We haven’t spoken of Rocco in several weeks.
I don’t bring it up because I know Cat feels guilty, even though she shouldn’t. It was necessary. I would have eliminated someone far more innocent than Rocco, if my sister were in danger. If I had a sister, I mean.
“Sometimes sketching is the only thing that makes me feel better about something,” Cat says softly. “That’s how I used to deal with my dad being an asshole. Well,” she laughs, “it used to be the only thing that made me feel better.”
“What do you mean?” I say.
“This has been strangely cathartic, too,” Cat says, sitting up on her elbow to look at me.
“You like it?” I say.
“I think you know that I do.”
We look at each other for a long time.
This is the most honest Cat and I have ever been.
So when she asks her next question, I feel compelled to answer, even though I never talk about this, ever.
“What about your mother?” she says.
“She left me, when I was ten years old.” I take a breath, wanting to stop, but compelled to tell her what I’ve never told anyone before. “My father was drinking. He was becoming more and more angry, and violent. Breaking things in the house. Throwing things at her. I don’t think he’d struck her yet, but he shoved her down and she hit her head on the dining room table. He regretted it afterward. He tried to pick her up, tried to apologize, but she ran and locked herself in her room and didn’t come out for hours.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cat says, her big dark eyes fixed on mine.
“They were happy once. They loved each other, and they loved me. But he was in pain. He was bitter. He drove her away. And she left. Just packed up and disappeared while he was out. She didn’t warn me. I came home from school and the house was dark and quiet . . . I knew. I just knew.”
Cat’s eyes glitter with tears. She blinks, and they run down her cheeks in parallel tracks.
“Dean . . .” she says.
“I don’t care!” I say, suddenly embarrassed that I laid open this wound for her to see.
Cat knows I’m lying.
“Can I ask you one last thing?” she says.
I don’t know if I can take any more questions. But she interprets my silence as assent.
“Why were you so sad the day that Ozzy’s mother died?”
I can tell she’s afraid to ask that question, but it must have been eating at her all this time.
I have to really consider it.
I know why I was angry—I had never allowed anyone to see me cry. I had never lost control like that.
But why was I crying in the first place?
I take a deep breath, trying to still the miserable pounding of my heart.
“I just . . . I just realized that no one would do that for me,” I tell her quietly. “Ozzy’s mother laid down her life for him. My mother left, and she didn’t even take me with her.”
I tried so hard to keep my voice steady, but it cracks at the very end.
I’m grateful that Cat puts her arms around me so I can hide my face against her neck.
“I’m sure she didn’t want to leave,” Cat says. “She must have been frightened.”
“I know,” I say hollowly. “I think he found her and killed her after. She hasn’t called or written in years.”
“Zoe says our father killed our mother, too,” Cat murmurs. “She says he let her bleed to death after her last baby.”
Cat holds me tight, squeezing me with all her might.
She’s small, but strong. It’s a good hug.
She draws back and looks at me.
“Your father was drinking . . . because of what Leo’s father did to him. Because of the burns.”
“Yes.”
“Do you hate him still?” Cat asks.
I know she means Leo, not my father.
“No,” I sigh. “I’m tired of hating him.”
“It’s so sad,” Cat says. “That your father did love your mother once . . .”
“The more he loved her, the more he felt he wasn’t worthy of her,” I say.
“That’s just wrong!” Cat cries.
I nod.
But deep inside, I fear that I might feel the same.
14
Cat
I’m amazed at my own boldness in asking Dean personal questions.
Even more amazed that he answered.
To me, that interaction was more shocking than Dean’s apparent superpower for multiple orgasms.
He looked like the same devastated ten-year-old he must have been the day he came home to that empty house. He struggled to keep his face stern and composed, but I could see the awful pain in his eyes.
Dean’s past does not justify his actions. However, it certainly explains them.
He’s never known anything but shame and abandonment.
I understand the torment of a cold and demanding father, and the absence of a mother. But unlike Dean, I had Zoe by my side, always loving me, always keeping me safe.
Dean was completely alone.
My heart aches for him.
I wish I had Zoe here to tell me what the fuck to do about Lola Fischer. If Lola disliked me before, it’s nothing compared to her hatred of me after her disgrace in the Quartum Bellum—eliminated after the first round, she’s biting the head off anybody who even mentions it.
And she’s harassing me every chance she gets.
Which is very inconvenient with exams right around the corner.
I’m trying to study in the library when she attacks me yet again.
Rakel and I have our textbooks and half-finished papers spread out across our table. Rakel is arguing with me over the benefits of a wireless security system. We’re so engrossed in quiet debate that I don’t even hear Lola and Dixie creeping up behind me until Lola dumps an entire bottle of milk over my head.
My textbooks and papers are drenched, not to mention my hair and blouse. The milk is cold and sickly sticky, dripping down into my eyes. The papers are all ruined, the ink smeared into oblivion.
“Oops,” Lola giggles, shaking out the last few drops all over my history textbook.
Rakel leaps up from her seat, immediately shoved back down by the burly, freckled Dixie Davis.
I look up at Lola with cold fury.
“It’s your fault you lost,” I tell her. “You’re a shit leader.”
Lola’s smirk turns into a snarl of rage. She has such pretty, doll-like features that anger distorts them to a disproportionate degree. She’s like a harpy, transformed by fury.
She opens her mouth to attack me in return, only to be interrupted by Miss Robin’s surprisingly sharp voice.
“What happened here?” she demands.
Lola instantly reverts to her innocent smile and sing-song voice.
“Cat spilled her milk,” she says sweetly. “I told her food isn’t allowed in the library.”
“She spilled it on her own head?” Miss Robin says coldly. “How ingenious of her.”
Lola shrugs shamelessly. “She’s so clumsy.”
“You’re banned from the library,” Miss Robin says without hesitation. “For one month.”
“What!?” Lola shrieks. “How am I supposed to study for our exams?”