Warning: Contains mentions of depression, self-harm, suicide, domestic emotional and verbal abuse. (I may need to add more warnings when it seems necessary or I have decided to add another element to the story that requires a warning.)
- WARNING - THIS NEXT WARNING CONTAINS A SPOILER -
Spoiling warning: LGBTQ+ characters. (If you have a problem with that, I advise you to leave, before all of Nico's self-proclaimed spouses, parents, and siblings come after you [AKA me].)
All's Fair in Love and War by
Pandemonium K
Chapter Five: The Long Ride
"What is this?" Derek yelled, slamming the History Test onto the coffee table. "I thought you've been studying!"
"I have!" Charlie insisted. "I really have! It's not even that bad a grade!"
Derek looked Charlie in the eye and said, deadly quiet, "What did you just say to me?"
"Nothing," Charlie mumbled, almost inaudibly.
Derek stood up, screamed, "Tell me what you just said!" He wiped chicken gravy from his hand onto the napkin that was hanging from his collar. He ripped it away, crumpled it up, and dropped it onto the coffee table.
"I said it wasn't that bad a grade!" Charlie screamed back. Derek inhaled loudly through his nose, his eyes widening.
"It is most certainly a terrible grade for a terrible daughter! How are you ever supposed to get a job and a life when you act like a child? You're a little idiot. I don't even know what I was expecting from you. Every time I get my hopes up that maybe for once you won't act so despicable, and you let me down!" Derek yelled, spitting wildly.
"Kristen got a sixty four in Language Class last week! I saw the test! Kiddo was eating it!"
"You are not Kristen! Kristen is older and has harder study material. Don't compare yourself to her."
"But-!"
"No buts! Get out of here! Go to your room, or go outside. Just leave!"
Charlie screeched and stormed upstairs, she heard Andrew snickering from the bottom of the stairs, she turned around, smacked him upside the head, and stormed back to her room.
"Dad!" Andrew wailed.
"No dinner tonight, Charlie!" Derek yelled up the stairs, and continued to eat his chicken.
Charlie's bedroom door flew open; she marched inside, grabbed her backpack, put on her shoes, then marched right back out.
She stomped down the stairs as loudly as she could, and entered the kitchen. Charlie opened the cereal cabinet, moved some cereal boxes around, and found her secret baggie of cheerios.
She stuffed the cheerios into her backpack, ran to the door, and made her way out. She slammed the door behind herself, shutting her eyes tightly, as to not let any tears escape.
She took a deep breath, and started walking down the street. She aggressively hummed the tune of My Fault as she walked, trying to calm herself down. Every time she passed someone, she stopped humming until they were out of earshot. Even while humming I sound terrible, she thought to herself.
She walked with her head down, avoiding any eye contact with other pedestrians as she wandered to nowhere in particular. She came to a crosswalk and looked both ways. A large silver car that looked relatively new was coming up. It slowed down slightly as it approached the crosswalk, but Charlie wasn't sure it was actually stopping.
She tensed as she watched the car come closer. Her face felt hot as she made eye contact with the driver for a split second. A split second in which Charlie noticed the anger on the driver's face. The driver, a woman who looked to be in her forties, with short brown hair and bright red lipstick, angrily waved her hand, motioning to Charlie to cross the street already.
Before the woman even stopped her car, still just driving slowly towards the crosswalk, Charlie ran across the street with her head down, her heart raced, and she heard the car's engine as it zoomed past her, now at high speed.
Charlie shifted awkwardly, standing still on the other side of the crosswalk. She felt bad. What would that random woman think of her now? Even crossing the street, one of the simplest of the simplest tasks, had made Charlie feel like a fool.
Charlie took a deep breath and trudged onwards. The weight of her upper body felt heavy on her legs, which felt like they had suddenly turned to gelatin.
She looked around for any park benches, but she couldn't spot any. The closest thing she could find was the bench of a bus stop. Charlie shrugged to herself. She'd always intended to try something like this before, take a bus and let the driver lead her away from her problems, not know where she's going, not know when she's coming back.
She walked over to the bus stop and immediately analyzed the situation. Sitting on the bench were an old woman and a young girl who looked about five, probably the woman's granddaughter, and boy with curly blond hair, and a blue hat, who looked about her own age.
