Missing You Again

Be Yourself

"I can't believe you and Sean bought houses next door to each other. Y'all must be good friends." Now Cathy was plumping up my throw pillows. I was going to have to do a full top to bottom house clean and tidy whenever I saw her from now on. "I bet you're looking forward to him arriving tomorrow."

"Sean is..." I wanted to say 'the bane of my life' but he wasn't, not really so I blew out a long breath and said, "a really good friend as well as business partner but let's just say living next door to him wouldn't have been my first choice. The house was a surprise; Huntington Beach was not in the original business plan."

"You know, he did mention that," Cathy mused her hand hovering over an out of place objet d'art on the cocktail table. "He couldn't stand the idea of the unpredictable San Francisco weather."

I couldn't help the scoffing sound I made as I said, "It wasn't that bad. It's not like he was expected to live there. I tolerated it well enough." Realization of what I said hit me and I froze afraid to move or even breathe lest Cathy connect the Zacky shaped dots. I could see it, the moment she realised who 'that wench in San Francisco' was.

"It was such a great job for me to have these two houses side by side right in Huntington Beach," Cathy said.

Unsure of where she was taking the conversation I tried to interject, "Cathy...."

Ignoring me she continued talking, "I was so close to home it made my day a breeze. Unlike that place in West Hollywood I mentioned, I started that one in late spring and it meant weeks of driving by the time I was finished with it in July. God I hate the freeways."

I had to hand it to Cathy she had a talent for getting a message across without telling you explicitly. If I hadn't already known all about Meghan's cheating our conversation would have been a pretty innocuous one about houses and traffic, but I knew better. Meaghan had been planning her exit strategy for months before she'd ever left Zacky and Cathy wasn't judging him for disappearing to San Francisco. I hoped she wasn't judging me either. Cathy clearly knew how to maintain a confidence. The woman was a fucking vault!

I wished I could track Meaghan down and slap her for being a treacherous wench without having to reveal the source of my knowledge of her treachery.

Maybe it was the way that Cathy knew how to keep a secret that had me spilling my guts to her, who knows, all that really mattered was that one moment I was contemplatively sipping my tea the next I was telling her all of my convoluted reasons for why she'd never heard of my business success before Sean hired her to decorate our houses.

I told her about the way I'd felt compelled to keep my secrets because every stage on my ladder to success coincided with a major event in someone else's life. Quitting our day jobs and supporting ourselves? Steph and Eli got married; no way was I going to give Eli fuel for an epic sulk. Making more than minimum wage? Caitie got married, my sister was shy enough that she always slid into the background around me; I wasn't going to take even the tiniest twinkle of her limelight. Making my first personal million that wasn't just assets in the company? Ryan died and I couldn't stand to even think about my personal good fortune let alone share it. Realising we were worth millions? My sister had just lost her husband and unborn child.

As I explained myself to Cathy my own motivations became clearer to me, as my verbal onslaught continued I spilled those to her as well. After our mother had died shy little Caitie had become a people pleaser I'd become the opposite. It wasn't deliberate but I'd been so sick of hearing the words 'your mother would be so proud' that I'd stopped sharing anything that would make her proud. Because she wasn't. Proud that is. She wasn't around to be proud of me and I was sick of it being implied that any achievement in my life was for the purpose of pleasing someone who was no longer there. I didn't want to overshadow the special moments in my friends' and family's lives but I also couldn't stand the thought of their misty eyed declarations over the speculated feelings of my dead mother. I knew she'd loved me and I didn't need everyone reminding me of the worst time in my life every time I did something or achieved something that made me feel good.