AN: here's the next chapter guys. Hope you like it. Let me know what you think? Kallie xx
At the social part 1
A week later Kittie was curled up in a darkened room as other people moved around laughing and having fun watching the film on the projector. Kittie lay curled up under a blanket, desperately trying to get warm and wishing she hadn't promised Edie she would come. It didn't seem like Edie needed her here, but every time she had tried to leave someone had stopped her, telling her she couldn't leave now she was here. It was a sleep-in fundraiser for the music programme and everyone was expected to stay in the building. The top 2 floors had been blocked off but they were still allowed to roam in the lower 2. The noise was getting too much for her head, and with a growl, she picked up her blanket and her bag and headed upstairs to the next floor.
As she climbed the stairs, a hand grabbed her arm. She spun quickly, slipping slightly on the stairs, ready to fight back if necessary. "Woah there." Oscar grabbed her, stopping her from falling backwards. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." Kittie smiled and regained her balance. "You didn't, I just wasn't expecting to be grabbed on the stairs. It's not exactly the best place to stop and grab someone." Oscar rubbed the back of his neck, letting go of her arm. "Sorry, I just didn't want to lose you." She raised her eyebrows, startled, before narrowing her eyes. "Lose me? It's not like I can leave until the morning." "I... That's not what I meant. Let me start over." He took a step back and smiled. "Hi." "Hi," she replied bluntly. "You look nice." "I'm in jeans and a hoodie."
He looked at her, slightly confused. "Have I done something to offend you? You're not like you were before." Kittie sighed, shaking her head. "No, it's not you. I'm just tired and... Well maybe you have a little." "I'm sorry," he said, genuinely apologetic. "May I ask what I did?" Kittie sighed and stuck her hands in her pockets. "Well..." Voices came from the bottom of the stairs heading up, and Kittie flinched. She grabbed Oscar's arm and pulled him up the rest of the stairs, stopping in an alcove by the stairwell. "What..." began Oscar. Kittie covered his mouth and gestured to him to be quiet. The voices faded as the people moved further away. Kittie let go of Oscar and sank back against the wall, her head in her hands.
Oscar looked at her. "Can I ask what that was about?" He sat down next to her and touched her shoulder. She shook underneath his hand. ""Hey, are you okay? You're shaking." "I-I'm fine." "Come on, I know that's not true." He draped the blanket around her shoulders in case she was cold and nudged her shoulder with his own. "Spill , miss bounce." She smiled weakly and looked at him. "Thanks. First, my name is Kittie, which you would know if you had stuck around to talk to me on Monday, and second, I...what?" Oscar had held up his hands to interrupt her. "In my defence, you left then came back just as I was leaving so I didn't get a chance." "I had to help my mum with my little brothers and sister. They'd decided it would be a good idea to run off." "That would be why you came back with a child on your back." He smiled, remembering how odd it had seemed to start with. "That would be Charlie. He's the easiest being 4. I can just sling him around my neck, especially when he's tired." Oscar nodded. "I can do that with my sister Lily." He paused for a moment. "He's cute, just like his big sister."
Kittie hit him lightly. "Stop flirting." Oscar laughed and moved away slightly. "I wasn't flirting, I was observing." Kittie rolled her eyes. "Go and observe somewhere else then." As much as she was trying to be cool about it, inside her heart was racing. She turned away, hoping her cheeks weren't flushing, feeling that they were. Despite the darkness of the alcove, Oscar noticed the slight redness to her cheeks and smiled. "Sorry." He decided it would probably be best not to say anything like that to her again yet, and just wait for her. He was fairly confident the rumours were true. He'd gotten their mutual friend Tyler drunk the other night and Tyler had practically admitted that she used to like him. Maybe the feelings were still there, but he sensed she wasn't in the mood to admit to it at all. "So, uh, why are we hiding in an alcove away from people?" Kittie turned back, a little surprised he hadn't left. It was slightly insane to be hiding during a social in an indent in the wall. "Promise you won't judge." "Promise." He looked at her with anticipation, like he cared about what she was going to say, despite not really knowing her.
