Disclaimer: I do not own the Charmed ones, and you know what I'm talking about if you've read any other Charmed fiction.


Phoebe sat there, slumped down on the beige desks, trying not to fall asleep. Health was the most boring class Phoebe had today, but she intended to get through it without being yelled at by the teacher. She looked across the room, hoping for a familiar face to share her boredom with, but since it was a new school, there were only different, non-recognizable faces, staring into space. She slouched farther down the metal chair, and wondered why they couldn’t be more comfortable. Probably so no one would fall asleep, especially since the teacher’s lecture was already lulling half the students. It was a lecture about relationships, and losses, how to deal with them. So far, Phoebe hadn’t thought it very interesting, or useful, so she zoned out. How could an old and gray Ms. Bower know how it felt to break up with a first love or how to express her feelings of sadness in an appropriate way? She already seemed like a prude, why the hell was she teaching a class that served as Sex Ed?
Now the class was getting into regular relationships, like family, and friends. Phoebe took out her pencil, and began drawing little hearts and skulls on her piece of paper. A guy next to her was drawing the female anatomy, and was passing it around for the class to see. A couple of students giggled. Ms. Bower turned her attention to them, “Is there anything funny about losing someone, Mr. Antonellis?” It was so old fashioned, Phoebe thought, no teachers called kids by their last names anymore. Phoebe sighed as the class went on. Ms. Bower finally stopped lecturing and gave the bored students an assignment, “I want you to draw a picture of something you lost, and how you felt when that loss happened. It can be someone, or something you lost, and you don’t have to show it to anyone, I just want you to get you into the right mind set for this lesson. Any questions?” Ms. Bower paced around the room, and stopped at Warren Antonellis’s desk.
“Yeah, can I draw my sock? I lost it yesterday, and I miss it so much, just the way it smelled,” He said, in a dramatic voice, hugging himself, and pretending to be in pain. Most of the class laughed, but Phoebe didn’t.
“I doubt it was that serious to you, Mr. Antonellis. I want you to draw something that caused actual emotion to come from your heart.” She walked back to her desk, and shouted, “Start!” before Warren could open his mouth yet another time.
Phoebe looked at the blank piece of paper before her. The faint green lines seemed to swim before her eyes. She looked at all her classmates beside her, but all of them had their heads down close to the paper, concentrating. Ms. Bower came up to Phoebe’s desk. “A problem Miss. Halliwell?”
Phoebe shook her head quickly, watching the back of Ms. Bower’s large frame, and resisted giving her the finger. She knew she had no reason to be angry with Ms. Bower, but for some reason she was. She tapped her pencil against the desk, finally making a smooth black line on her paper. She drew a question mark. Her heart beat hard in her chest, and she felt her throat swell up like it always did when she was nervous. What had she lost? A father? Yes, but she was taught to hate him, to be relieved he was gone. A mother? Well yeah, but did she really know her mother? An older sister? She thought of Prue, and her coldness lately. She felt distanced from her with each and every breath she took. Phoebe traced her finger over the question mark. She hadn’t lost Prue though, had she?
An overload of feelings rushed through her. These feelings had never reached her outside of her bedroom. She closed her eyes, trying to fight them away. The questions came up anyways. So what would it have been like if her mother hadn’t died? Phoebe knew things would’ve been different. She would hear more about her father; there wouldn’t be an eerie silence at dinner anymore. Prue wouldn’t be distanced and cold, she wouldn’t shiver at the words “I love you.” rather she would be able to say them back. Piper would have more confidence. She would believe in herself and Phoebe would not have to feel so pained in watching her sweet, caring sister waste away until she became nothing, just a doormat in front of someone’s door. Phoebe didn’t know how her mother’s loss affected her, though. She would always be the innocent one, the baby. She would still be the one who didn’t fit in, but maybe people would accept her for who she was. Maybe she would feel loved. She resisted the tears that were brimming over her eyes. She was already starting to act like Prue. Shivering, she held her sweatshirt tight over her body.
“All right, class.” Ms. Bower said, bringing back the attention to her round face. “Now we’re going to share what we drew. If you do not want to share, that’s fine, just say pass.”
Phoebe watched as her classmates shared. One lost a favorite pet, the next lost a necklace given to her by a great grandmother, and the worst so far was a student whose cousin had died. Nobody had uttered a pass yet. Somehow, they seemed to be proud of their losses, making it a competition. Phoebe understood that juvenile way, and knew instantly that she was the only one in her class that had actually lost something, lost a piece of her soul. The torch of losses was suddenly passed to Phoebe. She felt her heart beat, violently this time, and paused. Her voice was shaking, “I don’t know what I’ve lost.” It was the only answer she could come up with, and it was entirely true. She didn’t know. She couldn’t get her head around everything that had happened to her. It was easier to not know than to acknowledge it, she guessed. The other students just stared at her. One rolled their eyes, “Why didn’t you just say pass?”
Warren Antonellis, who’s goldfish had died laughed and said, “Wow, I bet you wouldn’t know loss if it bit you in the nose. Your life must be perfect. Lucky you.”
Phoebe just looked at him, and raised the middlemost of her fingers in his face.

~end~