Fame Crazy (Sequel to Strings Attached)

Chapter 24

"Claire, you're leaving in fifteen minutes, get out of bed!" Castiel yells from the other side of her bedroom door.

"I'm up!" she calls back.

"You better be!" he replies, walking back to the kitchen to check on how Anna's doing.

He remembers getting ready for school was never an easy task for the Novaks, so he's not surprised to see Anna sitting at the kitchen table on her phone. She barely glances up at him as he enters the room before returning to Snapchat. Castiel walks over and plucks the phone from her hand.

"Hey, give it back!"

"Get ready for school," he counters.

"I am ready!"

Castiel looks pointedly at her nearly empty backpack. She groans and shoves her stuff in the largest pocket, looking even messier and disorganized than Gabriel was in high school. She walks back up to Castiel and holds out her hand for the phone.

"Have you even eaten breakfast?" he asks.

"Yes, I did," she replies matter-of-factly.

"Yeah? What'd you have to eat?" he challenges.

"I ate — that's not the damn point."

Castiel has to refrain from rolling his eyes. "Go eat breakfast."

"I'm not hungry," she says stubbornly.

"Fine, bring something to eat at school when you do get hungry."

"I'll just eat my lunch earlier," she replies.

"Yeah? And what'd you pack for lunch?"

"Why do you keep badgering me about my meals?" she asks. "Dad never does this."

"Dad barely leaves his office," he reminds her.

"Well, Michael never does this, either."

"Michael's still in school. He has other things on his mind."

"And you don't?" Anna challenges. "People think you're a rapist now — yet another thing that's Claire's fault, by the way. Shouldn't you be trying to clear your name or some shit like that?"

"I think your health is a little more important than some rumor going around that'll never go to court anyway," he replies. "Have a pop tart. Hell, have two pop tarts. They're cookies and cream. It doesn't get much better than that."

"I'm not hungry," she repeats.

"Eat 'em at school," he suggests. "Anna, you can't just not eat all day."

"I buy lunch."

Castiel rolls his eyes. He knows what the school lunches at like. There's no way she buys it voluntarily, especially over cookies and cream pop tarts.

"Seriously, Anna. Eat something."

"How about you stop pretending you're Mom?" Anna counters as if it's an insult, which really pisses him off.

"How about you don't talk about Mom like that?" Castiel snaps. He's a bit ruder than necessary, but it's not like Becky can stand up for herself, what with being in fangirl Heaven and all.

"How about you stop being so defensive about everything everyone says?"

"How about you stop judging me when you don't know anything about my life?"

"How about you take your own advice?" she counters. "You don't know what I'm going through. You know high school isn't easy. At least I'm not in the verge of suicide. I may have problems, but I'm not as bad off as you."