Chapter 22

Charles sighed for what felt like the millionth time, running his hands through his dark hair as he sat in the hotel room bed. He had no idea what to do. Sophia didn't really seem to want to have anything to do with him; while she wasn't mean like her friends, she had yelled at his wife and seemed to shy away from any interaction having to do with him. The other day when he went to have dinner with her at the Biggles' house, Mrs. Biggle explained that she and her friends went out despite her telling Sophia that he'd be over later. He couldn't just leave her through; the situation with Christine had shaken him, he could have never imagined it to be this bad. Laying back on the bed, he stared up at the ceiling wondering if there was anything else he could do. They'd only be able to stay a few more days because both him and Sarah needed to be back at work and with their kids.

"What's wrong Charles?" His beautiful wife asked softly. Her eyebrow was still bruised from being split a few days ago, and the scratch marks on her face had started to fade.

"I'm just thinking about Sophia." He sighed, turning to face her, and put a hand on her waist. She pursed her lips and held his face in her smaller hands.

"We have to do something." She said quietly. The fact that his wife had taken it upon herself to defend Sophia and had chosen to help her anyway she could made him feel like he was bursting with love for her. "She's right, you know."

"About what?"

"Our whole relationship and how Christine fits into it." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "She definitely has no idea about anything. I think it would help a lot if we could sit down and explain how everything played out all those years ago."

"If she even wants to listen." He grumbled pessimistically.

"She was willing to hear us out initially, I'm sure she'd be willing to again." Sarah patted his face comfortingly. "She didn't send us to hell right away, that's a good sign." She joked.

"Do you think she likes me?" His voice clearly showed his insecurity.

"Honestly, probably not much." She replied bluntly, smiling when he groaned tiredly.

"So what can we do?" He sighed again, closing his eyes dejectedly.

"We offer her the truth, that's all we can really do." Sarah patted his face comfortingly and smiled. "Use the time we have left wisely, Charles, we have to go home to our kids soon." He opened his eyes and stared at her for a long moment.

"What about Sophia?" At Sarah's furrowed eyebrows he nervously swallowed. "We can't leave her with Christine. I don't want her suffering any more than she has to. Also, I'm scared Christine is going to take her anger out on her again." Sarah sighed heavily and rolled onto her back. She stared at the ceiling quietly and the longer her silence stretched, the more nervous Charles got.

"Sophia has suffered a lot, and I don't want her to continue suffering, no child should. But," she seemed to swish the words around in her mouth for a while before letting them out. "I'm not one hundred percent sure I want her in the same house as my children." Charles sat up and opened his mouth, but she didn't let him interrupt her. "I know you feel guilty, and like you have to make things right for her, but you have to think about our children. I won't be comfortable with her in our house, even as a guest, until we know more. We need to know things like her school records, medical records, and we don't even know her, she's a stranger! Not to mention she smokes all the time with her friends."

"We can't let her go back home to Christine either." Charles refuted sadly, not able to argue against his wife's logic.

"I know, but we'll figure something out before Friday, I'm sure of it." She sat up to peck his lips before laying down and tucking herself in.

Charles didn't sleep much that night.


I sighed tiredly as I picked up a stack of plates from a now empty table, carrying them to the back to be washed. Though the older waitress was irritated with me, she didn't make a big deal about me coming back to work. Feeling like I owed it to her, I apologized to Porshe for being away for so many days and leaving her to pick up the slack. As usual, her response was super perky, and she assured me that she didn't mind because she needed the money from the extra hours anyway.

"Oh, it's you again." The older waitress sighed annoyed and called back to me. "Sophia, come get this table." I peeked my head around from the kitchen and saw my friends slide into a family sized booth. Without needing to ask, I picked up five mugs and a full pot of fresh black coffee.

"That bitch is so annoying." Henrietta rolled her eyes as I put a mug in front of each of them.

"She's not too bad." I shrugged quietly and began pouring the coffee. Firkle pulled the mug close to him and took a deep breath of the hot steam wafting off it.

"How much time do you have left in your shift?" Raven smiled up at me. Slowly, he began to look less tired and was starting to smile more. I'm sure it was his friends' influence, but I couldn't help the feeling in my gut that soon he wouldn't fit in with us anymore.

"About two more hours, it's slow today so I don't think I'll get in trouble if I talk to you guys for the rest of my shift." I put down some packets of sugar on the table and a little bowl with little individual creams.

