I FUCKING HATE YOU [Charlie, Leslie]

Lumi hadn't come to the Tavern looking for trouble. In fact she had actually come looking for Rowan, who wasn't in Dian where he was SUPPOSED to be. And she knew he was practically here all the time now so it was the first place she went to look.

Instead, she found Cheating Ex-Girlfriend and Other Man, AKA Charlie Preston and...Other Man (she didn't know his name) apparently on a date. The bitch...

Now, Lumi could honestly say she was over Rowan romantically. But that didn't mean she didn't care about him. And it definitely didn't mean she was going to just let the girl who broke his heart get off easy, because she wasn't. It was Charlie's fault that Rowan was having a breakdown. She deserved to know what she was putting him, Lumi and all of Dian through because of her selfish stupidity.

Narrowing her eyes, Lumi strided towards their table.

Lesley laughed, looking at the beautiful girl before him. Oh, if only he knew what he was getting himself into.

He opened his mouth to say something, only to see some woman narrowing her eyes at Charlie. "Do you know that girl?" he said, nudging his head in the direction of the woman. "She doesn't look very happy to see you," he stated, which was completely obvious as the woman started towards them.

"Hm?" She looked over to see none other than Lumi, Rowan's advisor-or-somethin'. "Oh, jeeze," she breathed, seeing her walk over towards them. This couldn't be good, not one bit. She looked down at the table, wondering how awful this would turn out. Charlie was sitting in a tavern with her new boyfriend, the two sitting so close that their thighs were touching and his arm was around her, and here came her ex-love-of-her-life's advisor, who was a bitch before Charlie cheated on him. She couldn't imagine what she'd be like now.

"Just...don't say anything," Charlie said softly to Lesley as she attempted to prepare herself.

Lumi stopped right at the table, staring down at Charlie, who looked scared. Good. She should be scared. Lumi crossed her arms.

"I had you all wrong, Preston," she said icily. "Here I thought you were just an immature little girl who had no idea what she was getting herself into with Rowan, but it turns out you're a selfish little bitch who runs off with random guys the second her boyfriend seems to be out of the picture, without any regard whatsoever to who she may be hurting."

She glared at Charlie as if she were trying to set her on fire with her mind.

Lesley was a bit...surprised by the sudden bitch that had come up to the table. "Uh, excuse me? I'd rather you not talk to her that way," he said, but Charlie shook her head, telling him to stop. Maybe he'd sit back and watch now, but if things got out of hand, he wasn't afraid to protect what (or who, I guess) was rightfully his: Charlie. He liked her very much, and she didn't deserve this.

Charlie looked right up at Lumi, listening to her pretty much rip her apart. She turned to look at Lesley as he tried to speak against Lumi, but everything that she had said was right. Spot on. So she shook her head and he thankfully stopped talking. She looked back up at Lumi, trying to be civil.

"What do you want from me, Lumi?" she asked, wondering why everything had to be this way. This was so stupid -- she was so stupid -- but she couldn't just throw Lesley away. But Rowan hadn't deserved it either. Shit, this was stupid.

"I want...I want..." Lumi struggled, trying to find the right words for how she felt. "I want you to feel as bad as you made Rowan feel! No, worse! Because unlike him, you actually deserve it!" She finally yelled.

The rest of the Tavern fell silent, but the gradually the noise started to pick up again as Lumi took deep breaths, recovering from that outburst.

Lesley couldn't believe that Charlie was just sitting there, taking this crap. "Look, she didn't know what had happened to him. If anything, blame me for trying to make her feel better and making her fall for me so quickly," he said with a laugh, trying to be cute and make things better. Obviously he was making things worse because Charlie moved her shoulder as a nudge to get his arm from around her. He took his arm from around her shoulder, resting it on the table. "What's wrong?"

Shit. Why did everything have to work out so badly? "Lesley, please," she breathed, looking at him. "Don't." She was glad that he got the hint to move his arm, but she was a little annoyed at the fact that he hadn't listened when she said not to say anything. He was only making things worse for her.

"I already feel bad enough. What do you think you could possibly do to make me feel worse?" she asked, looking up at Lumi, who was VERY intimidating.

Lumi shot an angry look at Other Man (His name was Lesley? Seriously?) when he spoke up. That pompous little...

"I already feel bad enough. What do you think you could possibly do to make me feel worse?"

"I don't know, but trust me, I'll try," Lumi promised. "I told you to stay away from Rowan. And you didn't listen. And now look what happened. Exactly what I SAID would happen."

Lesley was not pleased at this situation, especially when the woman shot a nasty look at him. What was her problem?

"What do you even care?" he asked. "Is Rowan your man or something?"

When Charlie turned and looked at him, he knew that he was really fucking things up. He was determined to make this lady go away, why didn't Charlie just realized that he wasn't to help her?

What the FUCK was Lesley's problem? She turned to him fully, speaking slowly so he'd understand.