With slight difficulty, Charlie recognized the boy as Harvey Tall, a boy she has known since first grade as a heavenly angel sent from heaven to bless adults, but a hellish demon sent from hell to curse any females of his age or younger with tormenting pranks, teasing, and bullying.
Charlie was about to turn around and walk away to find a place near the bus stop where she could sit peacefully, alone, but still be able to see when a bus is coming, when Harvey looked up from his cell-phone and gave her a sly smile.
Charlie shot him a look of disgust and he chuckled. His eyes flickered back down to his phone for a nanosecond before he looked back up and gazed at something behind Charlie, his smile instantly vanished, and was instead replaced with a glare and a look of loathing.
"Granny, look!" the little girl said excitedly to who Charlie correctly guessed was her grandmother. The little girl was pointing to across the street, to where Harvey was also looking.
Curiosity overtook Charlie and she turned around and saw what the commotion was about. Two boys who looked to be about eighteen or less were standing across the street in a tight embrace. The shorter guy, dark skinned with dark hair in dreadlocks, stood up on his toes, bringing his face closer to the taller guy's.
The taller one, pale skinned with pale blond hair, still with his arms around the shorter guy's waist, lifted him up off his feet. The shorter guy yelped, then he laughed and gave the other a kiss on the cheek.
"Granny, look! He kissed him on the cheek." The little girl giggled. "That's silly. Two boys kissing. Very silly." She giggled again.
The girl's grandmother smiled, obviously amused. "Why is it silly, Love? Why is it silly that two boys love each other? Or two girls?"
The little girl pursed her lips and sat down on the sidewalk. "I don't know, Granny. I've never seen two boys kiss before. But I've seen Sofia and her best friend Darcy kiss all the time, but they said not to tell anyone." The little girl's voice trailed off, she looked down at the bricks that make out the sidewalk and started picking at pebbles. "Oops. Don't tell Sofia that I told you, she will kill me, Granny." The girl added in a whisper.
The grandmother's eyes sparkled as she looked down at her granddaughter as if she were more than all the gold and diamonds of the earth, sitting in a pile at her feet. "I'll talk to your sister. It's the kissing part I'm concerned about. Frankly, I don't care who she's kissing, but I don't want her kissing anyone just yet."
The little girl grinned widely and looked up at her grandmother. "I don't know what 'frankly' means, Granny." The grandmother laughed, she picked up the girl and set her down on her lap. She began to explain to her granddaughter the definition of the word 'frankly'. Charlie stopped listening there.
Charlie's heart fluttered with joy. Seeing an old woman who probably comes from times of hate and refusal towards people who are different from oneself stand up for them without a moment's hesitation was something Charlie wished she could see every day all over again.
But suddenly Charlie felt something else. She felt bad. She felt upset. She felt mad. She felt mad at herself for going about eavesdropping on people's conversations and then feeling happy or sad about something that has nothing to do with her, then go about and completely ignore the fact that she just did a bad thing.
What if she would have heard something bad about a person? Something that would be a cause of judgment? Who is she to judge someone she wouldn't even know the name of?
Charlie mentally slapped herself. Pulling herself together, Charlie was, again, about to go find a secluded spot to sit and wait for the first bus that arrives when she saw it coming. The first bus.
Such luck never finds its way to Charlie. Only needing to wait so little time was practically a God-given blessing to her.
Charlie fished her wallet out of the small pocket in her backpack, she took out her bus card and waited on the curb for the bus to pull up. The bus stopped in front of her and the doors opened.
With her head down, Charlie stepped onto the bus. No one from the stop joined her. Charlie scanned her card on the machine, and her receipt printed not a moment later, indicating that Charlie's card was now about a dollar less full.
Charlie turned towards the aisle, a look of terror settled on her face as a horrifying realization struck her; the entire bus was full except for two seats.
Charlie gulped and took a step, intending to take another, as the bus lurched forward and Charlie was pushed off her feet. She fell forwards, her knees landed painfully on the edge of the first stair, her wallet and bus card were knocked out of her hands, but worst of all, she looked up and spotted the movement of a few heads abruptly look in the opposite direction.
Charlie became stressed within a mere second, breathing heavily and trying to ignore the pain in her knees, she fumbled around, trying to pick up her wallet and card. It took a moment, but soon she was hurriedly making her way up the aisle to the two empty seats with all of her belongings and what was remaining of her dignity.
