watch. "Fifteen minutes, so I'll be late if I don't leave now and since your school isn't on the way, you're out of luck." She grabbed her coat from the closet, put on her shoes and grabbed her bag, before turning towards the door. "I'll see you guys tonight at Chris' game. Have a good day at school." She added, before leaving.

"Can I bum a ride with you?" Chris asked, turning towards his father.

"Sorry bud, I have a meeting at work in thirty minutes and I don't have anything prepared." He gave his son an apologetic look, before turning to his daughter. "But I'm sure Charlie can." He gave his son a pat on the back and his daughter a kiss on the cheek, before putting on his shoes and coat to leave. "I'll be back home at 4:30 to take you to your game, so make sure you've got everything ready for then." With that he was gone.

"Alright, hurry up and grab your shit because school starts in twenty minutes and I am not going to be late because you're an idiot." Charlie stated, before walking towards the front door and opening it. "Frig it's cold out." She grabbed a coat from the closet next to her and threw it on.

"Yeah, who'd a thought this place would be just as cold as home?" Chris returned.

"I sure as hell didn't." Charlie replied. "I'll be waiting in the car."

By the time she'd made it to the red 1997 Automatic Jeep Wrangler her parents had bought her as a 'Christmas, very early birthday, and congrats on getting your full license' present, put her bag in the backseat and started to warm up the car, her brother had finished doing whatever it was that he was doing and jumped into the truck.

"Did you lock the front door?" Charlie asked, before putting her hand on the gear shifter.

"Yes mom." Chris replied sarcastically.

Nothing was said after that, until they neared the student parking lot of McKinley High. The silence, with the exception of the sound of the radio was interrupted by Charlie.

"Oh and before I forget, can you tell mom and dad I won't be going to your game tonight?"

'Sure, but why aren't you?" Chris replied, not necessarily interested, but more so that he could explain her absence to their parents.

"Just tell them I'm meeting up with some friends." Charlie answered; she still wasn't a hundred percent sure about trying out for glee club afterschool.

"Whatever." Chris ended the conversation, before getting out of the parked Jeep and heading towards a side door into the school.

'Alright, math first.' Charlie thought to herself, as she too got out of the vehicle and headed towards the school. She'd been at McKinley for just over a week now, but she was still getting used to her timetable.

She turned back towards her truck, realizing she forgot to lock it.

With the reassuring sound of her car beeping, she went back to walking inside and entered the school.