A/N: Trigger warning! This story does contain mentions of self-harm and other related topics, please steer clear if you are not comfortable reading such content. Hope you all enjoy the first chapter! Keep in mind I'm writing this mainly to pull different sides from the characters, not necessarily for plot. Please R&R with suggestions, ideas or opinions.
Cat sat hunched over a pile of homework, her shoulders slumped forward and her head tilted at an obscure, almost uncomfortable, angle as she studied one of the many papers before her. It was one in the morning, and she had spent a majority of her evening staring helplessly at each worksheet she fished from her bag. None of the words on the page made sense to her swimming eyes and her mind seemed to twist each question to the point where she could scarcely understand what it was about. Hours had been spent pouring over books and staring in deep, intense concentration at problems that should be easy, problems that were easy for everyone but her.
Academic work had always been a problem for Cat. It's not as if she were stupid, but rather that she had trouble forcing her mind to focus on the material for very long before it buffered and skipped to other topics against her will. To add to her mounting frustration, seemingly her entire class could squeeze answers from the problems with ease and would give her judging glares when she turned up in class with an empty worksheet and an exasperated mask on her features.
Cat was tired of being the stupid one, the airhead of the school that everyone treated like a three-year-old because they believed that her mental capabilities matched those of a toddler. The only person who didn't see Cat as a blind toddler was Jade. Everyone else acted as if the artificial redhead had no idea what their all-to-obvious exchanged glances and grins were about. She knew they were about her, about something she had said or done that they believed warranted the need for her to be called out in a non-verbal manner that was far from discreet. It fucking hurt.
Jade did not see Cat as a clueless child trapped in the crossfire of stupidity and immaturity though. Jade simply saw Cat as someone who rose above the corrupt and cruel ways of the world. Someone who could walk through the darkness and pretend the sun was shining. Someone who knew there was cruelty and hatred enveloping society, yet was brave enough to ignore it while everyone else chose to wallow in its shadowy hands. Jade knew Cat held wisdom in her every bone, and that it was expressed in a childlike way because she did not let the bad in the world corrupt her.
Cat wished dearly for Jade at this moment; she wished Jade were here to show her she was not stupid, but that she just did not learn as everyone else did. She wished Jade would come and make the content on the papers under her uneasy gaze suddenly make sense.
That didn't matter though because Jade wasn't here, the content was just a mess of printed black words to her, and she had already given up. With an angry, strangled whimper she swiped her hand across the desk and sent the mountain of papers and books crumpling to the floor with a cushioned thud. She slid down in her chair and tucked her chin into her heaving chest as tears formed a glassy film over her eyes and slid down her reddened cheeks. It wasn't fucking fair. It wasn't fair that everyone else had it so easy and she was forced to struggle upon every word she read.
"I'm stupid," She whimpered pitifully as she turned her crooked, blurry gaze to the mountain of now crumpled, folded sheets of paper on the carpet. She kicked a book that had landed near her feet with a grunt and sent it scurrying over the rug and into the wall with a clap as its cover met wood.
It was then her eyes met the pencil sharpener that had been a victim of the mass assault performed by a frustrated Cat. The redheaded girl bent down and picked it up carefully and noticed that the blade had been knocked out on its descent to the floor. She discarded the plastic case on her desk and searched warily for the sharp object that surely lay somewhere among the folded books and abused worksheets. Her tired eyes finally traced its sharp, prominent edges lying a foot away from the rubble on the shaggy carpet, a glint of artificial light reflecting off its upturned side and projecting a shimmer of light on the wall.
She bent down carefully and grasped it cautiously in her thumb and forefinger, her brows furrowed as she tried to work out just where her mind was going with this. Her thoughts were racing ahead of what she was able to comprehend in such short time, and her body seemed to be following, and when she finally retrieved the blade, she began wondering just what the motive of her interest in this object was.
It clicked suddenly as her mind snapped into place and her subconscious informed her conscious thoughts just why she wanted this. To make that agonizing little voice inside her head shut up, to drown it out by focusing on something else. After all, it's hard to concentrate on anything when there's blood coming out of you.
So maybe it was unlike Cat Valentine to do such a thing, and perhaps she was falling down a path that could have been avoided. Had she just phoned her best friend or curled up to take a rest she might not have found herself in such a situation, but sometimes we do not think about our actions before we make them. Sometimes all rational thought trickles out of our ears, and all we can do is listen to that one little voice banging on the walls of our brain screaming "just fucking do it."