A Horrific Fantasy

Chapter 13

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.