"I haven't been to Benny's in forever!"

"Yeah, for a reason." I turned around as I heard a group of girls come in. I recognized them from school, the two at the front were the blonde and brunette I bumped into the other day, the ones that said I had long legs.

"I'll be right back." I murmured to my friends. Walking toward the girls, I could see that the brunette at the front with the long hair recognized me too.

"Party of how many?" I started grabbing menus and utensils from the hostess stand.

"Just five of us." The girl at the front smiled at me, she was very pretty. I shifted a bit as I looked at her.

"Sure, follow me." I led them to my side of the diner where I waited my tables.

"This fine?"

"Sure- "

"Actually," the brunette interrupted her blonde friend and pointed to a family sized booth just two tables away from my friends. "Could we sit over there? I want to be closer to the window."

"Sure." I shrugged and put down their menus and utensils. "I'll give you a minute and come back for your drink orders. After walking a lap around the diner, I went back to my friends' table.

"What the fuck Sophia, why'd you sit those preps next to us." Pete hissed as he flipped his bangs out of his eyes.

"They asked to sit next to the window." I shrugged. Henrietta rolled her eyes hard and Firkle gave a small "ugh" of disgust. I walked back over to the table of girls.

"Any drinks?"

"Yeah! It'll be two pink lemonades, an iced tea, a coke, and a water with a lemon wedge." I'm going to assume to brunette is the leader of the group since she keeps speaking for everyone.

"Are you ready to order food or do you need another minute?"

"We're ready!" The brunette again. After writing everything down (just a few sandwiches with salads and a basket of fries to share) and taking the note to the cook, I went back to my friends' table.

"Make room for Sophia." Firkle grunted. On both edges of the half-circle booth were Michael and Raven.

"Scoot over." Michael elbowed Pete but Raven had more space to scoot over right away, so I took my seat next to him.

"What's wrong Raven?" I asked quietly. He was glaring down at the table and looked kind of constipated.

"Nothing." He grunted at me and took a swig of his black coffee.

"Are you hungry? I didn't even bring you guys a menu because usually they don't order anything." My voice was just as quiet and his eyes slid over to me. He looked at me for a few seconds because sighing and closing his eyes.

"It's okay Sophia, thank you though." He opened his eyes and gave me a soft smile. I smiled back.


Michael rolled his eyes at Raven as he looked toward the other table full of girls from over his coffee mug. One of the girls subtly slid her eyes over to him as she spoke with her friend. He raised an eyebrow before looking back down to the table. They suddenly laughed loudly, making him smirk satisfied as Raven flinched.

"Isn't that Stan?" Bebe suddenly said, directing their attention to the goths' table.

"Yeah, I think you're right." Red squinted her eyes.

"Come on guys, it's not like Stan is the only kid in South Park with a puffball hat." Heidi rolled her eyes and focused on folding the napkin in front of her.

"Now that I think about it, I think he is." Red shrugged, giggling a bit.

"This is so awkward." Millie giggled louder than she meant to, covering her mouth as she looked over at Wendy.

"Come on guys," Wendy sighed softly, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "It's not a big deal, let's just enjoy our food together." She smiled dazzlingly at them and Pete rolled his eyes from his spot between Michael and Henrietta.

"Ugh, we should've just gone to the Village Inn." He grunted, flipping his bangs out of his eyes.

"Leave it alone Pete, I doubt those preppy bitches will come here again." Henrietta said, probably a little too loudly based on how Heidi and Red glared over at her.

"Why'd you even pick this dump, Wendy? Only losers come here." Red definitely said that too loudly so that the goths would hear.

"Don't be mean Red, it's not their fault no one wants them anywhere else. This dump is probably the only place they can hang out in without getting kicked out." Heidi sneered and Millie giggled too loudly again.

"Sophia, your drinks are ready!" Porsche called from the back and Sophia sighed tiredly, aware of how tensions were rising between the two tables.

"I'll be right back." She muttered to her friends.

"Go back to Starbucks, plastic bitches!" Pete called over and this time the five of them looked over.

"Fuck you, asshole!" Red called and as Pete stood up, Henrietta put a hand on his shoulder to push him back down to his seat.

