Cannonball
It's not hard to fall…When you float like a cannonball--
Katie sees her again for the first time only two days after college has started back.
Leaning against a locker, watching Emily talking to Naomi and they aren't like—you know, even doing anything but still Katie can't help but like roll her eyes and wish she was somewhere else because watching her sister chat up a girl(even if she is actually dating her) is never going to be anywhere near the realm of normal things to do.
Emily leans forward and puts her hand on the bare part of Naomi's arm and Katie looks away because Jesus, they might as well just like paint it in huge red letters on their foreheads.
So Katie turns to look down the hallway, anywhere but at her sister really and that's when she sees her.
Leaning against a locker, smoking a fag in school—of fucking course—with Freddie hovering by anxiously, like desperate to carry her fucking books or something.
Effy flicks her cigarette onto the linoleum floors of the school, nearly singeing three people who just happen to be walking by. Then she looks up and down the hall, like this was planned or something and she meets Katie's eyes.
Just like that, Katie can't look away, can't move. Those blue eyes seem to reach down the hallway and push Katie right back to that night when she was hovering over them, slapping Effy's face to get her to just like fucking stop staring for once.
An arm on her shoulder pulls Katie out of whatever trance she was in. And then Effy's looking away and then walking away, away from Katie and Emily's rubbing her back softly and telling Katie, "Just forget about her."
Out of nowhere Katie feels like all the air has gone out of the hallway and the kids moving around her are just blurs with distorted voices ringing from them. It's all hot and stuffy and Katie pushes Emily off her and practically runs, pushing through people, until she gets to the doors of the college where she busts out—feeling hot sunlight scorch her face, lighting up the lines of her scar.
--
The next day, Katie pretends she's sick and ignores the sad look Emily gives her before she leaves. Katie listens to the door slam as Emily goes on with her life and then bundles under the covers so far, she imagines she's descending into the earth and its cool and calm and she's resting but then she realizes that it sound an awful lot like being dead and she fights, twisting the covers all around before finally kicking them completely off the bed.
Later she looks at herself in the mirror and without thinking she spits on her own reflection, wants to slap it too and shove its face in the dirt, put her fingers on its neck but instead she leans over with a sigh and gets a bit of tissue and then silently wipes the spit off the mirror—wishing it were that easy.
--
Emily comes home in a huff like slinging her books down on the desk and flopping onto her bed. Katie rolls over and stares at her own wall and its kind of sad that pretending not to care is this easy.
Their mum comes home an hour later, slamming the door too and Katie sits up in bed because is everyone just having a fucking horrible day or something? Then she hears Mum yell, "Emily Fitch, get down here right now!"
Emily sits up, looks at Katie who just asks, "Fuck—what did you do this time, get caught fapping to picture of Naomi?"
Emily smiles a pale smile before she slips out the door saying, "Not quite, Katie."
Katie slides out of bed and steps quietly on the carpet until she gets to the top of the stairs and she can hear yelling from downstairs.
"…Told you that Campbell girl was a bad influence!"
"This had nothing to do with her." Emily's voice is shrill but then it gets quieter and she says something that Katie can't quite catch.
Mum says, "…getting along but I brought you up better. We won't tell your father about this one but you're not to go out for the rest of the week."
Katie hears Emily huffing about it not being fair and whatever but she knows that once the sentence has been passed out the argument is pretty much over, Mum isn't someone you can bargain or reason with. Katie darts back into their room and crawls into bed and a few minutes later Emily walks in as well.
Katie makes another pretense of finding her wall fascinating but Emily sits down on the edge of her bed, sighs, and says, "You were listening then?"
"Yeah—well, you both scream too fucking loud."
Emily doesn't say anything so Katie rolls over and asks, "What did you do then?"
Emily smiles down at her sheepishly, "Got into a bit of a scrap at school."
"You did fucking what?" Katie sits up, mouth open in shock. The only time Emily ever fights anyone it's with her and well—they're like sisters so it doesn't even count or whatever.
Emily just shrugs and says, "Yeah well, I was just getting my books out of my locker and chatting with Naomi and—she came up to me and I just couldn't even believe she would come up to me and then she asked how you were and I kinda snapped I suppose. I shoved her back into a locker and I probably would've kept going but Naomi grabbed me and lucky me, a teacher saw it and called Mum…"
Emily trails off because right about this time, Katie figures out who she scrapped with, so Katie leans forward and wraps her arms around Emily's shoulders, pulling her into a sort of sideways hug. Emily awkwardly pats her arm and kind of tries to hug it to her chest because that's really all she can do at this point.
