What Love Really Means

Digidestend Angel

Summary: Beck's always wondered about his best friend and why she's so silly and naïve. There's a heart-wrenching reason behind it and he wants to change the reason why she thinks love doesn't exist for her.

...

"Hey, sport."

Cat looked up from her notebook and gave her best friend since she was a little girl a bright smile. "Hey, Beck! Oh my gosh, guess what Frankie did last night?" She asked him in a hurry and her high pitched, but soft voice.

Beck bit his lip. "Cat…I don't know if I can know anything else that your crazy brother has done."

Cat made an 'o' with her tiny pink lips and nodded. "Kay-kay."

"So what are you writing?" He motioned to the notebook. They were in the school's hallway, and Cat had been sitting alone on the staircase, her nose in her notebook, while Beck came in and saw her in deep concentration.

She suddenly put it close to her chest, so he couldn't see it at all. "Nothing!"

He furrowed her eyebrows. "Cat, what is it?"

She looked around for something to help her. "It's…uh, um, well…it's a doodle picture of Mr. Longneck!" She squealed with excitement. "You caught me!"

"No, it's not." Beck said in annoyance. "Cat, I saw writing. No picture. Come on, tell me."

"No." Cat suddenly mumbled. "I can't."

He looked concerned as he sat down next to her. She tried to scoot away from him, but she couldn't go anywhere with the railing next to her. "Hey." He put a hand on her knee. "What's going on, babygirl? You're not like yourself."

She forced a bright smile and giggled. "There is no such thing! I am not like anyone! I am my own person with so many faces and emotions, you can never catch me! Yay!"

Beck turned away to roll his eyes then looked back her. "Cat, why are you like this?" He asked suddenly.

She stopped giggling and glared. "What's THAT supposed to mean?" She asked, offended by his question.

"Every time something gets serious in a conversation when it comes to you and your wellbeing, you always blow it off with something random and silly!" He almost snapped at her. "Why do you do that? I can't figure it out."

"You're not meant to figure it out." Cat told him, but looked away. "No one needs to know why I am the way I am."

"I need to know." Beck whispered, taking her hand now and giving it a comforting squeeze. "There's a reason why you hide behind this act. You are not naïve or airheaded, you know that."

"I know, but you guys would treat me different if I told you guys the truth about me and my life." She told him. "There's nothing more that I would hate than you guys to feel sorry for me and feel like you have to protect me from the hurt and betrayal I feel every day of my life."

"Betrayal?" Beck asked in confusion, trying to figure this out. "Who's hurt you like that? Are you still mad about what Tori did with Danny?"

"No! It's not that!" She squeaked from her hiding place behind the notebook. "You can't know!"

He grabbed her bag for her and pulled her by the hand to the janitors closet that people loved having conversations in for some unknown reason. He put their backpacks down and turned to her, but she had turned away from him, with her arms crossed across her chest and she was looking down at the floor, shaking a bit. "No, Beck. You wouldn't understand…you won't get why I am the way I am. You'd think I'm being dramatic. You'd-"

"Don't tell me what I'll feel or how I'll never understand." Beck seethed. "And Cat, you're not leaving this closet without opening up to me. This has to end. We're best friends. No secrets."

Cat looked up to him, staring into his concerned eyes, with tears brimming her big brown ones. She finally turned away from him again and sighed deeply. "When I was 16, last year, my dad left me…he gave me a 6,000 dollar check and he told me to get lost."

"What?" Beck breathed out, trying to wrap his head around this.

"You see…" She gulped and turned to him again, holding out her pinky finger for a pinky promise. "You have to promise me you won't think so little of me or call me pathetic after I tell you this."

Beck immediately wrapped his pinky around her finger. "Cat, I'd never do that. I promise." He let her pinky go, but took her hand and kept it in his. "Talk to me."

She took a deep breath, avoiding his gaze. She kept her eyes on their connected hands. It felt so right to her. She shook herself out of her thoughts and remembered what she was doing in the first place. "Okay, well…my mom was married to Frankie's dad…Frankie was about 5 at the time. Well, my mom went to a Christmas party for her work one year. December of 1990. Frankie's dad couldn't go, or just didn't want to. I don't think my mom told me that part. Anyways…you see, my mom had a one night stand at that party because she had too much to drink, if you catch my drift."

