Cat's six and her brother's picking her up and spinning her around. He's tickling her tummy and she's giggling gleefully and now he's tipping her over and dropping her on her head, she doesn't remember much for a while after that. She just remembers the tears and the screaming from her parents and she's scared.
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She's eight now and her brother is really sick so they have to go to Seattle so he can have a special surgery. She meets a girl there with curly blonde hair who explains her mum's not well (something about alcohol poisoning but Cat's too young and naïve to understand). The girl is just a few months older than Cat and they hit it off right away. When the scary man breaks into the hospital they hide under a table and he doesn't find them but Cat loses a bit of her naivety. ((References are rich in this paragraph))
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She's just turned ten and she's watching her friend use the chalk that's meant for drawing to make different parts of her hair different colours. Cat giggles and decides she wants to try it so she looks at all the pretty colours and picks a red one because it reminds her of yummy cupcakes her mummy bakes when her brother's being good and she proceeds to try to colour her whole head. Her teacher yells at her and her friend and tells them to go wash it off in the sink before the bell goes.
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Cat's thirteen and she and her friend are auditioning for Hollywood Arts together. They perform a funny little play and they actually get in. They have a sleepover at the friends house but Cat makes the mistake of asking where her mum is and her friend starts to yell at her, she never yells at Cat (she yells at everyone else but not Cat). And Cat starts to cry and her best friend stops and realises and apologises over and over again but Cat just tells her she wants to go home.
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She's fourteen and she's hiding under her bed, covering her ears. Her strawberry blonde hair fans out around her and her large brown eyes fill to the brim with tears. Her brother is currently grabbing anything he can reach and throwing it against the wall. Her parents are trying desperately to calm him down and she knows they will eventually but for now she shakes and quivers.
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She's fifteen and staring at the bottle of dye in her hand, thoughts are bouncing around in her brain about whether or not she should do this. She wants to make herself noticeable, her friend got herself a boyfriend and, for some reason, Cat's feeling jealous of him but she doesn't know why. She sighs and decides she'll do it, and she does. The next day when she shows up at school she runs into her friend and her friend's boyfriend practically swallowing each other's faces and the friend never even comments on the colour so she's not exactly in a good mood when she meets the new girl.
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She's seventeen now and she's trying to help some little boys get their cat when she drops her gum in the bin so obviously she tries to find it. She doesn't see the garbage truck until she's inside of it, and then there's a blonde girl coming to her rescue and Cat faints but the girl saves her. When she finds out she doesn't have a place to sleep obviously the red head invites her to stay, she never thought she'd end up living with her.
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Still seventeen she listens to the screams, yells and gunshots that echo through Hollywood Arts. One of her friends holds her to his chest and covers her ears while she sobs silently and whispers little things to keep herself calm. She keeps her eyes screwed shut and in her head she prays fervently for it all to be over. She's lived through this once she doesn't know if she'll survive a second time.
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She's turning eighteen and her roommate's there with a big pink cake and Cat smiles weakly but she's not been the same since the shooting. The blonde doesn't pretend to know how Cat feels, instead she hugs her tightly and kisses her forehead, and her roommate is not a hugger. It shocks and scares both of them when Cat leans up to peck the girl on the lips. The redhead gasps and rushes out of the apartment to cry on her best friend's shoulder.
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She's twenty and still living with the blonde girl who looks like the girl from the hospital but assures Cat she isn't. The only difference is that when Cat leans up to kiss her now neither of them are scared or shocked and it's a surprisingly happy ending for both of them.