After a few moments—when Katie can like control the way her eyes welled up at Emily defending her—Katie pulls back and rubs her eyes like there's something in them and then laughs saying, "Guess that bitch had better learn not to mess with a Fitch."
When Emily laughs with her it almost feels normal.
--
Katie goes to school the next day and doesn't put makeup on. It's not an accident, it's on purpose.
She walks over to Effy's locker where Freddie is already standing and Katie snorts because she had better take like a fucking number or something for all the poor sods that seem to wait around for Effy fucking Stonem. Freddie gives her a panicked looking smile, like she still cares that his baked ass fucked off after Effy.
"Hi Katie." He smiles down at his feet and then looks up at her through his eyelashes and it used to be well lush when he looked like that but now Katie thinks it just makes him look like an ugly woman.
Katie is about to tell him to fuck off but Effy rounds a corner and Katie has to try to keep her cool because a panic attack is one thing, several is another.
Effy locks eyes with Katie as she reaches them and Freddie just like perks up, like the dog he is. Effy slides her cool gaze over his and then says, "Fuck off, Freds. I'm betting Katie and I have a lot of catching up to do."
Freddie looks at odds with what to do but after a few moments of Effy and Katie looking at him like they're about to chop his dick off (if they can find it), he quickly puts on that ridiculous hat of his and walks away.
Effy leans against the locker, slouching a bit and then looks up at Katie, "Going for the natural look, Katiekins? Very nice."
Katie remembers she doesn't have any makeup on and then remembers why, "Shut up," she whispers, "You just shut the fuck up."
Effy doesn't look offended, in fact she just nods, and says, "You know I didn't talk for almost a whole year once."
Katie clenches her hands near her sides to keep from reaching out and smacking Effy in the face, "Guess what, babe? I don't give a fuck. You wanna know what I do care about?"
Effy shrugs one shoulder and looks bored and amused at the same time which shouldn't even be like fucking possible but she does.
Katie jerks her head to the side and points at it—the angry looking scar that is still visible on the left side of her face, right below her hairline.
Effy flinches but doesn't stop looking at the scar.
"That, Effy. I care about that. So you like the natural look, right? Well fuck you because every day I spend about fifteen minutes just trying to glob enough fucking concealer on that to not feel like a fucking freak. I get to remember that night every day for the rest of my life and you just walk around here like it never happened—like you don't feel a thing—so yeah…"
Katie's voice breaks and she turns around and walks away from Effy as steady as she can. Feels Effy's eyes on her the whole time.
--
Two days later Katie finds a note slipped into her locker, it's on a bit of rolling paper that's so fucking crumpled she can barely even like read it.
Sorry.
The handwriting is just hard angles and slashes, so the "S" looks more like a five than anything.
Katie flips the note over, hoping to see more of the blocky letters but doesn't find anything, then crumples the note in her hand and leans her forehead against the locker next to hers, still feeling the weight of the paper in her hand.
"Fuck," she mutters.
--
Emily comes home late that night and slides into bed with a weary sigh. Katie turns over briefly and stares at her sister's silhouette and its sort of retarded that she can tell Emily is upset by the way she's just laying but it's probably the territory of being a twin.
"Everything ok," she asks, half expecting Emily not to answer.
But she sniffles out, "Yeah fine."
Katie leaves it.
--
It's not like she goes looking for her or anything. If anything it could be said that Katie does the opposite. But whether or not Katie is looking, Effy intends to be found.
--
The first time they bump into each other, Katie has just come out of the loo and Effy is leaning against the counter, running her fingers through her messy brown hair. She's got on a long gray shirt that most definitely doesn't bring out the blue in her eyes and torn up trousers that should have been donated to Oxfam years ago. Effy glances away from the mirror for a second and her eyes find Katie's.
Katie snorts and walks to the sink furthest away.
Effy smirks at her in the mirror, "Lovely day isn't it," she says and Katie blinks at her repeatedly because what the fuck?
Katie ends up grunting out, "Right," and manages to sound vaguely sarcastic when she says it and not at all confused as fuck which is what she's actually feeling. When she pulls her hands out from the water and turns around, Effy's already holding out a paper towel for her.
Effy's grinning as Katie eyes the paper towel and she thinks the cunt is enjoying this…baiting me. So Katie leans over to the dispenser and snatches one out for herself.
Shaking her head, Effy throws away the one she was holding, "You're killing trees, Katiekins," she says before sliding out the door with a small wave.