Where Two Collide

Chapter Eight - Cat

Chapter Eight

Cat

"Owen!" I yelled, approaching the group with my fists clenched.

"Cat, oh my god," said Tia, turning from the group. "I can't believe what happened. Can you believe they are both still alive? It's just so crazy." She pulled me into an unexpected hug and my body went rigid, the sudden affection, unwanted and completely unwarranted, freezing me up for a moment.

"Just crazy," Rachel repeated, nodding vigorously.

I took Tia by the shoulders and pushed her back, creating an acceptable distance between us before dropping my hands. "The craziness depends solely on the version of the story you've heard," I stated, wiping my hands down my jeans as if they were dirty.

Rachel gave me a funny look; one I was used to. It said quite clearly, "Oh Cat, you are so crazy!" Which she'd frankly said to me a few times when I was younger, way before I realised we weren't really friends, and she didn't mean it in a joking way.

I hesitated. My head whipped toward Owen, who was standing amongst his boys, watching with interest. "You. We need to talk."

He eyed me. Then nodded begrudgingly, separating himself from his buzzing flies and following me until we had created some distance from listening ears.

Now we were away from the crowd, and the bravado was gone, I noticed his hand was wrapped in a bandage and saw in the way that he held himself, he was in considerable pain. Probably from the cracked ribs. I rolled my eyes up toward the ceiling, not allowing myself to feel sorry for him. "What have you been telling people about the accident?" I demanded.

He reached his unbandaged hand behind his neck, rubbing cathartically. "What do you mean?"

He clearly knew what I was talking about and I wasn't having any of it. "You know exactly what I mean!"

"Tsk." The corners of Owen's mouth turned down and he dropped his head, speaking in a lower tone as if others were desperate to hear our conversation. I doubted they cared that much until he drew attention to himself, which he was particularly good at. "I've been vague to be honest. I know there are rumours spreading, but they aren't what I've been saying, it's just what people have put together themselves."

He seemed to be telling the truth, which was even more pathetic. "Why did you even have to say anything?"

He shrugged, wincing visibly.

"I mean of course they are going to come up with their own idea of what happened if you didn't explain the whole thing. Surely it would have been better to have said nothing."

"I don't think you realise how injured I am." He frowned and lifted his shirt to reveal a huge blue and black bruise staining a good majority of his stomach. "How else do you explain this to people?"

I waved him off, unperplexed by his sudden stripping. "And stories about crazed drivers out to murder Alice is the way to go, is it?"

"That one was way off field, some of the other stories aren't as dramatic."

"You're missing the point. You've put my sister in a horrible position." I narrowed my eyes at him. "Again... And what's worse is, the entire time we've been standing here talking, not once have you asked me how she is. You could have killed her Owen; do you even care, or are you just too busy enjoying all the attention?" I didn't bother waiting for his response. His dumbfounded expression was enough for me to know I was done with the conversation. I stomped toward the history room, leaving him standing alone in the hallway.

Later, when school had finished and the corridors were emptied, there was that nice kind of quiet feeling in the air. That sense of calm after the waves die down. In the art room, way at the back end of the school building, I opened up my portfolio and spread my pieces across several desks. I bared my soul and watched Mrs Talbot, positioned right in the middle, bent at the waist as she examined my work through her hooker-red spectacles.

Travis did a sneaky drive by, checking out his competition whilst in full view. When he made a face and drew out his notepad to jot down a few scribbles, I knew I'd got something here right.

Mrs Talbot stood bolt upright, twirling a paintbrush in her right hand. "Yes."

"Yes?" I repeated back at her.

"Yes, this is looking quite good. But..." She hesitated and started to tap her paint brush on one of the desks.

"But?" I was starting to sound like a parrot.

"Yes," she said again.

I almost exploded with impatience and annoyingly caught Travis sniggering across the room at me.

"There's something missing Cat," she said finally. And I caught myself from sighing loudly at her. "Something I can't quite put my finger on. Something vital."

I frowned. That was vague. "Like what kind of vital thing?"

"Something," she said and waved her paintbrush at me. "Let me think on it. And you too. You think on it as well."

I gathered up my portfolio and made a face at my many hours of hard work that lay in front of me. Was she right? Was something big missing from this? I didn't want to take the chance of her being right and submit it without that one thing, it could be the difference between me getting into the program and me failing spectacularly. With a heavy sigh, I shoved the book into my bag and headed home.

The night previous, I'd been lucky. The kind of lucky where an unpleasant situation, such as a drunk man groping me, turned out to be my saving grace. It was tainted, a tainted luck from a tainted night. The night of my sister's accident, I shouldn't have been home when my parents came rushing into our bedroom, with unbridled hope that they would find my sister tucked up in bed. When they came looking for her, fearing that the call they had received wasn't in fact some kind of sick joke, they should have also found that I wasn't there too. What should have happened was that they should have banged on the door to our room, finding the door locked, and nobody inside to unlock the door for them. However, because of that tainted luck, when they came running, I was there to unlock the door. I was there because I had been sent home early from my secret shift. Because of what I did to that customer. Because of that tainted luck.

It was that same luck that had tainted my sister.

We had thought she was fine after the accident. We had thought she had come out unscathed. We were wrong.

I found her sickly body on the bathroom floor and screamed a noise louder than I thought I was possible of.

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