The Green Eyed Monster

Ch. 17

Cat's quiet on the way to my house. Usually she's fiddling with the radio, singing along to the bits she knows and humming the bits she doesn't. I miss that Cat. She was annoying, but she was fun. This Cat... the real Cat, I think, is quiet, and sombre. I think she's still waiting for me to kick her out, to tell her to fuck off because she's a waste of space. She flinches every time I look over at her, like she's waiting for a blow that never comes. She's so reticent without her mask. It was all I could do to get her shut up for even a moment just a few days ago, and I actually wish she was like that again, as much as it got on my nerves. I think it was more a distraction for her anyway... some of that brightness, some of the chatter... it rang false. Still, I'd rather that sometimes-jarring enthusiasm to this cringing silence. I take my eyes off the road for a moment and glance at Cat, feeling for her hand. I entwine my fingers with hers, and I see the hint of a smile curve her lips before I look back to the road, and I smile to myself. It feels right. She squeezes my hand, covering it with her other one, and that air of awkwardness, of waiting for something terrible to happen dissipates.

My mind is still processing everything she told me, joining the dots together, and I'm starting to see the full picture. He was arrested. For statutory rape. I don't... I don't think they do that unless there's a significant age difference. The thought of some guy, even a guy who's our age now... the thought of someone touching Cat, of saying those things to her when she was so fragile, when she was just forming her ego... I grit my teeth. It pisses me off so goddamn much, but I try to internalise it and stay calm. Her holding my hand is helping, her thumbs rubbing in little circles over my knuckles. Mostly I'm chastising myself. For... well, for everything. For being too interested in being normal, in fitting in to be friends with her. I never felt good about that day, when I called her those names... but I never realised just how much of a betrayal to her it was. The worst part is, I did like her. We were sort of friends, until my 'real' friends confronted me. I chose the safe side of the fence. I took up a flaming torch and joined the villagers in rallying against her. With what I know about her now... even what I knew about her then... it must've hurt her so much. I saw how much it hurt her, and I wish I'd had the courage to take it back, or to never do it at all. I wish... I wish a lot of things, but none of them are for her to change, and I realise it's never really bothered me. Her random musings, her childishness... sure it's annoyed me, but I've never thought to myself, 'I wish she was normal'.

Cat was... well, she scared me a little. She was so herself, so unafraid to say whatever came into her head. She didn't seem to care what anyone really thought of her, or, at the very least, she never changed herself to meet their expectations. I was scared because I thought that being around her... it'd make me realise how much I suppressed myself... my feelings, my emotions, even my own opinions. I forced myself into this strong, bitter, impermeable force, who no one dared fuck with, who everyone feared, but no one really liked. It was safer that way, to tell myself I didn't care what anyone thought, when really I made myself into what I was because I cared too much. The irony is, I thought Cat was the opposite of me, so open and honest, when really she was more like me than I realised. She kept herself a child for her parents, in some desperate attempt for their love, and she blurts out whatever flits through her mind to keep it that way, to suppress all the wolves that circle her. It makes me wonder; at what point do you stop pretending, and actually become that person? At what point do you forget why you started acting this way? Cat's the best actress I've ever known; she's kept an act up for so many years now, all the time. Maybe if someone had looked closer, they might've got it, might've seen the hairline cracks running through her, but nobody bothered. We both pushed people away, both pretended to be something we're not, and we both became that something a little bit. We exaggerated our own personalities in an attempt to forget the weak people we are, to keep ourselves safe from ourselves.