"That's pretty hard when your trust has been shattered."

In the beginning, there was peace. The sort of peace that makes you sigh happily and want to sit in the branches of a tree with a good book. You know when everything makes sense and nothing can disrupt it? That kind of peace.

That's the kind of peace that existed in the life of Charlie Whitehouse. To tell you a few things about her would be easy; she didn't exactly do much in the first three quarters of her existence. Charlie has shoulder-length blonde hair that she often tucks into her beanies, sea-green square glasses that she adjusts every time she looks up from her laptop or book. The very centre of her life encircles the art of literature, movie posters and book quotes and photos of inspirational things plaster every wall of her room in the loft. At all times, she carries a pencil and eraser, a notebook commonly found stuffed in her bag.

If you were to ask her what she enjoys doing, she'd give you three answers: reading, writing, and drawing monstrosities. Sure, that might sound questionable to most; doesn't she have a social life, or something to productively occupy her time with? That will certainly earn a deadly glare and a sharp-tongued 'no'.

Charlie does not care for the social standards around her, and would rather throw a book at the person asking her to go outside in something other than grunge-wear. With her British heritage and Canadian living, she has no desire to be mocked in vulnerable circumstances, such as a school classroom or the local mall. She's experienced that far too often, thank you very much.

That's probably why she turned to the internet. Who's there to recognise an accent through typed words? No-one. No-one cares that much.

Maybe it was fluke. Maybe it was fate. Maybe she just didn't care enough to make note, but it was through her media browsing that she came across the one person she could make peace with. 'Silver-Ashley'.

Strange how everything ties together.

With her real name hidden behind a username, she started speaking freely. She started writing freely. Sounds strange and suspicious to the unknowing, but she'd never really had a good friend before and had gone through all the possibilities of how it could go wrong.

Yes, she had been taught by her parents to not trust everyone you meet on the internet, and experience had shown her the same applies to reality. Everyone wears a mask, whether it be online or in daily life, everyone has a mask molded to perfectly fit their face; unfortunately, she had to learn that herself. But there were so many constants that this 'Silver-Ashley' held in conversation that Charlie came to believe and understand that this stranger was no liar. And actually began to trust them.

When she wasn't doing schoolwork or avoiding responsibilities, she was online, chatting to her friend through whatever happened to be convenient at the time. Which quite often tended to be on whatever document they were working on. Not the best use of a book-in-progress, but it works when required.

She gets along quite nicely with whoever hides behind the mask of a username, a not too shabby achievement if she does say so herself. Considering how much of an awkward person she can be, it prides her to be so confident in a conversation. Not only that, but she's not the only one who makes mistakes! Or theories.

She'll never forget the Primus mix up...

"Charlie!"

The girl jumps several feet in the air, jerking hard enough to knock the headphones off her head. Her foot kicks her laptop and she scrambles to save it from its undesirable fate of smashing to smithereens on the hardwood flooring.

A voice giggles from the headset on her lap and she glares at the webcam on her laptop screen, though it appears more like an adorable pout. The person on screen just laughs harder, their image going blurry as the desk shakes.

Remember that little detail of her having no good friends? Tiny lie. She has one decent friend.

A girl about her age with an awkwardness to match, Emma.

Only issue, she lives several hours away from where Charlie lives. Thus why they keep contact through video chats. Probably a good thing in this situation, otherwise Emma would have been tackled to the floor in an instant.

"Shut up," she glares at the girl with a cold expression, adjusting her headphones back over her ears.

"Okay, okay," she wheezes, sobering slightly though the grin remains. "You were drifting off again."

Charlie snorts in dry humour, green eyes dull in the poor light of her room. She knows there's going to be a conversation—or argument—about this...again. "Sure."

"You were!" Emma claims, laughing in her typical giggle-type way, "You definitely were."

The young girl groans in slight annoyance, falling back onto her bed with dramatic finesse. This is why she prefers the internet; no-one cares to bother themselves with the lives of others, only with the lives of fictional people. Oh, how easy it would be to wish that she enters the pages of one of her many books. Anything would be better than actually socialising. Actually, no. Knock off babysitting tiny demons.

"Can't a gal daydream without interruption?" Charlie asks in humour. "I didn't get to meet Thorin yet!"

Her friend laughs, but shakes her head, knowing that isn't the reason she stuck her head in the clouds. "Come on, that's not what you were thinking of."

She shoots a glare at her, daring her to continue that train of thought. There is only one way this is going to go and she does not like it. Emma will have to drag her kicking and screaming to the state of mind that she considers to be 'normal teenage girl stuff'. No way on Earth, hell, and heaven.

"Who is it?~" She drawls cheekily, a massive grin on her lips.

"Nobody," Charlie is quick to snap at her, a pink blush staining her cheeks in discomfort.

"Tell me," Emma insists, leaning close to her webcam. "Who do you like?"

She rolls her eyes, playing with the ears of the grubby teddy on her bed, "I told you, I don't like anybody."

"You do!"

"No!" Charlie shouts, groaning into her hand. How does one explain the complex daydreams she thinks of? "I was thinking of a story."

A half-truth, but true nonetheless. More like she had been thinking of who her internet friend might actually be. That and what kind of story they would cook up next. Maybe it would be fluff, or a sweet romance. She wants to laugh at such a thought. No. They will tear each other's souls out before that happens. Heart-crushing suffering is what it'll likely end up being.

"Again?" Emma questions with a dubious expression on her face, "You need to get your head out of the clouds once in a while. The world isn't in your books and maps, it's out there."

A burst of laughter leaves the girl's lips, and she falls back onto her bed again, a hand muffling her chuckles. Never had she thought that Emma would be so influenced by her fanatical behaviours.

"What?"

Charlie snorts again, barely holding back her amusement, "Of all people, I never imagined you would be the one to quote Gandalf."

Emma blinks at her before crying out in despair, "For heaven's sake!"

The girl laughs again, this time at her friend's frustration. So few people here understand her humour and sense of fantasy, that results such as this are far and few between. Again, only individuals on the internet tend to follow her mindset.

She chuckles softly as she recovers, a wide and straining grin on her lips. It might be the last one she shares with her friend for quite some time. By 'quite', she really means three weeks. But she can wait that long if it means she gets to see the unventured streets of Queens, New York. Sure, it's frightening to the girl who's only ever lived in the rural outskirts of a multitude of towns, but adventure awaits her.

"Charlie!"

The girl removes her headset to hear her mother, "Yeah?"

"You all packed and ready to go?" She asks her daughter.

"Yeah, just saying bye to Emma!" Charlie calls back, glancing at the screen.

"Okay, just don't go to bed too late, alright? We leave first thing."

"Sure!" She reassures the woman before sticking the headset back on, "G'night!"

Charlie hears a muffled response, but her attention is already back on her friend's face, an apologetic look in her eyes. There was no doubt that she was going to have to end their conversation but she hadn't wanted it to end so soon.

"You're going, aren't you?" Emma asks her quietly, though a tad too cheerful than the girl had thought.

"Sadly, yes," Charlie confirms, biting back the tears in her eyes. "We leave at six tomorrow and my mum will have my head if I don't go to bed soon."

"Oh," her friend says softly, looking down at her hands. "Bye, then?"

"Yeah, but not goodbye," she shakes her head with a sad smile, a small pain shooting through her heart. "This is a 'see-you-later.'"

"All right, see you later, alligator," Emma giggles.

"Yeah, see you later."