Safe

Chapter 52

Kat's POV

"Don't go," he faintly whispers into the phone. But I know that he knows I'm already gone. 

"Is Izzie there?" I ask him quietly. 

He pauses for a minute before answering. "Yeah.. yeah. She is. Do you want to talk to her?" 

"Yeah." I whisper. My normal voice has seemed to have escaped me. Everytime I try to speak normally it comes out broken and tortured. Shuffling and whispering comes from the recieving end followed by static. A momentary panic coarses through me when I think I've lost connection. Why? Why are you doing this to me? I ask to a God that I'm not sure I even believe in. My faith is restored when I hear Izzie's faint voice coming through the line.

"Hey runaway," she greets me. A small smile forms on my face. I'm really going to miss her. 

"Hey." Silence follows. "Do you remember when I called you over the first time I met Niall? And Corey had called me?" 

"Yeah, I remember." 

"Remember how shitty you thought I looked then?" When she doesn't answer, I imagine her nodding into the phone. "Well you should see me now. I would give the me back then a run for my money." 

I wait for her response, but nothing comes for what feels like decades. "Izzie?" I lightly ask. 

"What are you doing?" She quietly asks me in a low voice. 

"I'm sitting on the floor..." I begin, but she cuts me off.

"No. What are you doing, Kat?" I know what she's asking of me, but I don't have an answer. I stay quiet. "Why didn't you want me to come for you?" 

I take a minute to contemplate the answer to that question. I can't decide if I should tell her the truth or fabricate a lie to make her feel better. I try to go with the latter, but I can't come up with a lie that would make her feel any better. 

"I'm okay." Is all I say, even though it's a lie. I guess I did find one that I thought would help. 

"It's okay to not be okay." She tells me. But it's not. I've been not okay for too long. I've forgotten what being okay even feels like. I want to scream at her and tell her that I'm not okay, and I don't know if I ever will be again. I want to tell her that I live in a constant state of saddness and darkness that I can't seem to get rid of. I want to scream at her until my voice gives out because I want someone to hear the pain in me, but I can't. I can't bring her down with me even more than I already have. 

"I know. But I'm okay." Is what I end up telling her. 

"We're coming, you know." 

"I know you are."

"Will you please tell me what hotel you're staying in?" 

I almost hang up the phone right there. Part of me wants her to go away and never return, but I owe her more than that. I owe it to her to at least know where I'm at, even if I'm not here when she gets here. By the time they arrive I'll be gone. Long gone. 

"I'm at the Washington Square Hotel on Waverly Place. Room 407." 

"Okay. We'll see you soon, Kat. I love you, okay?" The tears threaten my eyes and I try to hold them back as best as I can. 

"Love you, Iz."

"Hang on, don't go anywhere. Niall wants to talk to you." She tells me, but I don't think I can bear it. He sounded so numb talking to me, like I was some sort of robot. Like I was some experiment that went wrong. Like I was a patient in a psychiatric ward. He wasn't the Niall I knew before.