The Girl with Cat's Eyes

C H A P T E R 4

J,

when life is tough, just live

it will all be fine

life can be good aswell.

forget before, think of only now.

yours,

K

C H A P T E R      4

'Hey, Kit-Kat!'

It was Jesse. I looked at him and raised an eyebrow. He'd never come up with a name for me before and it felt weird. Then again he never usually talked to me full stop.

'What?' he asked. 'So I came up with a name for you. Is that so surprising?'

I looked at him again as if to say 'But why the hell would you choose 'Kitty Kat'?'

He shrugged. Then: 'You have very.. Cat like... eyes. I've been calling you it in my head for ages. I never realized I had never said it out loud before.'

I rolled my eyes. He was in a good mood that morning, and laughed more freely than he usually did. Hetouched my arm, his eyes going serious once again.

'You know you could tell me anything, right Kitty Kat? Anything at all... I'll be here.' He paused, and gave me a small smile. 'I know you think no one knows what you’re going through, you know, that no one understands... But I do, Kit-Kat. I understand.' He stood up, and looked away. 'But that's a story for another time...' He said. and then he pushed his chair back, picked up his school bag, and left the room. I listened to the sound of his footsteps as he walked down the hall and out of the front door, until they faded.

Sarah came in after a while putting toast in the toaster.

"I told you to wake me up, Mrs! Now I won't have time to clean Jesse's bed room!"

I looked at her. And then I did something I never had before, at least that I could remember. I took a napkin and the pencil I had been drawing with and wrote- communicated with her directly.

Why can't he clean his own room?

She looked at me a moment, in surprise, shock even. Before all I'd ever answered with was a sarcastic look, or a raised eyebrow. I just shrugged.

'He's a boy... Boys don't... tidy...' she said.

Right... And you know this because...

'Because Jesse doesn't... tidy... And he's a boy...'

I just rolled my eyes.

*three weeks later*

'I was wondering love, um... well, whether you would be comfortable going into the village for a little while? You don't have to or anything, but I want to get back to work, and I thought it might help your... situation... a little, to, you know, meet new people... As I said, though you don't have to...' she trailed off pathetically, smiling slightly, if a little nervously, at my raised eyebrow.

I took the whiteboard Sarah had bought me for communication and moved my sketch pad a side a little, then wrote:

It's fine, I'm ready.

It was a simple message, only four words, and did nothing to describe what I was feeling. A torrent of emotions passed through me as she said those words, things I couldn't even begin to describe but once she had finished speaking I felt a strange calm fall over me. It would be fine. The only time I really went outside is when I was walking in the woods, but I was ready now, I could do this. I wanted to do this.

Apparently the shop wasn't far, and there wouldn't be many people there. I would be fine.

I stood brushing of my jeans as I did so. We were in the back garden seated around the white picnic table, holding cups of steaming coco. It was too cold to be out really, but I loved watching the birds, and Sarah had come out to join me.

Lets go now!

'Are you sure, Kit- Kat?' she asked in that motherly tone of hers. And yes, she too now called me Kit-Kat, or just Kat when she was being serious.

I smiled at her and nodded.

'Well come on then... Lets go...'

The car journey was quiet, we didn't really talk. I hadn't realized quite how far away we were from the village center. We were a few miles away from the outskirts, and the village was small, only around four hundred people lived there, apparently a couple of the neighboring villages had around the same populace and they shared schools and other resources.

Little Wonsworth was a nice place, calm, the kind of place old people go when they retire, or families come for an easier life style and a better education. But in being so small, it did also seem to mean that nothing was kept a secret, and I could tell from the number of stares I received that these people weren't used to new faces, and also that they knew my story. They looked at me with a strange mix of emotions: pity, sympathy, but also curiosity, like I was a unique, or rare animal at the zoo. And it made me feel strangely trapped. But I tried hard to ignore the onlookers stares, and followed Sarah out of the car and across the road and into a little red shop. I guessed this was where she worked. The shop seemed to sell everything, I never quite found out what it was meant to be selling, but it sold new things and old thins, from sewing machines to garden gnomes, and seemed a maze to get around.

Sarah let herself in behind the counter and motioned for me to follow her.

'Don't worry about them, lovely, they just haven’t seen you around before, and that silly Doctor Feilds told his daughter in law, and Sharron, and, well, she gossips like no bodies business... Anyway, all I'm trying to say is ignore them. They'll get used to you.'

I smiled, then:

I'm fine...

I sat behind the counter for the rest of the day, sketching and writing. Customers came and went, many not even hiding the fact they only wanted a look at me. Like I was some freak show. Maybe I was. But I soon grew used to it, learnt to ignore them, pretend they weren't there. I sat at the back, holding my knees to my chest and drawing them.

Jesse came to meet us in the shop on his way home from school. His mum didn't seem to have told him because he looked strangely surprised but, I don't know, happy, that I had finally escaped the house, been brave enough to come to the village, I would guess.

And so my life continued, and I gradually began to heal.