In Dead Men's Shoes

Chapter 10

"What?" I said. I felt as though one time wasn't enough, so I said it again. "What?"

Catalina sighed, her sobs subsiding. "I miss you. That's what."

I narrow my eyes at her, suddenly dubious. "But you abandoned me. You realize that, right? I was lying around missing you because you turned your back on me without a warning. Tell me with a straight face that I should feel bad for you."

"I never said you should feel bad for me, Jess! I just said I miss you."

"But - Catalina." My fantasy of having her come back into my life was crumbling into pieces in my hands. "You can't just walk back into my life whenever you want after fucking me over like that, just because you miss me. Everything's changed now. I've grown to live without you."

"Have you really?" she asked. I looked down. No, I wanted to say, I miss you so so so so so much, I need to hug you right now, no, I haven't been living without you at all. But instead I stood my ground.

"I just - you really hurt me," I said.

Catalina started to sob again. "Jess, I never wanted to hurt you. God, I was trying to keep you from getting hurt."

"Oh yeah? And how was that supposed to work?"

"I was getting worse," Catalina said, quietly, and I met her eyes, my face serious.

"I told you, weird stuff was happening to me. But then before we got around to talking about it, he... he took over. I knew I had to draw the line before it got worse. And if I involved you in it, well... you would never stop worrying about me."

"You didn't have to tell me everything! You could have at least kept in contact from me!"

"No I couldn't have. You know I haven't been able to keep a single secret from you for years. It was tell you everything or tell you nothing. And I couldn't hurt you by putting that burden on you. The closer we got, the more you knew... I know how you are. Every little thing makes you worry."

"Don't you dare tell me how I am! I can handle a little worry! Somebody should be worrying about you, shouldn't they?"

Catalina started to cry again.

"Please, don't cry. Why are you crying?"

"Because, Jess, all I want is for us to go back to normal. For all of this to go back to normal."

"Well, I'd say you kind of ruined that for us, huh? Why now? Why all of a sudden you want everything to be perfect again?" I had to stare at the ground even though the intensity of the conversation told me to look into Catalina's eyes. I couldn't bear to look up and see her sobbing.

"I just - it was wrong. I made the wrong choice. It wasn't worth it to leave you," she said. "I thought I could avoid you around school -"

"Yeah, you did a damn good job of doing that."

"Okay, that's beside the point."

"Is it though? Because that should be the whole point. One day you said we should take a break, and I thought maybe we would just become a little less close, not stop talking altogether! No warning! You gave me no warning."

"Look, I didn't mean to make it this way, it just happened so quickly - you called my name at school and I just made the split second decision to ignore you. After that it was never the same. You didn't try to talk to me, and I just felt so guilty, I just kept ignoring you, and then I got into the cycle, and realized I couldn't get out - I'm so sorry. Please - you have to forgive me."

"Did you really just say I have to forgive you?"

"Okay, that came out wrong. You know what I mean. I was just saying that around school, I had gotten used to - well -"