Charlotte Whitehill was never without whatever she wanted growing up. Born to a couple who were both extremely busy with their careers - Mary, on staff at the UN as a Political Affairs Officer, and Michael, working as in-house legal council for a finance corporation - Charlotte wasn't always around her parents, but the times she did share with them she adored. They hadn't just wanted to have a child for the sake of their careers and to make them look better in the grand scheme of things - really, with Mary's travelling schedules, it would have probably been easier if Char wasn't in the picture - but the three always tried to make time at least once a week for family nights. As such, young Char began to learn that busy schedules were just a fact of life, and everything had its own place. She was also never really bored; living in New York, there were always lots of places to explore with her nanny or a park to go run around in - or, as she got older, the NYPL became a second home to her. She loved books. She always had.

Char started to more appreciate her parents' crazy schedules as she entered middle school and started the great thing known as multitasking. Her dad was still crazy as ever, and Mary was overseas more and more on different assignments, but an aging Char got it. After all, with a test in French and a paper due the next day for her History class? So much work, it was a wonder they could keep her at all! Okay. She admits now her perspective was skewed, but at the tender age of eleven, it seemed world-ending.

Then Charlotte's world actually came crashing down at thirteen.

Mary had been on what they all thought was a routine diplomatic trip to a "hot zone". Nothing atypical, she'd been there plenty of times before. This time, though, there was an incident. An incident. What a great euphemism that left Michael as a widower with a daughter on the edge of puberty, a daughter who, while she could logically understand what had happened, wasn't able to emotionally process it. Charlotte and Michael finished out the school year in Manhattan, but quickly thereafter Michael put their brownstone condo on the market, sold it, and moved the two of them to Seattle, where Michael had secured a new job - one that was going to have a better salary, better cost of living, and hopefully a better environment for his daughter. Sure, it was probably like they were running from their problems, but at that moment, it was what worked for them. They grieved in their own way, but miraculously, life went on.

This was where Char and her love of books really came to be. Either unsure of making new friends - or unwilling to, she's still not sure which to this day - she spent most of her spare time with her nose in the pages of a book, then writing on her own, though it was never anything she'd consider beautiful. It was simply an escape for her, and it wasn't anything she ever shared.

Life eventually became more normal. Char, because of how she'd become more reserved, spent most of her weekdays studying and most of her weekends in the company of books "for fun" or a movie. Her dad even began dating again, something she was beyond pissed about. On one level, she understood it: he needed to move on with his own life, sure, but that was absolutely shitting on her mother's memory in her mind. And hey, it didn't end up working out too terribly in the end in some ways. Despite Michael's relationship with Christine dissolving, his first girlfriend after his wife's death, Char got a best friend out of the deal - a pretty sweet trade-off, if you ask her.

Somehow, she knew that even if she hadn't slacked off in school (which, at this point, she thinks she was phyiscally incapable of doing) she would have gotten into a decent college somewhere - even if it was just because of pedigree. Her mom had attended Columbia; her dad, NYU. And it was Columbia's Barnard College that she ended up choosing when the time came. She was happy to be going home to the city she loved and still called home, and she even managed to peer-pressure Jon into moving up with hers.

Char had no idea what she wanted to do. Hell, she still wasn't even sure she wanted to be in college, but she knew with the way the world was now she needed at least a bachelor's degree to be competitive anywhere - plus, her dad was covering the tuition, so she wasn't going to have to have loans to worry about. That was even better.

So she picked a major she loved instead of a major that would have been applicable in the real world - English, with a focus on Creative Writing. To appease her dad, she picked up a minor in political science, which she didn't hate, but she didn't love anyway. She'd compiled a portfolio as part of her initial application to the university just in case, and she was thrilled that she scored a workshop seat within the initial program. She spent the next four years living in worlds that weren't her own, and even got to spend a summer at Columbia's Reid Hall in Paris. Char realizes now she was likely one of those people whose life had peaked in college. She thrived, did well, had a lot of fun with her friends, and even started being more social. Once Char graduated, she realized she had almost no career prospects, especially in the city - which, honestly, she'd expected - and moved back to Seattle and back in with her dad.

The five years since graduation have been very flighty for her. Char has been working a string of different jobs since graduation, none really that could be considered a "career" or anything to stick. The internship her dad tried to get her with the New York Post in college through a friend? No, she was all set with fetching coffee for people. Barista? No, who wanted to wake up at 4 AM to give other people coffee? Waitress? No, she'd rather spend her Saturday nights out partying with her friends instead of working. She worked for a temp agency briefly, but after her third assignment of answering phones, she decided she didn't want an office job. She could have gone back to school for an MFA, but really, what was the point? There wasn't any work with an MFA in Creative Writing any more than there was with a BA, if she wanted to be honest, and that was why her resume was sad-looking at best. She could probably teach, but that wasn't something she was up to.

These days, Char's working full time at a local micropub. The hours are terrible, but the employees don't suck, so it's a plus. She's moved out of her dad's house (finally, though really, it was more like living alone most of the time with the amount she saw him) and into an apartment with a roommate she met on craigslist, a roommate who she's (surprisingly) clicked well with, and who keeps similar hours. She's still working weekends, but not the absurdly late nights or early mornings that waitressing or baristaing entailed, and she tends to make enough that she's not even asking her dad to help cover her rent anymore (though sometimes, she'll still use his credit card to buy her clothes...hey, if he offered, why not take it, right?). It's a definite plus. She's started to grow more within herself and become more outgoing - not the courteous self she is at work, but the side of her that her New York friends always saw? The hyper girl with the caffeine addiction and more empathy than she ever knew what to do with? Yeah, that one. She's been coming out to play more. And even if Char still hasn't "found herself" professionally, she's starting to be okay with who she is personally.