Awakening Love

Part Fourteen:

Charlie POV

Alice wasn't lying when she said her mother was very extra. I had never seen someone be so upset because their daughter did something they didn't like. Keep in mind her mother never said she couldn't do this, she never told her not to go to a ball with me. So really it is her mothers fault here, if she would have told Alice that then we wouldn't be in this situation. 

From what the workers have told me, is that Alice never stands up to her mother. So tell me why I am sitting outside of the parlor room hearing her yell back at her mother. She is so frustrated and so upset with everything. It is my fault, I blame myself. I should have never agreed to her little plan. Her scheme. 

Here I sit in one of the most uncomfortable arm chairs that the Bristol's own. I sit and I listen. I listen to Ali tell her mother horrible things about me, and I hear the tone in her voice. She is very upset, and I feel awful for the mess I have gotten her into. Thankfully after today, I will be free of her and I will not be able to speak to her unless I absolutely have to. Of course I feel bad about the agreement I made with her brother, but it isn't like her and I necessarily enjoy each others company. 

the door opens to the parlor room, out walks Alice. Tears were rolling down her face, she looks at me. I look back, but I don't want to, this was my mistake. I turned away, I looked at my hands, I do that in situations like these. But finally I stood up, I had to be a gentleman still right? I bowed my head to her. Her eyes softened as I looked at her, but more tears fell from her eyes. If only I could hug her, I can't, and I shouldn't. Any type of relationship that Alice and I would have, it's all over. We both messed up, and I agreed to the deal with Thomas and I won't break that promise. 

She turned away from me and quickly hurried toward the gardens, Beatrice was waiting there for her. I sighed. It was my turn to face Mrs. Bristol. She was very kind to me this morning, but that could have just been her trying to gain my trust leering me in so she can just bite my head off. She reminded me of a evil creature you would hear about in fantasy tales. Ones where the prince always saves the girl, and the villain is always someone you never expect it to be. Every tale I was told growing up had that  exact storyline, but my mother always made it seem like they were different. My mother had always been such a good storyteller, must be why I looked up to her so much. 

My mother was strong, she still is. Whenever she told a story she told it with pride and honor, she smiled and laughed. Made it more exciting then it really was, she intrigued me and made me sit on the edge of my seat. My older sister never cared for her storytelling, she would rather sit in fathers office and learn about taxes and how to run business. I was never like that, my little brother and I always loved the idea of knights and fighting. Father wanted us to like taxes and business running, but we didn't like that. We loved our imagination, sometimes mother would even play with us. She would sword fight with us in the gardens. Or she would make up her own story about how she was going to be the princess and she was going to save the prince. And that was normal for us, having her save the prince, but some families thought of it being weird. Once I heard our neighbor say something about it, called us "feminists." I once over heard a conversation my mother had with our good friend, she was saying horrible things to my mother and I wanted to help my mother our of it. But I remembered that my mother was stronger than I would ever be, she could handle it. The women said "You are raising your family all wrong, a girl learning to do taxes, and boys learning that it is okay for a women to save the man in a story. This is absolutely mad!" We never saw her again after that, mother said she had to go home and that she has been busy since. 

That was my normal growing up. I learned very early on that a women is as capable as a man at saving someone. I learned that there is nothing wrong with the princess saving the knight. You might ask the question now of, "why does everyone think you are a womanizer then?" And the answer to that is, my father. My father didn't want to look like a feminist, so he tried his best to force the idea of women in power out of my brother and I's heads. It didn't work, so he told us when I was about fourteen, that we needed to act tough and we needed to act like "real men." A standard man. Mother and him fought that whole week, but mother lost the fight. And my brother and I were trained the act like a proper man and not a feminist. We were told to appear masculine and believe in the standard things that men believe in. But when we are talking to people that are in the family we are able to have our own opinion's. And that is why everyone in England thinks of me horribly. I have been given a horrible name all because my father was to embarrassed to have sons that thought differently. But what can I say anyone will do anything to stay in business, that's why Ali and I are in this whole situation in the first place anyway.