The Chain (A Catherine Diary) - Stamfield. Complete

Chapter 57

57

I lived around five to ten minutes walk from Aiden's house and the journey to college made me pass close to his road. I remembered when we were going out with each other, I used to try to time it that we would meet on the way to college, but all my attempts were generally unsuccessful. After we had broken off our relationship, I had tried to avoid him, again unsuccessfully. It certainly wasn't the majority of times I would bump into him, but nearly once a week I would see him walking in front of me, or as I passed the road he would walk down, I would see him in the distance walking in my direction. One time, I had left late for college, rushed down the street, only to see him walking in front of me. I slowed, as I usually did when he was ahead of me and he seemed to slow also. By time I eventually got to college I had missed half my first lesson. From that day onwards I always left an hour early.

Leaving early had more benefits than I had imagined. Firstly, I had a tendency to bump into Preeti, one of the Indian girls from my hockey team, whom, it turned out, lived three doors down from Aiden. We had grown closer through our chats on the way to college. She had explained that her and the other Indian girls at college, who, incidentally, tended to stick together, thought I was Asian originally. That was, until I spoke.

Secondly, I had found out that many of my friends including Jane, Sherry, Monica and dare I say it Pat, arrived early due to the buses. They stated that if they missed one bus, the next was half an hour wait, which may get them in late and occasionally that bus never comes and although it was quicker to walk the half an hour, you end up waiting in hope the bus was just late. So, they had decided early on in the college year to catch the previous bus, just to be sure, which resulted in them getting in fifty minutes early.

I passed Oatland Avenue, it was a long road and I searched down it, making sure Aiden was nowhere to be seen he wasn't, neither was Preeti. I carried on, at my own pace, allowing my thoughts to drift back to my scheduled meeting with my father.

Father, Dad, Daddy, what was I to call him?

I was beginning to wish I hadn't agreed to see him. At the time I didn't think of it as a big deal, I figured it would be a chance for him and I to bond, maybe gain back a relationship. But, all of a sudden, there was much more to it. If we got on really well, how would mum feel about that, after all he left her, even though she didn't do anything wrong. I hoped.

Okay, you're probably wondering how I could doubt my mum, when she says that my darkness and my body is inherited through generations. However, why now? and why me? I mean I've looked through magazines and I've seen pictures of mixed race women, some like Mariah Carey are whiter than me. How is that possible and why on earth does Andrew not have anything that makes him look mixed. It didn't make sense to me at times, but it also, very rarely, bothered me.

I stepped into the college cafeteria without the slightest thought about Carla's pendant or the events of our previous meeting. My mind was concentrating on an attempt to recall the exact proportions of my dad's facial features.

'Catherine over here', I look around to see Gemma sitting on her own, which is quite surprising, but more surprising is the fact she wasn't in her usual seat.