Kaleidoscope
Pieces that made Caitlyn Gellar.
* * * *
Caitlyn Gellar usually feels lost.
It feels like she's sleepwalking through her life. She doesn't know what she wants to do, or where she wants to go. She only knows she wants to matter. She wants to be somebody. It's pretty tiring to go through life unaware of her direction.
* *
Caity thinks people suck. Ok, sure, she knows she is quite the actress, but the fact that everybody only sees her as bubbly and confident isn't only because she's an awesome actress, it's simply because it's easier for them to see her this way. It kind of hurts her nobody bothers to look further than her neon stockings, and carefree attitude.
* *
She was thirteen when she met him.
She doesn't remember what he said, or what she wore, but she does remember his hand on her knee, brown eyes looking right through her and the biggest smile she had ever seen. His name was Nate and Caitlyn thinks her life really started when she met him.
* *
She tried to fly once. She was three years old, and she was in some hotel with her parents, the windows were open and they were so high, she could've touched the sky if she reached out. She stood on the window, about to jump out and touch the sky, when her mother gasped, and her father grabbed her, taking away from the window, back on the floor.
Sometimes, when it's dark, and she can't sleep, she'll look through the windows, at the sky, and the stars and the moon, and she wonders whether it's childish to still want to fly.
* *
Fifteen years old seems too young for a midlife crisis, and yet there she is, angry and confused, staring at the lake.
"What's wrong?" She hadn't noticed Nate's presence until he spoke.
"Nothing." Caity said, she sighed before continuing "And everything."
He didn't say anything back. He just sat there with here, staring in the distance. But when he left, he put a hand on her should (and it burned, burned, burned)
"You're gonna be great, Caitlyn Gellar."
* *
The word 'best friend' doesn't really mean much to Caity, Tess used to wear the title, before the 'exclusive' parties, and the Cristal Champagne, back when her eyes sparkled, and they had sleepovers, and Tess wasn't such a shell.
Mitchie should be her best friend, Caity thinks, but Mitchie is (too) nice, and (too) friendly, and she has this bright eyed innocence thing going on, and Caitlyn could probably trust her with everything. (Except, Mitchie lies, Mitchie craves company, Mitchie wants nothing more than wanting to be liked)
* *
She never knew Shane Gray well, but somehow they end up at this bar together, on some Tuesday night, and they're getting drunk and angsty about there lives. He curses the recording companies, and she curses her algebra teacher. She doesn't know how they manage to return home without several DUI's or broken limbs, but they do.
And suddenly getting drunk and bitching about their lives with Shane Gray on Tuesday nights becomes tradition. (And he sort of becomes the bestest friend she might ever have)
* *
Shane forces her to be Connect Three's opening act.
It was a last minute thing, apparently their usual opening act had a prior commitment which they mentioned ten minutes before the show, and she's kind of their last hope. Caitlyn said no, no, no flipping way. But somehow she's standing centre stage in front of hundreds, no, thousands of people, trying to carry a note.
Caitlyn has always been the behind the scenes kind of girl. She was going to be a hotshot producer, and liked that idea.
But the moment she entered the stage, she knew she hasn't been the behind the scenes kind of girl in a long time.
* *
Years later, she's twenty-one years old and nothing like the girl that hid herself behind her laptop and neon fishnet stockings. She saw Nate the other day. He smiled at her, this half grin kind of smile that could still give her butterflies after all these years.
"Told you you'd be great, Caity."
* *
Her name is Caitlyn Gellar, damnit, and the world better remember it.