The rest of the school day remained uneventful, but Charlie's focus was still far from work. Her thoughts were now ruled by the venous words that Helsa had spoken to her.
"You know you have to be perfect to be an actress? You have to have perfect hair, perfect skin, and a perfect body. But look at you! Your hair is like a rat's nest, your face, you are so sickly pale, and you have the figure of a total porker."
She tried to tell herself that such words didn't mean anything, but what if there was a small chance that Helsa was right? What if Charlie wasn't pretty enough to become an actress? All the actresses Charlie had seen, including her own mother, had been drop dead gorgeous. Model material. Tall, thin women with long legs, aquiline noses, tanned skin, perfectly styled hair. That didn't sound anything like Charlie.
"Charlie? Charlie, did you hear me?"
Charlie quickly snapped out of her troubled thoughts when her history teacher Ms. Mayberry called out to her.
"Oh I'm sorry." Charlie apologized. "What was the question?"
"Can you name the five subjects of humanism?"
"Yes ma'am. Grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy." Charlie listed.
"Correct." Ms. Mayberry then continued with her lecture. "Humanism in the Renaissance was a cultural and intellectual movement during the 13th to 16th Centuries CE..."
However Ms. Mayberry could see that Charlie still continued to keep her head down, with that depressed look in her eye, a clear sign that something was very wrong. And this wasn't anything new. In the beginning, Charlie had started out as Ms. Mayberry's best student. She was very enthusiastic about history, especially the Renaissance Era and she was always asking questions, answering them, paying close attention to each lesson, getting straight A's on every test and quiz. Now her grades were still good but recently Charlie's enthusiasm and focus seemed to be decreasing more and more. It worried her.
When class was over, she asked Charlie to stay behind in order to help her put up some text books but that was just an excuse for the teacher to have a private conversation with her, without it leading to a rather embarrassing moment in front of the other students.
"Have I done something wrong Ms. Mayberry?" Charlie asked her.
"No, but I've noticed that you've been a little out of it lately. You don't seem to be paying as much attention to class as you normally do."
"I'm sorry. It won't happen again." Charlie tried to leave very quickly.
"Now wait a minute." The teacher stopped her. "Charlie you're not in any trouble but is something bothering you?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Stress? Anxiety? Maybe there's something going on here at school? Or at home?"
"Nothing's wrong Ms. Mayberry. I'm just not getting enough sleep, that's all."
"Alright then. My advice to you is to mention this to your guardian, so he can help you find a way to sleep better, and if you ever have a problem at school, you can tell me."
"Thank you but I don't have a problem here."
"If you say so. You can leave now Charlie, have a good rest of your day and I'll see you tomorrow."
Charlie didn't tell Ms. Mayberry about getting bullied by Helsa because then she'd tell Stolas and she didn't want him to get involved with her problems. It wasn't his responsibility to help her all the time. He wasn't her father. Not to mention, he had enough of his own issues to deal with and he would never be able to understand what she was going through. Or so she believed.
"Everything okay sweetie?" Stolas asked her that afternoon. He was in the kitchen cooking dinner when he noticed a glum expression on her face as she was doing her homework.
"Yeah, everything's fine. I just really hate math homework." She said.
"I can relate." He chuckled. "My teen years were just plagued with nightmares of numbers and calculations. But once I found a way to connect mathematics to science and my personal favorite subject, biology, math just clicked for me. You should try to connect math to a subject you love."
"Okay, but how do you connect math to theater?"
"Huh...That is tricky. I was in a theater trope myself and the only thing I can recall is using numbers for was for costume measuring. Try another subject. Like history. Numbers play a big part in history."
"Did algebra play a big part? Because that's what we're learning in math class."
"Well yes. Throughout history, algebra has played a huge role, particularly in ancient empires such as Rome, Babylon, China, and even Egypt. Some believe that ancient Egyptians actually invented algebra and used such a method to build the pyramids."
"Really?" Charlie said intrigued. "I didn't know that. Does it work?"
"Well I can't explain it to you now. I have to finish making dinner and then I have a meeting with my lawyer again. Maybe tomorrow night?"
"But you're supposed to be free tonight."
"I know, I know, but my lawyer called saying that he may have found a way to work out the divorce settlement, and Stella is here to make sure that it's legitimate and that I'm not going to pull any money hoarding schemes." He rolled his eyes. "Sheesh, you cheat on your wife and suddenly you're not a trustworthy person."
