The Secret Life of Katherine James

Chapter X

When I woke up in David's car, they sky was a dark and the clock read 8:45. I was laying in the back seat, covered by a soft, warm purple zebra blanket he kept in the bed of his truck for emergencies. I'd given it to him for Christmas the year we'd gotten stuck and run out of gas. If my dad han'd found us, we'd probably have frozen to death. I kept still, lying in the back for a few minutes, thinking about the details of the past few days. After a while, I got frustrated and just looked out the window. I saw tall buildings and bright neon lights. I'd known as soon as I'd woken up where we were. We were driving around Summersteen City on my favorite block. The car was bombarded with sights and sounds that filtered in and out of the cracked window. After about two years of knowing each other, David had me memorized. He knew that I liked pink anything, as long as it wasn't stake, he knew that I loved almost all music, that I had a really fake attitude, that I got lonely a lot, he knew that I was destined to always, forever, overthink everything, he knew that I loved the sound of wind, and driving fast, that I missed my oldest sister terribly, but he didn't know why. David knew me inside and out, better than even Angel sometimes. So it didn't surprise me that he'd rolled the window down. After all, I liked to sleep in the cool air, and the sounds of the block we were on calmed me. I liked to feel invisible, and busy streets full of distracted, selfish people was a great way to do that.

I moved my bare feet, another thing David knew I liked, and listened to the all so familiar and friendly sounds. I instantly felt safe, even through the haze of my throbbing head. I finally pulled myself together enough that I realized David was watching me in the rear view mirror. I went to sit up, but my head swam in protest, pounding out the rhythm of blood in my ears. I gasped, which was a mistake because my ribs throbbed with the force of the motion in response. David's thick, dark, sad voiced cut through my heart, sending a new pain straight through every inch of my body.

"You should lie down again. You did just throw yourself out of my car after taking a beating." His dark eyes were looking at me, and only me, through the rearview.

"Well, in my defence, I wasn't intending to actually do it, I just didn't think it all the way through. I only wanted you to stop, but forgot to hold on when you did." I answered. It was, sadly, true. "So where are we?" I asked. I knew where we were, and I knew that he knew I knew, but I was stalling. I didn't want to talk about what had happened. I didn't want to see the hurt flash through his eyes. Yeah, stalling was way preferable. He raised his eyebrow at my question, openly calling my bluff, but humoring me anyways. He smirked and shook his head. I ignored his judgment.

"We're in the city, on Sarah street."

As if the street needed to prove David's point for him, a group of people came bubbling out the doors of one of my favorite clubs, Down Under. With the doors opened, we could hear the angry bass rattle out. The music was the club's own type of heartbeat, and it shook the windows of every car in the vicinity. It was persistant, like it couldn't help but beat on. It was like it had no choice, just like a heart. Almost as if it was play loud, or not at all. You could feel the intensity behind the music, even from out here. It was almost like it felt that, if it wasn't heard, or it wasn't loud enough, everything it stood for, and every inch of life inside, would die away, never to be heard from again. And when you felt that, you wanted the noise to surround you. You wanted to drown in the sound. When you felt like you were apart of the heart of something, you didn't care that it overtook you for a few hours. You just wanted to be there, and everything else and everyone else melted away. That feeling was the reason I loved those clubs, loved this street, this place, my city. Everything about it was loud, from the lights, to the music, to the people. And when I was a part of that, I wasn't Katherine, I was just me. Whoever I chose to be.

I felt the car lurch, grabbing me and tugging me out of my safe place again. We stopped to avoid running people over as the group of 12, the ones that had just left Down Under, dashed across the street into traffic, forgetting, or simply not caring, that there was a cross walk just up the road. A few seconds later, the door to the club swooshed closed, shutting the thumping bass, the heartbeat of my city, out. In it's place, the screeches of the high school girls and the loud, buzzed laughs of the boys, fell into the truck.