She took a deep breath. "That was my brother Jack and his friends. I'm not really on speaking terms with him anymore, none of us are." Oscar looked at her, but said nothing. He knew families could be complicated, his was proof of that. "Well when I say brother, legally he is, but he's not a blood relative. We adopted him, my parents adopted him when he was a baby before I was born. There's been tensions in my family for the last couple of months, especially between the children groups - uh my parents had children in sets so there's my brothers Alec, Luke, Jack, Michael and myself in one and Cal, Sophie, Tom, Charlie and Maisy in the other. They started young, and then decided they wanted more. Cal's adopted too, that's what started the whole second set of kids because they agreed to foster him from a baby and then adopted him, but looking at us you'd never know because we all look similar." She took a breath. "Sorry, that was... A lot of information but in order to understand, you need to know. Anyway, Jack kinda went off the deep end over the summer and had been arguing with everyone. He's now decided he doesn't want to be part of our family anymore so no one is speaking to him but that's cause he's not speaking to any of us. He's just acting like a complete and utter jerk." She sighed and rested her head back on the wall.
Oscar placed a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. "That sucks." She shrugged. "It's just my life. There's always something going on." Oscar nodded, sensing the subject needed to be changed. "So, uh, are you excited for Christmas?" She nodded, delight showing on her face. "So excited. It's going to be amazing. There's a lot of us but it's always good fun. I just hope it snows." Oscar smiled back at her, glad she was smiling again. "Me too. It's great here when in snows. Were you here for the snow 2 years ago?" Kittie smiled and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I was. We got snowed in for a day, well almost." "Seriously, you got snowed in? How?" "First year, my friends dad was still being guilty divorced dad, so he got one of his contacts to rent us a place not far from here and I lived there with her, her boyfriend, my brother and 2 other friends. My brother decided to be an idiot the night before it snowed and break the water pipe by the back door. The water froze so we couldn't open the door and we'd lost the key to the front door in September." "Wow," laughed Oscar. "So you missed out on the snow?" She shook her head. "No. I'd figured out how to get out my bedroom window the day I moved in and there's an extension right outside it which is why I chose that room. So I climbed out onto the roof and jumped into the large snowdrift that had piled up next to it." "What about everyone else? Were they stuck in all day?" "Nope. I got Lexis window open from the outside and we came and went that way. He's on the ground floor," she elaborated.
Oscar nodded. "Must have been an adventure." "It was. We had a great day, well a great week in the snow. It was a bit cold though." "I can imagine." Oscar watched her shiver and glanced at her worriedly. "Are you alright? Are you cold?" Kittie shook her head, trying to stop shaking. "I'm fine." "You don't have to be tough all the time you know," he said quietly. Despite not knowing her for very long, he could tell she was similar to him and had to act tough to avoid getting hurt. "Here, have my jacket and I'll go find another blanket for you." He got to his feet and headed downstairs, leaving his jacket with Kittie. "You don't have to," she called after him. When he didn't come back, she picked up her stuff and his jacket and followed after him.
On her way down the stairs, Kittie bumped into Edie and Alex who were heading up to the food hatch. Edie grabbed Kitties arm, causing her to stop. "Hey, there you are! I've been looking for you for ages. We're just going to get some food. Did you want anything?" "No, I'm fine," Kittie replied, shaking her head, trying to carry on down the stairs. "We just saw your guy go past." Kittie stared at her blankly. "You know, the pretty one you've had a crush on for like forever." "He's not my guy. He doesn't know anything about me." Edie glanced down at Kitties hands and blinked, surprised. "That's not your jacket, or Lexis. Who's is it?" "Oscars. He left it and I'm going to give it back to him." Edie grinned and nudged Alex. "See, I told you, he's your guy." "And I told you he knows nothing about me. I fell on the stairs, he made sure I was okay and then left his jacket when he left." "He's sweet, and that's what you need."
Kittie pulled away and glared at her friends. "I don't need anything or anyone. I'm quite happy being single." Alex looked at her knowing otherwise, but said nothing. Edie wasn't going to let her friend lie to her, let alone herself. "You should try, you know. Not every guy is a jerk like Robin was. I just want you to be happy." "I am happy," Kittie lied, biting her lip. "Look, I've gotta go. I'll see you later." She carried on down the stairs, leaving Alex and Edie standing halfway up. "Don't give up. Take a chance on love. It really is worth it!" Edie yelled at her, leaning over the banister, startling a bunch of freshers at the bottom. At the bottom of the stairs, Kittie passed her friend Emma from her choir who was making out with her girlfriend. Kittie rolled her eyes and stepped back through the doors, into the fray.
