the pretender ,*

character name - - -

charlotte odella ferris .

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character nicknames - - -

chuck, c, or teach will do .

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character age - - -

twenty-four .

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character personality - - -

intelligent , talented , headstrong , logical , clever , witty , down-to-earth , quirky , commitophobic , rational , invincible , personable , depressed , hiding .

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character history - - -

molly and paul ferris had always been big home-bodies. they didn't like to travel, they didn't like to move, they really didn't even like to leave the house. they both worked from home, and were perfectly happy with raising their children in the same style they were raised--completely stationary. young charlotte was always a restless soul--constantly finding something new and exciting to try. first it was various sports: soccer, softball, even flag football in early middle school. but charlotte really never had very good hand-eye-coordination. so she started dancing. ballet, tap, jazz, modern, everything. she took quite well to the art, before eventually getting bored with it and moving on to the visual arts: painting, drawing, pottery. that didn't satiate her for long, either, though, and charlotte took up the french horn. really, she wanted to play the tuba her eighth grade year, but she was so tiny she couldn't really hold it up. music completely enticed the young girl, so she started playing the piano, and then the guitar, and then the ukelele, and the oboe, and the dobro, and the zither, and whatever the hell else she could get her hands on. by the time she graduated high school, charlotte was focusing mainly on her music--by now, she'd settled down pretty well with the tuba, her original enticement to music.

charlotte, the moment she graduated high school, knew she had to get out of seattle. she wasn't like her mom or her dad. she needed excitement, adventure.. a thrill. she needed to live. charlotte went through three universities--new york university, carnegie mellon, and the university of boston--before she graduated with a degree in music education. charlotte spent the next few years substituting and moving around as much as possible--she probably spent at least a few weeks in every state. the closest to home she'd been in years--portland, was the only place that it looked like charlotte was going to be staying for any amount of time. why? well.. she'd met a guy. not just a random gorgeous one-night-stand kind of guy, but the kind of guy that made charlotte ferris want to settle down. of course.. that very thought terrified her.. so another huge part of her wanted to run away. charlotte--affectionately nicknamed "chuck", a nickname that would stick with her--insisted that her relationship with this guy, though it was a physical one, was purely platonic. she didn't want to admit that she was feeling something so much more. and when chuck realizes that she was pregnant, she had even further reason to run. she stole away in the night, with nothing but a note left on the man's pillow. "i really do love you." was all it said. chuck spent the next few months roaming from state to state, doing whatever odd jobs she could, before having the child--a beautiful baby boy. after fighting the absurdly strong urge to name her son after his father, chuck settled on the name rhett. rhett gatsby ferris.

somehow, chuck felt more love for her baby boy than she ever had for anyone else.. possibly including his father. chuck leased a little condo by the jersey shore and decided to settle down--no matter how much it killed her, it was the best thing for her son. and he came first now. on rhett's second birthday, chuck was twenty-three. it was early december and cold up north, even this close to the water. shortly after they celebrated with a simple and quiet birthday party on the porch with a fire in the outdoor fireplace, chuck began to put out the flames. the phone rang, and chuck ran inside to grab it. it was chuck's semi-close friend, the first person she'd met in new jersey. when she returned outside, though, the phone fell from her hands and shattered on the concrete floor. rhett was smiling happily up at his mother, as his hands sat calmly on the burning embers. chuck screamed, running to grab her baby into her arms. why wasn't he crying? why wasn't he screaming in pain?! chuck jumped into her car and sped to the hospital, unable to call an ambulance, since she'd just broken her phone. she was chased about for about a mile by a cop thinking she was foolishly speeding like the devil and shamelessly running stoplights when they were clear, but didn't so much as slow down until she was at the hospital. she left the ignition in the car as she ran, cradeling a confused and annoyed rhett in her arms, into the hospital, sobbing and screaming for help. apparently, rhett had developed a rare disease that prevented him from feeling any pain at all. he didn't know any better than to touch the embers, and suffered from third degree burns to his hands and arms.

the doctors said that he was going to be okay. he would need a lot of surgery and several skin grafts, but he would live. chuck wasn't going to lose her baby. they promised. but.. somehow, things changed. those doctors couldn't keep their promises. rhett contracted a rare infection from his injury.. and he died one week after his second birthday. there are no words to describe chuck's pain. she disappeared from new jersey without a trace, resolving to start completely over. she buried her precious baby boy just off the jersey shore--there was nothing he loved more than the beach... and she disappeared. she couldn't live in this place anymore. it hurt too much. but.. she also couldn't bear to move around like she used to. everything about chuck that used to be so clear was suddenly completely ambiguous. she didn't know herself anymore. without a word about rhett to anyone, chuck settled down in miami, florida, hoping to get away from everything. now, everything could go back to normal. ...hopefully.

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all about you - - -

ooc name: pippa !
pb being used: zooey deschanel <3
years of experience: so.. how about them dinosaurs?
membergroup: citizen

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.. cosette? c: