“Are you ‘capable’? How lovely. Couldn’t a trained monkey serve us sandwiches? I mean, seriously. What are you even doing here? You realize everyone thinks you’re a joke, right? And a whore? Because when you receive something like rent in exchange for sexual favors, that’s what you become. A nasty prostitute. I don’t want you touching my food. Can I see your manager? Maybe they’re not aware what kind of girl they hired. There must be plenty of other trailer trash bitches vying for a spot at this place.”
Charlotte couldn’t take it anymore. She dropped the notepad she took orders on and quickly ran from the dining area and back to the break room. She couldn’t let them see her cry.
She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of that.
********
That night she’d thought long and hard about what she was trying to prove by staying in a town that seemed to want nothing to do with her.
Charlotte missed her little sister. She missed her friends; hell, she missed having friends. The only friend she had here in Charleston was Declan.
She even missed her father. And as much as it pained her to come crawling back, she wondered if maybe it was better that way. Charleston just didn’t seem to love her the way she loved it.
That night she’d told Declan how she felt.
“So you’re thinking of moving back home?” Declan asked. “Why?”
“It would be too hard for you to understand,” Charlotte said, trying her best not to cry in front of him. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
Declan sighed, “You could at least try me. It’s kind of presumptive of you to assume I wouldn’t know what it’s like to feel a certain way.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes, “Declan. I am living in your carriage house. The fact that your family even has a carriage house automatically precludes you from being able to relate to most people outside of your social circle.”
Declan was annoyed now, “Just because my family has money doesn’t automatically disqualify me from having pain in my life, Charlotte. And the fact that you think it does shows how little you know about the world and how it works.”
Charlotte stood, “You’re so condescending sometimes!” She started to walk away.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To bed. I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired,” she said, and then it couldn’t be helped. The tears came, like a wave that couldn’t be stopped, and she was suddenly crying, the kind of crying filled with gasps and sobs and wails. It was a cry from deep within her soul, one she’d been holding in since she was thirteen years old.
“Charlotte…” Declan went to her then, not caring what had been said or how it might look tomorrow. He reached out and pulled her into his arms, her sobs vibrating against his chest, her tears soaking into the front of his button down.
“I can’t take it anymore, Declan,” she cried. “This city hates me. I don’t look like anyone here, nor can I afford to. I don’t come from a family that’s lived here for 400 years, I don’t even own a decent car. I’m not in a sorority, I have to work at a place that serves the very girls that laugh at me on a daily basis, and I’m expected to do it all with a smile on my face.” She pulled back and wiped her tears from her beautiful eyes. “I’m tired of pretending to be happy. I’m tired of sticking it out just to prove I can.”
Declan stared at her, his heart breaking at the sound of her anguish and rage stirring in his heart thinking about anyone hurting her.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “Who would ever laugh at you?”
Charlotte sniffed, “If you must know… Saylor, your girlfriend. She’s one of the worst. She called me trailer trash. I’ve never even been inside of a trailer, and even if I had, does that automatically make me a terrible person?” Charlotte started crying again. “And my ex-roommate, Allyn. She comes into Dixie Garden all the time and ignores me completely. Acts like we didn’t live together for 9 months. Unless she’s alone, then she’ll acknowledge me half-heartedly.”
Declan was furious, “Charlotte, Saylor is not my girlfriend. I’d never want to be with someone who was such a heinous bitch. And Allyn Legare is a phony, she always has been.” Declan pulled Charlotte toward him again. “You’re beautiful, smart, and really funny. You’re original, and full of life, and sexier than any girl on the peninsula. They’re jealous as fuck, Charlotte. They know that they’re nothing special and that they probably never will be because they don’t have the courage to be anything other than what everyone expects them to be.” He took her chin in his hand and pointed her face up at him. “I’d feel sorry for them if they weren’t such assholes.”
Charlotte’s lips had never looked so good. God, he wanted to kiss her. He’d wanted to kiss her since the second he saw her, but seeing her like this made him want to even more, to show her she wasn’t any of the things she herself as.
For just a moment he wanted her to see herself through his eyes.
“You really think I’m beautiful?” Charlotte asked, her eyes wide now.
“I know it,” he said, and that’s when he took his moment. He kissed her gently, tasting her for the first time, the scent of her hair intoxicating, her breasts and body never so close to him as they were now.