"But you can't go tonight. There's something I wanted to talk to you about."
"Not tonight Charlie."
"But it's very important."
"I'm sure it is, but I don't have the time. I'm sorry, it will have to wait til tomorrow."
"Does this mean I have to watch Octavia again?"
"I'm afraid so."
"This is ridiculous! You can't just automatically expect me to always be there to watch her. It's not fair!"
"Charlie I am asking you to be a little more understanding and considerate here. I rarely ask you for anything-"
"No you don't!" Charlie interrupted rapidly. "You're always asking me to clear my schedule and babysit her whenever you want! Like I don't have a life or something! You don't know if I have plans or what they are! You don't even ask me!"
"I assumed that you would tell me if you had plans, like a date or something. I would like it if you had a date. You should have dates at your age."
"I had something planned with Vaggie the other day and you told me to cancel so I could watch Octavia."
"I understand that Charlie, but this isn't any easier for me either. Believe me, I would love to skip this meeting. I would love to avoid doing anything where I have to be in the same room as my ex wife, but I can't! Not in matters like this. So if you could just try to understand what I am going through-"
"Why should I? You never try to understand what I go through?"
"I would if you told me. But you never want to talk."
"Because you never want to listen."
"That's not true. I want to listen. I want you to talk to me. I'm just having trouble finding time for that."
"What else is new? You never have time to do anything for me. My parents were never to busy to listen to me. They were always there for me when I needed them."
"Well your parents never had to go through a bitter divorce with unreasonable woman and an incompetent lawyer!"
"Then why don't you hire a new lawyer? Or just pay off Stella until this whole thing gets sorted out?"
"It's not that simple, and I don't have time to explain all this to you. We'll talk about it later."
"You know I bet you'd drop everything including this meeting if Octavia asked you to!"
"I would not, and even if I did there's a big difference between you and Octavia."
"I know! She's your daughter and I'm not! That means she'll always be more important!"
She ran upstairs to her room, slamming the door in the process. Stolas sighed hard and briefly hung his head in frustration. It was moments like these where he wondered, what was Lucifer thinking when he chose him to be Charlie's guardian. Though a good father to Octavia, he was still a relatively new one, not ready to deal with a teenager. Especially a teenager who could be awfully stubborn like her father and terribly melodramatic like her mother.
"Luci, Lillie, she is definitely your daughter." He muttered, recalling similar incidents with her parents when they were in college together.
Lucifer always doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, regardless if it was wise or not, and Lilith always complaining about how unfair and cruel life could be. When they were young, they had an especially nasty habit of thinking the world was out to get them and that their problems were worse than anyone else's. And their daughter was just same.
"She'll grow out of it." He told himself. "Her parents did, so will she."
He put the finishing touches on dinner, stored them to be ready for when the girls were hungry, fixed his hair, put on his suit, and finally stepped out of the house.
"Teenage girls, they can be a nightmare." Came a gruff voice from above. Stolas looked up to see his neighbor Husk looking down from his ladder and chugging a bottle of cheap booze. "I grew up with a sister so I know the terror of it all."
"I apologize if my dispute with my ward caused you any disturbance." Stolas responded to the middle-aged drunkard.
"Eh, I've heard worse." He said. "You know you look like you could use a stiff drink. Want me to top you off?"
"Tempting offer but no, I have a meeting with a lawyer and my ex wife. If she even smells alcohol on my breath, she'll label me as an adulterer and an alcoholic, til I'm dead."
"That's rough."
"Tell me about it. I just can't win with anything lately. I can't get my divorce over and done with, I'm losing time with my daughter, and my ward thinks I don't care about her at all. Which is not true, I care deeply, she just doesn't understand."
"Well far be it from me to give any useful advice and granted I've never been a father, but maybe she's not supposed to understand."
"What do you mean?"
"She is just a kid you know. An older kid, but still a kid. Maybe she's just too young to put herself in your shoes. I knew someone who had a similar problem. Fate gave him a lot of shit to deal with and he expected his son to just automatically understand and accept what he was going through. But he was a kid, so how could he? How could he possibly understand adult problems as young as he was?"
"With all due respect, I don't think you're in any position to give me advice. You said so yourself, you've never been a father."
"That's true. Alright I'll just shut my mouth and say no more."
"Thank you and again I am sorry if my incident with my ward bothered you. Rest assured, it will never happen again."
"Yeah right." Husk thought before swallowing down more booze.