A blast of noise greeted her as people sang and danced all around her, drinks in their hands as they giddily clutched at their friends and dance partners. She swerved between the people with ease, anticipating their next steps, their drunken dancing and choppy movements as they faltered across the floor. She searched for the curly blond hair of Oscar, thinking he would have forgotten about her the moment she left. She wasn't memorable to new people, especially at things like this, and that was purposeful. She didn't want people to know her by a reputation, to say "Oh Kittie, that's the small brunette who sings and dances." She didn't want to be talked about, for people to make judgements without really knowing her. So she let herself be seen as the quiet one, forgotten and never remembered. But that wasn't helping her right now. Maybe she could just leave his jacket on a chair somewhere and maybe he would find it before he stumbled home drunk. Maybe he would find it the next day when he stumbled back, searching for his discarded items that he'd left, like an American at a club on St Patricks day.
She couldn't do that though. It had been drummed into her to help people, to do everything she could. For as long as she could remember, she had done 5 random acts of kindness each day, and whilst that number had slipped as she grew older, she still did one each day, and she still helped people as much as she could. Just abandoning his jacket and returning upstairs to another cubby hole where she would lay shivering and slowly getting worse, was not helping people. Quite frankly it wasn't helping herself, but she couldn't go and she didn't want anyone to take care of her. Even when Lexi tried, she wouldn't let him and she had known him for years, ever since she has met him at a games convention and he had spent one game throwing plastic triangles at her, getting them both kicked out of the hall for a bit. They'd become fast friends, but even then she couldn't let him look after her. Only her parents could and even then, she was strongly independent.
Kittie spotted Tyler by the bar and wondered if she could leave Oscars jacket with him. He was good friends with Oscar and would no doubt be seeing him in the next couple of days. Giving the jacket to him would solve that issue, but unless Oscar had forgotten about her, he might keep looking for a blanket for her. Sighing, she headed to the bar and nudged Tyler's shoulder. He turned and smiled at her. "Hey! When did you get here?" He pulled her into a hug, wrapping his long arms around her. Pulling back, he glanced at the jacket in her hand, recognising it, but unsure why or how she could have it. He decided it was just a co-incidence. She plastered a smile on her face, ignoring the throbbing of her head from the loud music. "About an hour ago. I was watching the film but wanted to get away from the noise for a bit." He chuckled. "You've come to the wrong place then." He glanced at her, frowning slightly. "Are you okay? You look a little pale." Kittie waved a hand at him. "I'm fine, it's just a headache. Hey, do you mind if we go someone a little quieter?" "Sure." The barman placed a drink down in front of Tyler and moved on to someone else. Tyler picked up the bottle. "Can I get you a drink? Pay you back for earlier." Kittie shook her head. "No thanks. Come on, the corridor's quieter."
They left the bar and headed out through the heavy black doors, the noise level dropping. Tyler sipped his drink, waiting for Kittie to explain. He knew that if she just wanted to chat, she would have stayed in there. He'd known her a couple of weeks, but in that time he'd learnt a lot more than some people did. Kittie took a breath. "Hey, so your friend uh Oscar, he left his jacket with me after I nearly fell down the stairs. Could you give it back to him for me?" "Sure," he replied, taking it in his hand. "So you've met him. Do you want me to introduce you to him properly, talk you up to him a bit?" Kittie shook her head, slightly regretting she'd told Tyler she had liked Oscar. "No, it's fine. Just make sure he gets his jacket back and tell him I said thanks." "Are you sure? I mean would getting to know him be such a bad thing?" "I'm sure. What would be the point? It was a crush in the past, I didn't even know the guy and I highly doubt he'd like someone like me." "That's not why you should talk to him. Get to know him as a friend and who knows, maybe you could get him to fall for you." "Falling for people just ends up with the fallees getting hurt. Besides, you're starting to sound like Edie. Who knew you were such an optimistic romantic." She shook her head, before he could say anything to change her mind. "Honestly, it doesn't matter. Do you know if there any way of getting out of here? I'm really not feeling well and I just want to go home." He shrugged. "I'll ask Jennie but I doubt it. You'll just have to stick it out, curl up in a corner somewhere and sleep." "Thanks." Kittie left the jacket with Tyler and began heading upstairs back to the alcove, passing Emma who was talking to Lucy and Molly from choir. Tyler watched her go, wondering how she could be so stubborn, before going and joining Lucy, Molly and Emma.
