Revamped!

[I have risen from the dead to update this.]

The Scarlet Letter: Part Six

Sitting in a circle on the floor in Lunar Academy's student forum are Cinder, Winter, Kai, Cress, and Thorne. They came early at Wolf's sudden request (or better yet, his order) and they're incredibly tired - except Winter (but when is she ever tired?) And, as promised, Thorne brought bagels with some spreads in to-go containers, and good coffee with fix-ins for everyone.

"Your uniform shirt is on backwards," Cress tells Kai.

Kai stares at her for a few seconds, too exhausted to process anything before his head pieces together what she said. He looks down at his uniform polo and sees that it's backwards. Kai moans as he puts his arms inside his shirt and starts maneuvering his shirt back around until the school's crescent moon logo is back on his upper chest where it should be. He pops his arms back out of the sleeves and lies back on Cinder's shoulders to start napping.

"Not only were we summoned here early, but Torin's kids were awake at the crack of dawn because they have a field trip today and they're excited," Kai states. "I probably got, like, four hours of sleep before I heard cheers and texts."

"You could've just taken your shirt right off," Winter says, biting into her bagel. "We're all friends here."

"Too much work."

Their eyes look up when they see Scarlet and Wolf approaching. He opens his arm and lets her sit first. Scarlet plops on the ground, not caring if her skirt flew up around her which it did. It's not like anyone else was at school this early. Wolf throws his bag to the side before joining her. Evidently, Scarlet's puffy eyes were noticeable since they matched the colour of her hair.

"I'll have you know that I was here first, despite popular belief, and I brought bagels like promised," Thorne says just to make sure Wolf won't beat him up (especially since he was the last one here before them). He looks at Scarlet. "Oh, you've been crying. Thank the stars that I came prepared and brought chocolate spread and tissues as well. Actually, they're napkins but they'll work."

Thorne leans forwards and gives her the bagel and chocolate spread and a cup of coffee and some small packets of cream and sugar in case she needed it. Scarlet takes it all in her hands and looks at the genuine expressions coming from her friends. No matter how scared or vulnerable or far from herself she may feel now, her friends remind me that it'll be okay. They make her feel safe by taking her out of the box she's made for herself and burning it up.

"Okay…" Scarlet mutters, taking a quick sip of her black coffee to wake herself up a bit. "Let's get this straight: I'm not pregnant."

"We couldn't have clarified that over text?" Thorne questions before shoving his bagel in his mouth when Wolf glares at him.

Scarlet turns over and opens her backpack, reaching inside and pulling out the unopened envelope she found this morning.

"My dad was a drunkard before I ran off and it looks like the habit never left," Scarlet tells them. "My childhood friend from France, Émilie, emailed me a link and it was a news article on my father getting arrested for something. I didn't care enough to read it."

"So," Cinder starts, "now we can add convicted drunk's daughter to the list, right under promiscuous dictator's daughter yet above blessed mayor's son."

Winter immediately gives Cinder a look that says how insensitive her comment was. Cinder shrugs because despite being blunt, it's true and it's not like Scarlet seemed to mind. She even smirked a little at their little parental ranking system.

"Why can't my dad leave me alone?" Scarlet murmurs.

"He can't," Winter responds. "He'll always be with you. I am my parents' daughter even if they're dead because they're alive through me."

Scarlet looks at Winter, the girl she knows as someone who has glitter flowing through her veins and the stars that dilate from her eyes are bursted delusions. She's the product of her parents just like they all are of their own.

"Someone read this for me," Scarlet begs, holding out the letter. She makes Wolf hold it temporarily as she starts to spread chocolate on her bagel.

Nobody volunteers to read the letter, not even Wolf. Scarlet rolls her eyes. Some friends she has. They bothered to show up here but not read her letter.

"I nominate Crescent Moon Darnel," Wolf says, holding the letter right in front of her.

Cress chokes on her coffee that has been heavily diluted with milk and immediately shakes her head. If she wasn't sitting against a wall, she would've scooted out of existence, and if she was wearing the uniform sweater, then she would've hidden inside of it.

"No, no, no…" Cress mutters nervously. "I can't."

"You have to because I second the nomination," Kai says formally.

Cress winces as Wolf urges her to take the letter again. She never thought her first incident of peer pressure would be to read a letter, but it couldn't have been drugs and it isn't. Thank the stars. After taking a quick breath, Cress takes the letter from Wolf's hands. She carefully opens it to prevent tearing the envelope in its entirety. Cress puts the envelope on her lap and unfolds the letter. She starts to read it but stops herself.

"What is it?" Winter asks.

"It's in French," Cress says.

Scarlet whines, throwing her head back before taking the letter again. It's like the cursed stars above wanted her to be the one to read this letter. A part of her feels stupid for not realizing that a letter from France written by her French father would be in French.

"Oh, mes étoiles…" Scarlet grumbles as she takes the letter and reads it.

It's tense as Scarlet reads the letter and everyone else around her stays silent. Her eyes move across the page, moving downwards with every completed line. Scarlet's breathing is slow and steady and when her eyes look back up, everyone is waiting for her to say something. She had no emotionally reaction throughout her whole reading; her face remained neutral.

"Things get better or worse depending on your point of view," Scarlet says to them. "My dad wants to talk to me and the letter ends with goodbye which means he wants to see me again. He contacts me like once every blue moon and I can't…" She gets a better look at her friends and realized who they're and their family dynamics. "Oh, spades, most of you can't even talk to your fathers anymore and here I am complaining about wanting nothing to do with mine."

"We get what you're saying," Kai says. And he's the one whose father just died. She was at his funeral. "You had to remove yourself from that toxic environment and now you think that talking to him again will just put you back to where you started."

Scarlet nods, folding the letter and putting it back in the envelope. She returns it in her backpack.

"Scarlet," Cinder says. And she's the one who doesn't even know her dad. "You may hate your dad now but you can't hate him forever. Trust me, I felt like that towards Levana numerous times just because, well, you've met her. It does nothing to the person you hate but it'll poison you. You can never get rid of your demons. You just bury them deep inside and the scary part is that they could wake up in the shadows at the least expected moment so you just have to live with the fact that there's always going to a little venom in your veins."

Scarlet knows that if anyone understood her, it would be Cinder - or better yet, the infamous Selene Blackburn. It felt like it was only yesterday that all her secrets and her dark origins were brought to the light.

-o-

Just before the bell for the start of class rings, Scarlet slides her way into the desk next to Cress. Cress looks up from her opened notebook, tilting her head a little to rest on her hand while wondering what Scarlet wants.

"I can't believe it," Scarlet says. It seems as if she came here just to talk generally and not directly to Cress.

"What?" Cress asks.

"I have daddy issues!"

Scarlet said that way too loud. Suddenly, all her classmates including her friends are staring right at her. She hears something about Thorne saying he wishes he put that on his story.

"...you know, Scarlet," Cress says quietly, "there are some things you should just whisper."

Scarlet shrugs impassively. "Cress, I'll be blunt with you so I'm sorry I'm advance if you're sensitive towards it. You don't have to answer this but I'd prefer it if you did: why did your mom leave?"

Cress's face doesn't even budge. "I'll be blunt with you back- she didn't want to be a mom anymore."

"Same with mine." Scarlet puts a hand on Cress's shoulder. "Crescent Moon Darnel, you're my girl. We both have mommy-abandonment issues."

Cress nods slowly. She can't help but look at Scarlet differently because once she's seen how broken someone is, it's like seeing them naked - she can't look at her the same anymore.