She sat down and took a deep breath. She felt a panic attack come and go, and soon she was breathing normally and her heart had returned to a steadier pace.
She fished a pair of headphones and Kristen's old MP3 out of her backpack, also returning her bus card to her wallet and her wallet to her bag. Charlie put on the headphones and played the first song that came up. Bohemian Rhapsody, if you were wondering.
By the time the six minute song had ended, seven people went off the bus and two came on. One of the two who came on the bus was a slim teenage girl with frizzy red hair, an over-sized blue shirt, and jeans with holes in them that Charlie was pretty sure weren't part of the design.
Despite the fact that by then there were quite a few empty seats available, the girl walked right up to Charlie and tapped on her shoulder.
Charlie flinched as soon as the girl's finger made contact with her shoulder. She shuddered and pulled off her headphones, trying to hide her discomfort.
When Charlie looked up at the girl's face, the first thing she noticed was the girl's bright green eyes and freckles. Eyes so green that they reminded Charlie of the green part of her book about Greek mythology, the green and blue one that her mother had given her. Her freckles looked like what it would look like if someone had liquid droplets of Sun sprayed onto their face.
The bright red/bright green hair/eye combination reminded Charlie of what a child of Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley might look like.
"Can I sit here?" She asked, snapping Charlie out of her thoughts. Charlie looked down and nodded, she took her bag from the seat beside her and pulled it close, clutching it against herself and holding on to it like her life depended on it.
Charlie shrunk back as the girl sat down in the seat beside her. She grunted uncomfortably and stood back up as if she had sat on something, but Charlie saw that the seat was still empty.
The girl pulled something out of her pocket and sat back down; she tapped the object against her thigh. At first Charlie couldn't tell what it was, but then she realized it was actually a blue plastic hairbrush.
The reason why the girl might carry a blue plastic hairbrush around with her was beyond Charlie, but she wasn't one to judge. Charlie was often teased for carrying around a book everywhere she went, or her Idea Journal and an overflowing pencil case. In fact, her journal, pencil case, and book were all in her bag, along with some other things.
Charlie was slightly annoyed that the girl decided to sit next to Charlie, of all places, but the girl's slim build wasn't wide enough to accidentally bump shoulders with Charlie, even after she had stopped cowering against the window, scared to accidentally make contact with the girl or be forced to start a conversation with her.
It was a long ride to nowhere, but when the speaker on the bus announced the next stop, the only reason Charlie was able to hear it over her own thoughts and the music in her ears, was because it had announced one very specific place, with a very specific name.
Charlie ripped the headphones off of her head. She flipped her backpack so it was facing her and unzipped the small compartment in the front. She rummaged inside for a moment, pushing aside her wallet, keys, EpiPen, an old packet of chewing gum that rattled when it moved, some sort of fidgeting toy that resembled a keychain, and chapstick, until she found what she was looking for.
Charlie unfolded the small piece of paper. On it, an address:
Camp Half-Blood, Half-Blood Hill,
Farm Road 3.141
Long Island, New York 11954
Delphi Strawberry Services (DSS)
Charlie was astounded at her luck, because the only part of the monotonic announcement that Charlie had heard, was the ever specific, "Half-Blood", and looking out the window, she could see a lone bus stop at the side of the middle-of-nowhere road, and a hill behind it.
Hello, readers!
So, that was chapter five, I hoped you liked it.
It may seem that I was a little late with this chapter, but in reality I'm just updating every Thursday now. I don't live anywhere near the USA, in fact, I'm about seven hours ahead of Washington D.C. and ten hours ahead of Los Angeles, so I may be, 'early', sometimes.
If any of you readers have Anxiety, please let me know. I have Social Anxiety, and I want to make Charlie as relatable as possible, and I've realized that a lot more people than I thought have Anxiety.
I give Charlie my view of an anxiety inducing world, but it's different for everyone. So if you think I've done a great job at describing anxiety, it's because I have anxiety :/, but if you think I'm doing a good job in other aspects of writing as well, please let me know. I would love to hear what you think.
If you feel like I'm not doing the best job, you can also leave some constructive criticism in the reviews, or Private Message me if you feel like doing that.
Anyway, again, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, be sure to review, favorite and/or follow either me or the story, and hopefully you'll be back for the next chapter. Bye!
- Pandemonium