"Lesley. Stop screwing around. This is serious. Please, just shut up." She turned back to Lumi, trying to put all of her thoughts and feelings together so they made sense, but nothing did. "I don't know what you expect me to do or say. I can't take back any of my actions. I'm not getting back together with Rowan, not that you'd want me to anyways, but I don't know how else I could make him even a little bit better. I'm trying to give him some space because I don't know what else to do. I just don't know."

"Why didn't you listen to me when I told you not to get involved with him in the first place!?" Lumi demanded. She was causing a scene but she didn't care. "You and your dumb bodyguard looked at me like I was crazy when I warned you that nothing good would come out of that relationship." She said the word like it was something disgusting. "Tell me, what exactly were you thinking when I told you that? What, if anything, was going through your head?!"

Lesley opened his mouth to say something, but he decided that maybe he should just let the two go at it.

((I'll start posting as Lesley again if he's spoken to or decides to say soemthing.))

"Oh, I'm sorry that I didn't think about the possibility of him getting sucked into some other freaking DIMENSION for two months! I can't possibly see how that could've slipped my mind!" She said, standing up to be at the same level as Lumi. "I don't know why I didn't listen to you when everyone saw it coming!"

Lumi regarded her coldly. "Honey, you say two months like it's a long time," she said. "And I doubt you started seeing this guy at the very end of those two months. You were too immature to imagine that hey, just maybe something was going on that had nothing to do with you or your relationship, maybe Rowan left because of something totally unrelated to you. You can't even fathom a world where you're not the center of it.

"And that, Preston, is what I warned you about. That you were too immature to be in an adult relationship. And it looks like I was right. Care to disagree?"

Charlie blinked, surprised at Lumi's answer. Shit, she was right again. Dammit! She looked down at the table, not sure if she should lie and say that she disagreed or fess up to her immaturity. She just wanted Lumi to go away.

She sat down, taking the harder but truthful route. "No, I don't care to disagree. Because I can't. I wasn't ready for an adult relationship, and I'm not in one anymore. I'm with Lesley now, who isn't an adult...and isn't Rowan." She wasn't sure what tone she had used, it was hard for her to even tell. She wasn't sure if it was a regretful tone or a satisfied tone...she wasn't even paying attention to it anymore. It was more factual than anything. She was with someone else and that was it.

"Well I hope you're content," Lumi said, and her voice broke. All Charlie got out of this was a new boyfriend and maybe some guilt. Rowan got sent spiraling back into the depression he'd been recovering from. Dian got an incompetent Overloridian. Lumi got all the work that Rowan wouldn't do anymore. She turned away so that Charlie wouldn't see if she cried.

"What am I going to do..." she muttered to herself.

"I'm not content," she said. "Not with this." She felt bad for everyone, considering everything that these clio were feeling wer because of her. What the fuck.

"I'm sorry that I'm putting you, and Rowan, and even you, Lesley, through all of this. It's stupid, and you people don't deserve it. I don't deserve what I have...but I guess it's just how it happens or something. I don't have some explanation for my answers or anything. I'm sorry."

They were being toyed with by fate, it seemed. In the past it had seemed like Fate had always made good choices with Overloridians. But not this time. It was as if Fate had gotten bored watching everything go well, and decided to throw an immature little girl, a chronically depressed alcoholic, a possible murderer, and god knows what other kinds of emotional baggage into the positions of the most powerful clio in Amelia.

Lumi glanced up at Charlie. "...You shouldn't be Overloridian..." she muttered. "...You're too immature..."

None of them should be. They were all so young...

What the shit. Charlie was being a damn good Overloridian at this point, Rowan was the one who was depressed and not doing his job, forcing all of his shit onto Lumi. Though it was all Charlie's fault, it had NOTHING to do with her Overloridian position.

"It wasn't really a choice," she said, trying not to get too angry or aggressive. That didn't turn out well because she usually wasn't good enough to come up with comebacks. "But of course, you know that better than most with Rowan as your Overloridian. I can't imagine he was too happy even before he met me..."

"No," Lumi replied in a shaky voice. "He always had issues with depression. But he was getting better...and then..." She didn't need to continue. Charlie knew all too well what she had done. Lumi gulped. "Why him...? Why any of you?"

"I don't know," she muttered. She really didn't. "I don't deserve it, and other clio do. It's not right, but we can't change it. We just have to deal with it." She looked to the empty chair across the table, wondering if she should offer her a seat.

You're crazy, Mae said, wondering why Charlie would even think such a thing. She's a bitch. She doesn't need to b e invited to sit down with someone she doesn't like -- if she wants to sit down, she will.

"Deal with it?" Lumi repeated indignantly. "Deal with it? Who gave fate the right to choose Overloridians anyways!? It should be a choice. The Overloridian should be like, elected by the clio or something."

She shook her head. "Now I'm just talking crazy."

She was talking more to herself than Charlie at this point. The stress must really be getting to her or something...