Rain coats everything when it falls. A gloss finish that turns dull pavement stones into the finest marble. People's dashing footsteps shattering the puddles into thousands of diamonds as they scurry to and fro. The clouds reach down and tickle the land, the colours being diluted and doubled and reflected on every damp surface. Cars drive quick healing scars into the lakes that fill up the shallow streets. And the steady stare of distant faces gaze out of stricken car windows, each rain drop tracing a tear down their reflections face. Reflections and shadows the only give away to emotion. At least in some people.
Kate Austen was a sweet girl. Katie, some people called her. She didn't like that. And she didn't think she was sweet. If anything she thought nobody really knew her enough to say she was anything. She would have said the same thing about her mom. For someone who worked every moment of her life to make a better one of her daughter, she didn't really do much to help her daughter. She made things unbearable. But that was what Kate thought. She was still only 16. And what do 16 year olds know about anything? Her mother kept things from her, her abusive father they kept running from. She kept Kate safe from. She knew nothing of that. And her working all hours just to keep her Katie in school. Katie, in her 16 year old temper tantrums and her 16 year old mood swings, never saw all the things that her mom did for her, and this time was no different. They were on the road again. Kate stared out of the window the whole journey. Her feet on the dashboard. Each rain drop that hit the car window tracing a tear down Katie's reflection. She was fed up of moving house.
Her new home was very small. White, wood panels. It had a tiny porch with over hanging eaves entwined with ivy. The windows were dusty and unlived in. Like no one had looked through them for quite some time. It was a quiet neighborhood. Not too shabby, all houses had the exact same design, lined up like a film set. Their house was the one that everyone frowned upon. Its lawn was untidy, its white was more of a murky grey and it had no curtains or lamp shades or even wall paper. It's the kid at school who couldn't afford new school shoes. In the front door stairs rose from the ground on the left. A narrow corridor to the right of the stairs led to a galley kitchen with counters on each side. Running down the right of the hall and kitchen, flowing the length of the house was a long open plan dining living room with a door only from the kitchen. Up the stairs was a tiny square landing where the layout was two bedrooms separated with a small bathroom. Kate took the room directly above the kitchen, straight on from the stairs. It was very small. Only enough room for a single bed on a small metal frame and a chest of drawers. All her clothes would have to be folded now. The left hand wall was almost entirely glass. This was why she chose it. Right then the rain made a racket hammering down on the glass, flowing over the wooden window frame like a waterfall.
Tomorrow she would start a new school. A school where she had to wear a tie. Could you believe that? Teenagers don't wear ties, Kate doesn't. Ties are for boring business men, who go to and from work every day, bringing the bacon or something like that. She always imagined her dad would wear a tie, an important business man who flew around the world, first class, to see his clients. That was why he wasn't around, he had planes to catch, places to be.
Kate put away her clothes, she didn't have many anyway. She'd just had a growth spurt, none of her old clothes fitted. She wore her combat trousers every day and tank tops. It was colder here then where she had come from. She wore a floppy tightly woven jumper with a jaw string hood and buttons to keep her chest warm. But she kept them undone, always doing the opposite of what she was told. But her mom had a new school uniform for her, all beautifully pressed and smelling of lavender. A black skirt with pleats, a white shirt and a black blazer. Of course there laid her tie on top of it, black and white with little geometric markings. She had pulled it out of her mom's hands. A mumble of thanks. She slept, not really wanting to wake up the next morning.
But she did, much to her 16 year old annoyance. She showered, got changed and wrestled with her tie. She shoved it in her pocket when she couldn't make sense of it. A bowl of cereal disappeared into Kate as her mother tried to get her daughter to agree to being sweet Katie at school. She claimed they would be here a while, so to get comfortable. Make friends. Kate didn't believe it. She had said it before.
It was a quick bus ride to the school. Kate would have preferred to have walked it; she had already decided she would tomorrow. It took only 20 minutes to skulk through reception and the offices and get herself registered to the school before she took her place in her new form room. She was early, there before anyone else. She knew she should have walked. She looked far too eager. It was the first day of 11th grade, everyone else knew each other; she wasn't looking forward to that one bit. But two characters fell through the door, one floppy small boy with dark painted finger nails and as if to compensate, one rotund boy with corkscrew curls. They were talking about something, band practice?
"Dude, new chick" The curly haired boy spoke first, he had the look of a deer in the headlights. Kate didn't really see how she should respond, it wasn't a question directed at her, was it? So she didn't reply.
"I'm Charlie, Nice to meet you" The other boy said, holding out his hand, she got a good look at his nails, chipped varnish and dirt under each finger nail. But she took it any way and gave it a little shake.
"Kate" She smiled, just the corners of her mouth.
"And this goofy oaf is Hurley, say hello Hurley" they were obviously good friends, good enough to insult each other, boys are funny creatures.
They chatted, well, Charlie and Hurley chatted. Kate listened. Slowly people filled the room, a few girls, all with the skirts hitched up on their waist and their shirt buttons dangerously low. A group of boys came through, football players, their blazers, if they ever were clean, already mud stricken. The exchange students, Japanese, Korean, something like that. Until the room was jostling with people. Kate stuck by her new friends, eager to stay unnoticed. The classes went quick and Kate didn't exactly pay attention. She was keeping her ears pricked. She found out a lot about her school year. Mostly because Charlie liked to talk. But she was a good eavesdropper. She was warned to steer clear of the Alpha females; they were a group of girls that got their own way every day. They were those girls with short skirts. They were called Shannon, Juliet and Ana Lucia. There were boys on the school football team; she'd heard names thrown around, Boone, Sayid, Desmond and Jack. She engaged in gossip that didn't even concern her. A girl, Claire, she had gotten pregnant over summer. It wouldn't stay secret for long. And someone else, troubled kid, faced jail time for 6 weeks over summer, his name was something like Sawyer. She couldn't be sure.
Kate's mother tried to engage her in conversation when she got home from school. She was obviously still angry about the move and ran up the stairs to her new little room. She threw off her blazer, fed up of its constriction. Then she unbuttoned the pleated skirt, feeling it drop from her small frame, sliding over her lean hips. It fell to the floor in a crumpled heap where she left it, careless as to its state for the following day. She slowly unbuttoned her shirt letting that too fall from her shoulders like the weight of the world. Sliding like sand through hands to make her feel weightless. Like it didn't matter that she was starting over. Like it didn't matter that she didn't want to be here doing any of this. She didn't let any of it make her cry, she wouldn't. Kate was far too stubborn for that. She pulled on an old t-shirt, grubby and tattered. It lay soft and comforting on her skin, bunched up above her hips leaving her plain black underwear on show. All this dressing up, pretending to be what she wasn't, this was all a clowns game that she wanted no part of and she turned around to look out the window as the rain started to pitter patter, soothingly. Only she found a face looking back. A teenage boy, in the room in the house opposite. Watching as if by accident. She froze, half embarrassed and half surprised and whole heartedly caught in the headlights. She recognized him from earlier that day; it only took a few moments to realize from where. His name was Jack.