Through Her Eyes | Book #1

chapter 2.

           Kathy sat on the living room couch, watching as her parents paced around the house, nervously, hurriedly. She couldn't understand what is going on and why they hadn't sat down with her and explained everything bit by bit. The only thing she wanted was answers to the million questions swirling in her mind. She felt as if one second longer and she'd explode.

           One moment she was sitting down, the next she was standing up, pacing back and forth and trying her hardest not to yell at her parents. Everything was out of her control and she hated that. She should be at school at that moment, listening to some sort of snarky remark from Zoey that the nerd was late and watching Anna lift her face from whatever book she was reading to offer the ghost of a smile and what Kathy would swear would be the quietest of chuckles. There was something about Anna that was different and mysterious but, honestly, not Kathy nor Zoey cared. They would be friends no matter what.

           "Mom, dad—what the hell is going on?!"

           Not even hearing the typical 'language, Kathy' from her father was enough to set her nerves on the highest mode. It was already enough that she had to attempt to ignore all the colorful light beams she had witnessed on her way back home. On the wheels of buses, around people's bodies that she passed by on the streets and had to look away to get her mind straight; even the car that had almost hit her when she was crossing the street, too distracted to notice it. It hadn't been her fault, not exactly. She was merely trying to tell herself that she hadn't just seen a black cat with red circles of light hitting the ground every time his paws would take a step forward into a dark alleyway by the grocery store.

           "Calm down, honey," her mother's voice pleaded, carrying a pile of books that seemed to all be as thick as the Complete Works of Miss Marple, into the living room. Oh, how she had wished to be able to read it one day. "We'll explain everything."

           "You better!" She had no filter at that moment, cheeks red and limbs shaking, typical of a nervous Kathy, an anxiety that couldn't be controlled. In moments like this, she wished there was a way to control her arms and legs that would shake almost as if she was in the middle of the Aspen snow with nothing on her body but her birthday suit.

           Despite her mother's soothing voice, Kathy knew the older woman was not as calm as her tone of voice gave away. She could see in her eyes that there was nervousness and... fear? Why was she afraid?

           "It's a long story... I—I wish we could have told you this sooner, but you have to understand. We only meant to protect you."

           "Protect me? Why would you—Mom, please, try to make sense right now. I have no idea what you're talking about." Kathy paced back and forth again, shaking her arms in a frustrated attempt to stop them from trembling, but she ended up sitting down in defeat, tucking her hands between her legs as if that would solve it. Her eyes looked pleadingly at her mother. She was confused, and her mother felt as if she was staring into the eyes of a small bird that had yet to learn how to fly.

           "Do you have your eye glasses with you?" Her mother asked while Kathy's father finally made an appearance in the living room, carrying a pile of notebooks that Kathy swore she had seen in his study before.

           "No. The glass got shattered."

           Even while Kathy was replying to her mother, her eyes wouldn't leave the thick brown books her mother had placed on top of the coffee table in front of the couch, or the numerous notebooks her father had hidden in the different shelves of his study desk whenever she came in the room.