Teach me to love ~Naruto~: Chapter 1

Chapter 16: Strength

I couldn't find her. It was like she disappeared into thin air. No mater where looked, no matter how hard I tryed to find Charlie, I just couldn't. Every store, every stand, every street for gods sake! Nothing. Maybe theres someone who would know where she is?

Yumi poped up behind me. "Surprise Naruto! I'm looking for my honey bunches of oats!"

"If you're talking about Charlie I can't find her. Svetlanna came to take her away and she ran out of the house."

"Oh shit." She took out her phone and looked up something. Yumi sighed and put it back in her pocket. "You need to find the nearest body of water. Thats where she'll be. Call me when you find her and make her not depressed."

Sometimes, I really don't understand Yumi-chan that well. She shows up randomly and then leaves after giveing me words of encouragment or helpping me better understand my new found friend. But for the moment, I was very happy she had showed up. The closest body of water was the Tenkaita Shoare, where we went when Charlie was learning to swim.

Through trees and over rockes I travled knowing I would eventually find her. Hoping i would find her. The shore came into veiw. I ran out onto the sand and looked around.

"Charlie! Charlie!" My calls were answered by a small whimmpering noise behind a large boulder. she was curled up, hugging her legs and hiding her face in her knees. "Charlie, hey are you okay?" I asked, taking a seat next to her. She shook her head. "She was wrong to do that to you."

"I'm not upset because she hit me. I'm upset because she doesn't care about Kobe as much as me. It's like she wants him to die. And I love my brother so much!" She coughed and sobbed some more.

"Charlie, what exactly is your brother sick from?"

She sniffled. "He has lukemia and the same selective muscular hypertention as me, only his has spread to the brain, so he has seizures."

"It's really sad, and hard when your around him isn't it."

"Yeah. Mom used to treat us the same. She loved us both and supported our little dreams of being princesses and astronauts. But when we were told about the hypertantion, she told me to stand in front of the camera all day and look pretty. Dad isn't home that often so he couldn't really help us when Kobe got Lukemia." She looked up at the sky, now a mixture of red and purple with splashes of blue and orange. "Mom never seemed to care after that."

It's was hard to hear her talk about this. She wasn't upset about what had been to her, she was upset about her mom's treatment of her older brother. Sitting there, my arm over her shoulder, I began to wonder what it was like to have a brother to worry about.

Charlie leaned against me more and sighed. Her blue hair tickled my neck while the sound of her light exhaile gave me comfort. The sun continued to set as Charlie calmed down and began to really hold herself together. She seemed to gain strength as she sat beside me. Charlie gained more courage. It was cler in her eye when she got up and smiled at me.

"Lets go have a nice short talk with my Mom."

Together we walked the ten minutes back to the apartment where Svetlana sat waiting paitently.

"Are you ready to leave now Charlotte?" She asked.

"Listen up Mom. I don't need you to tell me what to do with my life, because I already know what I want to do. I'm not you, I don't want to be you, and I will never be you. So you need to go home and take care of Kobe. You remember him right? Your son, whos sick with a horrible life threatening disease? He needs you right now and what ae you doing? Trying to make me go home just so you can push me back nto modleing and ignore him again. But I'm not going to do it. Go home. Leave me be. Stay out of my life. And most importantly, save your energy from yelling at me to take care of him!"

Svetlana narrowed her eyes and drew back her hand to hit Charlie, but had it caught instead. Charlie got in her face and whispered furiously, "Leave." She got up, turnned at the door way to say on last thing to Charlie.

"The day you decide to come back, knowing that I was right all along, is the day you will admit you were wrong to ever doubt me. Wrong to ever push me away. And it will be hard for you to just walk back in again."

Charlie smiled saddly. "Who said I was coming back." And her eyes rolled up in her head, she fell to the floor, and her body shook violently in a seizure.