Beck nodded, staying silent. He was not used to Cat sounding so serious and realistic. It was making him glad he made her do this, so he could meet the real her.

Cat saw him nod and decided to continue on. "They apparently never talked after that. My mom ended up pregnant with me and told Frankie's dad that it wasn't his…my mom didn't explain what happened after she told him, but all I know is I wasn't conceived out of love. My mom and dad were married, but…but to separate people." Cat let a tear fall. "My mom didn't tell my dad about me until I was 3. He was mad, apparently, but she made him pay child-support because Frankie's dad divorced her."

"Why did they divorce?" Beck asked when she stopped for a second.

"Me." She whispered out. "Frankie said that his dad would say that he felt awkward around me and always remembered that I wasn't his, so he hated me. I tore their marriage apart."

Beck put a hand on her shoulder. "It wasn't your fault. Anyways, sorry, go on."

Cat nodded. "Okay…where was I? …oh, yeah. So as the years have gone on, my dad paid child support every month, but he never wanted to see me. Finally, when I was 16, he…he wrote my mom a letter, saying he'd give me 6,000 dollars to pay off the child support until I was 18, so he wouldn't have to deal with this anymore. I tried to talk to him, to have a relationship with him, but he told me I was an embarrassment to him and never to communicate with him again."

Beck felt a rare fury in his heart and veins. "Cat…you didn't deserve that."

"I did." Cat told him, playing with his hand. "I was the "mistake". The "affair child". I ruined my mom's life…she tells me I saved her life by helping her stop drinking after she had me, but she could've still had her husband and everything if it wasn't for me. It's all my fault. I'm nothing, but I mistake to the world and to my family." Cat began sobbing a bit, making Beck's heart break. "I just ask God every day why he did this to me and my mom…Frankie…his dad…my dad…I ruined everyone. I embarrassed everyone."

Beck almost cried with her.

"I've contemplated killing myself so many times, but I talk myself out of it." She confessed. "What good would it do? My mom's life is already ruined enough. If she lost me, her trials and pain would've been for nothing. But I do wish I was never born."

"What about me, Cat?" Beck asked her gently. "I wouldn't be who I am today without you."

"You would've been fine." Cat told him. "Everyone would've probably been better off without me."

"Stop." He pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her shaking and sobbing figure. "I need you in my life and I don't think I would've been okay without your help and friendship." He pulled her back and put his hands on her face to make her look at him, wiping her eyes at the same time. "Cat…you're the best person in the world to me. God blessed me with you. But you still haven't answered my question, Cat…why do you act the way you do?"

"So life doesn't hurt me anymore." Cat shrugged. "If I act innocent and act like nothing in the world can bring me down, being fake, and acting oblivious all the time, nothing can hurt me. I can't hurt again, Beck. The betrayal and hurt my dad put me through…I can't do that again. Beck, you trust me, but I can't trust you. I don't trust men…or anyone. They'll leave me if I get too close. You'll leave me if I tell you the truth…"

Beck's heart was heavy suddenly. "What truth?"

Cat shook her head. "No, I can't tell you. You'll leave me, just like my dad when I told him…that…I love…him. That I wanted him to be in my life, so I could get to know him because he was my dad and I loved him even though I didn't know him." She shook her head and tried to release herself from Beck's grasp, but he wasn't letting her go for anything. "If I love a man, they'll leave. No man would ever stand by my side…not me. I can't be loved. Not by a man."

"Yes, you can." Beck whispered. "You know why?"

Cat shook her head.

Beck pressed his lips on hers, giving her a soft, fragile kiss. When they released, he looked her in the eyes again while she was in awe, but had an expression that showed much confusion. "I love you too. I would never abandon you. Cat, why do you think I protect you and care about you so much? Yes, I'm your best friend and stuff, but the main reason is because I want you as my own. I didn't know how to explain it to you or anything like that. But now that I know your past with your dad and why you act the way you do, and that you've told me your deepest secret, and your main fear…I know that now was the perfect time to tell you that I love you for you. Not for what you have done, or what you will become. And I'll give you the love. The love that you never knew from a man. Cat, I will show you what love really means."

Cat fell into his arms, crying and sobbing. She couldn't believe it.

Someone loved her.

A man loved her for her.

Maybe there really is love for her out there.

And it was in the form of Beck Oliver.