Table for 6

Part 3

The week seemed to drag on forever. Sometime during the week, Ryan stopped telling jokes that just ticked Macy off. Change of heart for Ryan? I don't know, but I'll have to get on that. I was so anxious/nervous/scared/curious to see what Kathy was supposed to show me, that I forgot to do my homework on Thursday night. When I got back to school, I had exactly 4 minutes, and 52 seconds to complete am math page of four, word answers.

"Hey Cat, how's it going?" Macy asked me politely.

"Just trying to finish my last question." I replied looking up at the clock to see I had exactly 48 seconds until the sheet needed to be handed in. With 3 seconds to spare, I finished. I looked at Macy across the table and said, "When did we switch from Catrina to Cat?" I asked

curiously.

"Well... It's just that I've always wanted a Cat, and technically Cat is short for Catrina. You don't mind if I call you that, do you?"

I contemplated for a moment. "Nope. That's fine with me Mace." I said and chuckled to myself. We'll see who likes the nicknames now. But she just smiled at me, and started to work on her latest drawing.

Later...

I sat in drama class waiting for the 3:05 bell to ring. Waiting, watching, waiting, watching, waiting, ringing. Yes the bell was finally ringing. I practically jumped out of my seat and ran out of the classroom. Somehow, when I turned the corner of the school, Kathy was already standing there, but with something in her hand. As I got closer I could still barely see it.

"Man, how come it took you so long?" She asked.

"Well how did you get here so fast? I practically ran the whole way here." I asked slightly panting from having just finished a 300m sprint.

"I used the back door. Anyway, the reason that your here..." I nodded slowly waiting to see what came next. She opened her hand, to reveal something small and pink. Something I had dreaded she would show me.

"You..." I couldn't finish my sentence as I stood there in awe.

"I cut." She finished for me. I guess she notice me looking shaken, so she continued. "I didn't know what else to do when my parents started fighting back in Gr.6 and I figured, that the more pain I gave to myself, the quieter their yelling would become."

"Oh my gosh." Suddenly I remembered that I had never seen her without a longsleeve shirt, or sweater on. Then she slowly pulled up her sleeve on her right arm. The scars were everywhere. And then I started to cry. I had known Kathy in Gr.6, but I wasn't friends with her. I think we maybe talked once, but that was it.

I could have been there to help her, but I didn't even know that it was happening to her. When the tears in my eyes subsided I looked at her and said, "Can I help you?"

She waited for a minute before tears started pouring out of her eyes and replied, "There is no hope for me anymore." So together we stood sobbing for about 5 minutes. Once our tears had slowed down, we talked a little more about it.

"Why do you say that there is no hope?" I asked curiously. "I'm sure I can help you in some way."

"The first thing you can do to help me is promise not to tell anyone. Other than that, I don't know what you could do." She looked a little sad that, that was the only option.

"I know! You can come and join one of the sports teams with me. Then you won't even have to think about your parents anymore. Ohh, I am genius!" I squealed, and smiled triumphantly feeling really good, about having come up with a solution.

Kathy looked at me skeptically, and said, "But I suck at sports." A small frown crept upon her face.

I was going to do anything to save her life, and if that meant getting her mind off her parents and to stop cutting herself, then I was going to do it. So I looked at her with a small smile on my face and said, "School track at 7:30, and be ready to train."

Before she could say anything else to me (or object), I walked away.