"Calm down Pete, don't rise to their brainless insults. Can't you see they need something to entertain themselves with? All their conformist media has convinced them that they, just because they are part of a school organization, are somehow better than us. We, on the other hand, see through the bullshit that the public school system tries to feed us while they continue to live out their high school peak that they'll probably keep mentioning for the rest of their sad, mediocre lives." All five of them looked offended as Henrietta delivered her swift rebuttal, without the need to raise her voice at all.

"Go to hell, you fat-!" Red's insult was cut off because, just as she angrily stood up from her seat on the edge of the booth, Sophia had just walked up to the table with a tray full of drinks.

"You stupid bitch!" Michael sneered as all the goths stood up from their seats while Sophia went crashing to the floor with the drinks spilled all over her. To be fair, Red looked shocked and like that wasn't her intention at all. There was a moment of absolute silence that was ruined when Millie let out a loud, high-pitched giggle at seeing Sophia soaking wet on the floor.

"Shut up conformist." Firkle hissed, swiftly grabbing his mug and throwing the slightly cooled down coffee on the orangey-blonde.

"Oh my god!" She shrieked, freaking out as she pulled her wet shirt away from her body. "That's hot you psycho!" At this point, everyone was yelling and Stan reached a hand down to pull Sophia to her feet. Wendy's eyes flashed over to him, frowning as he comfortably grabbed the other girl.

"That's it!" The teenagers all quieted down as the lead waitress stomped over. "Everyone out! Get out of my diner!" The group of girls shot each other uncomfortable looks as they started grabbing their gym bags. "And you, Sophia!" The tall girl's spine straightened up and she looked over at the older lady. "I'm sorry, but you're fired. There's been too many incidents lately and I can't let them continue to happen in my diner. You can come pick up your last cheque on Tuesday." The goths' eyes widened and they started arguing loudly with the waitress, letting the other teenage girls go out without anyone noticing them.


There was an uncomfortable silence in the car as Henrietta drove us back to her house. I stared out the window silently, still in my wet clothes that were slowly getting sticky as they dried. Firkle leaned over and rested his head on my shoulder and I didn't have the heart to shake him off.

"I'm going to go shower." I said quietly, opening the door as soon as the car stopped, not even waiting for Henrietta to turn it off. As I walked up the porch steps, the door opened before I could reach the handle. Mrs. Smithings and I looked at each other in surprise.

"Sophia." She gasped before frowning. "What happened, you're all wet."

"I got fired." I mumbled trying to push past her. Mr. Smithings was right behind her, and I frowned as he tried to greet me.

"Hey, uh, kiddo, what- "

"Excuse me." I pushed past him and walked upstairs to the bathroom next to Henrietta's room.

"Oh my! What happened poopsie?" Mrs. Biggle walked out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron. My friends had gotten out of the car and were making their way inside.

"Mind your own business!" Henrietta yelled as they rudely pushed past Mr. and Mrs. Smithings and made their way up the stairs.

"Bad day I guess, I'll go make them some snacks." Mrs. Biggle rushed back into the kitchen. I went to Bradley's room and grabbed a change of clothes before locking myself in the bathroom.


Michael stepped out of Henrietta's house and lit a cigarette as he stood on the sidewalk. His phone was pressed against his ear and it only rang a few times before she answered.

"What the fuck was that?" He immediately hissed over the phone, not giving her a chance to talk first. He made sure to keep his voice down so no one from inside the house would hear him.

"Why are you asking me that, your table started it." Wendy scoffed over the phone, putting her pencil down on the homework she had just started.

"It's your fault Sophia got fired, that wasn't supposed to happen."

"Speaking of," Wendy interrupted, turning to look at herself in the mirror hanging on her wall. "You made it seem as though Stan was nothing but an annoyance to you, you didn't mention you wanted him gone because of that girl, Sophia."

Michael grit his teeth, crushing his cigarette in his grip.

"Who says it's because of her?" He asked, angry and stressed over this whole situation.

"Oh please, I'm a girl. I notice things." Her voice was taunting, a smile evident even when she spoke.

"It's the same either way, it doesn't matter why I want him gone- "

"But that's exactly why it matters. I need to know everything, and until you can be completely honest, don't expect any help from me." She hung up on him before he could respond.

Wendy felt unsatisfied, wishing she had a corded phone to slam down.

Michael had to stop himself from throwing his phone on the sidewalk.

"Fuck."