Waking Up
;; And sometimes he was in her dreams. Maybe only dressed up as a tree, or a peasant scattered among a crowd. He was never really important, but he was there. And maybe that's why she kept dreaming;;
A/N: So I don't really know what to think of this. It kind of came out of boredom and lost time, but I actually do like what it turned into.
Cat Valentine was dreaming.
.
"Are you coming?" Tori asked at the doorway of Cat's bedroom.
Cat looked up from the notebook in her hands sending her a confused look.
Tori was in a black dress, she hated black. And the corners of her eyes were rimmed with red. Cat didn't like seeing Tori like this.
She looked like she hadn't slept in days, she probably hadn't.
Cat on the other hand, had gotten plenty of sleep.
"Where are you going?" Cat asked ever so innocently and the words trickled out of her mouth much too easily that it made Tori's eyes tear up.
"Were going to—" she stopped and closed her eyes taking in such a deep breath her body shook.
She looked like she was going to cry, Cat was glad she didn't.
"You know where Cat," she said when she finally opened her eyes, "Your welcome to come."
And then she left and Cat went back to writing in her notebook.
.
Cat slept a lot.
More than a person should. She slept so she could dream.
In her dreams, she was in her own little world. Sometimes she was starring in a Broadway musical, other times she was a princess of a faraway kingdom.
Everyone thought she was grieving.
.
At first she was perfectly normal when she was awake (well, normal for Cat), but then she started daydreaming.
So much so that she started failing her classes at school for not paying attention.
All her friends at school tried to help her, even Jade, but it's hard to help a person whose not really there.
.
When she wasn't daydreaming, or sleeping, she wrote.
She wrote about her dreams.
Her notebook is filled with childish drawings of princesses, and dragons, and treasure. She wrote stories to go along with them and would ask anyone around her to read them.
And they did because that was the only way they could reach her.
But the story lines grew old and even pen smears.
.
Everyone wondered if she was too lost to remember him.
But he was still there, tucked into the darkest corner of her brain.
And sometimes he was in her dreams. Maybe only dressed up as a tree, or a peasant scattered among a crowd. He was never really important, but he was there.
And maybe that's why she kept dreaming.
.
Do you want to talk about it?
Cat stared up at the florescent lights of the ceiling. Her eyes were starting to burn, but she didn't look away.
About what? Cat questioned. Her mind in a faraway place.
About what happened.
Cat frowned.
Something happened? she asked concerned.
The therapist sighed and walked out of the room.
.
The therapist debated memory loss with Cat's parents.
But it wasn't lost, it was there. She just refused to remember.
.
Andre visited her in her room one day
She was happy to see him. To see anyone.
"Andre! Andre!" she cried holding out her notebook to him. "Read this." He lightly pushed it away.
"Not now Little Red, sorry." She lightly pulled her arm back and looked away. "I came to get this," he said reaching for the textbook on her bedside table.
"No! No!"
She lunged for the book and held it to her chest so tightly; you could see distress in her eyes.
"It's mine," she said. Andre sighed.
"Cat, it's not yours it's—" he caught himself, "—the school's."
"But he gave it to me!"
The mood in the room immediately changed. And her face crumbled ever so slightly. She let herself remember just for a moment.
Andre sensed the change and spoke more softly.
"He let you borrow it Cat, borrow means you have to give it back."
He held his hand out to her and she continued to clasp the book to her chest.
She closed her eyes and hummed a nameless tune.
"It's mine," she finally whispered not opening her eyes.
She could tell Andre was aggravated by the way he slammed the door on his way out.
.
She let go.
And whipped the book at the door, screaming as she did so. The book seemed to burst as it collided with the wood. The binding broke sending discarded pages fluttering to the floor.
Cat took a few deep breaths and then realized what she had done.
She jumped off her bed and tried to put the pages back into the book that was as broken as her. Tears stung her eyes and all the words on each page blended together.
But there was one page that shouldn't have been there—a folded piece of notebook paper.
She leaned against the door and slowly opened it.
Cat – You were right. I'm breaking up with her tomorrow. Then I'll come see you. – Beck
But he wouldn't break up with her the next day. He would be on his way to Jade's house and get hit by a semi-truck as he did so. He died on impact.
Cat then crumpled. That little corner of her brain erupted and engulfed her whole brain in flames—in memory. She shook as she cried with her eyes closed and she began to daydream, but this time instead of Beck being a background character, he was front and center.
But she then realized, this wasn't a daydream—it was a memory.
Beck flashed before her at school, he was always smiling in her memories. He smiled whenever he was around her. Her memories kept colliding into one another until it was just one big collage of him smiling. Him talking to her. Him laughing. He understood her, he accepted her.
He loved her.
She smiled seeing him, and tasted the salt from her tears as they ran onto her lips.
But she hated the memories too. Because he wasn't hers, he was Jade's and in a sense, he still was. He had never broken up with her.
He would be Jade's forever.
Never Cat's Prince in her fairytales, but a background character with his own life and she was just watching from a distance.
She got up with a deep breath and walked over to her bed, clasping his letter tight in her hand.
She crawled into bed and cried, cried until no more tears would come, cried until she fell asleep.
And that night, Beck was in her dreams.
.
He wasn't a peasant or a tree.
He was her leading man; he was her Prince Charming that swept her off her feet. And he was hers. Only hers.
And when she woke up, she looked at the letter, which was now smeared, in her hand and smiled.
He was hers, and he always would be.
.
She stopped daydreaming.
.
For the next couple of months he crowded her dreams, always by her side.
And she always woke up with a smile.
.
But eventually she started dreaming about other things. About how life was now.
She dreamed about starring in the play that was coming up, she dreamed about Andre, she dreamed about silly little things like unicorns, and butterflies, things that she had dreamed about before.
But those were just little things, things you were supposed to dream about.
.
Cat Valentine had woken up.