A/N-read and review

I've been contemplating changing the name of this story. Anyone have a title they think would be fitting?

The song in this chapter is Lover's Spit by Broken Social Scene feat. Feist.

Chapter 3 "Cats and Lions"

"She's no good to anyone, least of all herself. She's a walking curse, Mindy, I don't know. I can't say I worry about her, but I think about her."

"Maybe if we treated her like the daughter we love and adore, she wouldn't have moved out and we wouldn't be having this conversation right now to begin with."

"I have no daughter that I love and adore, and if you do then you're too optimistic. The only good choice she's ever made is Beck. But us, you and me, we've never made a good choice."

Dad rests his head in one hand while a cigarette burns in the other. There's not much yelling between him and Mom, but I think that's what makes it that more profound. The kitchen window's steamed up from the hot food inside, so I can't tell if Mom has tears in her eyes or not. I don't know why I'm looking for it, but for some reason I think that detail matters. It would validate in some weird way that my mom really does love me. I've always been close to her. She's been my father and mother all these years and that's a difficult job. She's always taken over the Dad role because he's always been too busy being the teacher, the disciplinarian, the one who by default has to always be disappointed in me. Shit, when I was born he probably grimaced. He turns his head to her with a more somber look than anything, and she gives him a sad smile and puts her hand over his, careful not to burn her fingers. This sort of interaction must be reminiscent of how they were before me, before all of the stress of Jade West. At best, this is at least how they are when I'm not around, because I can swear on my soul this isn't a normal occurrence. I can understand Dad hiding such a thing from me, but not Mom, and I'm sure it's incidental…I think. Dad can go to hell for all I care, but Mom…I never wanted any of this for her, even if she is too cautious for and about me most times.

I remember the first time Babette came over for a "sleepover" and I introduced her as merely a friend. She didn't understand, and she didn't like it. She argued how back in France stuff like that was normal. I argued how she was stupid. It was the first time I had ever used something bad to describe her, and I'm certain it hurt her. It was my intention to and I've always been good at it, but the look on her face instantly made me regret it. The tone in her sweet, accented voice made me falter and rethink everything I've shrouded and made her promise to shroud, as well. That was not the first time we'd fought. It was just another nail in the coffin. Despite me calling her merely a friend, my mother must have saw something deeper, because the little smile and wink she offered wasn't one of innocence, it was one of a shared secret. Mom always saw deep and accepted deeper.

As much as I hate to break up their love fest, it grows cold as the day creeps on so I walk through the bushes and up the porch. The steps are as I remember them from the last time I visited, cracked and worn when Dad was supposed to fix them. He was never really a fix-it man and when it came to things that needed to be fixed, I was the one to do it. The only reason the steps never became a part of that was because he got pissed one day when he couldn't do it right and I stepped in to finish while he was at work. He came home, yelled at me, and told me to stop. I never touched the damn thing again. The toe of my shoe gets caught in a crack and I fight with the fissure for a little before I'm able to free myself. I take in a deep breath and knock on the door. Stuffing my hands into my pockets, I prepare for the ritualistic greeting that never fails.

Dad opens the door, cigarette ash falling to the ground in front of us. He steps to the side so I can come in. I forgot to mention that our greeting isn't actually a greeting at all, and I'm fine with that. Mom jumps up from the chair and embraces me in a hug, but not before trying to hide the fact that she just wiped away tears from her face. Usually Mom scolds me for what I'm wearing, but today she doesn't. She brushes the hair from my face and looks at me with some sort of annoying thoughtful contemplation. She sees me often enough, so it puzzles me why she has to look at me like a museum artifact. It makes me uneasy, she never does this. The only person she always looked at this way was Beck. With even Babette, she would look and then look away. She and my dad always ogled at Beck. He has that effect on people. To be honest, no one looked at me like they looked at Beck. Not my parents, not Babette. Beck was the only one. He was pretty much the only one I ever allowed to look at me like he did. I wasn't some damn spectacle, but to him I guess I was.

"Are you keeping yourself up?" Mom asks, licking her finger and wiping away something on my face.

I partially push and ease her away as I go to sit down where Dad was sitting. "All ten fingers and toes."

I never really thought of it before, but Mom really does try to pamper me. She tries to balance out the very unequal scale we call the West family. Dad cares little, Mom cares a lot, Dad cares less, and Mom cares more. It becomes indifference, and the other becomes smothering. Both Babette and Beck always told me that I have a nice family, no matter how often I complain about them. Then after that, Babette would sing French songs to me and when Beck came along, we would watch movies and go for coffee. It didn't matter what time of day, he knew I always was in the mood for coffee and he would always get me one. And as for Babette, I can't name the amount of times I fell asleep in her arms. I felt safe with her. I didn't feel like a shameful secret. I didn't feel like she did. I think that was the problem all along.

"Where's Beck?" Dad asks, looking out into the neighborhood street before closing the door and setting the alarm.

I gulp as if I'm guilt of his murder or something. "He's…he didn't come today. He's filming a movie overseas."

"Oh! Good for him!" Dad sounds more proud of Beck than he ever has of me. It's not like I've done anything noteworthy in my life, anyway. Like he said, the best thing I ever did was be with Beck. Even before he said that, I've questioned it myself. Who was better for me, Babette or Beck? They think Beck obviously. Everyone has to think Beck because he's all I've ever had to the public eye, so there's nothing to compare to.

Babette was always in the dark, ironic since I often considered her my light. But in the dark is where she needs to stay, because no one looks into the dark, people only hide there.

It's been an awkward silence for longer than I realize, and I clear my throat to break it. Dad finishes his cigarette as soon as he finishes his examination of me with his dark, narrow eyes. He stalks into the living room, and I hear the TV turn on and the couch fabric sink in.

Mom gives me a sad look sprinkled with a façade of hope she plans on giving me. I see right through her. "He's had a long day, Jade."

"Yeah." I get up from the chair and head upstairs, not wanting to get caught up in another one of Mom's attempts to defend her husband's coldness. My old bedroom is the same as always, only cleaner. Mom made me get a new bed and leave this one so I'd have a place to sleep if I ever decided to spend the night. She also made me leave a few posters on the wall and socks on the ground to "give it that old familiar feel". I hurry into the dark bedroom and plop down on my old bed. I cover my eyes with my hands and exhale deeply. I'm not sure if it's the result of a wild few nights or the exhaustion from dealing with my parents but I'm beat. I'm dead tired. A pointless football game blares down below as I drift away.

We rest by a sleeping tree while her accented voice soothes me into drowsiness and a sense of security. The stars in the sky never really appealed to me before tonight, but that's really because I'm still not even looking. With all of the city fumes, I'm shocked they're still even visible. Her soft breath against my neck is the wind, and her eyes are my stars. She gives me one last smile before turning her head back up to the sky. We're both observing two different phenomenon, but both are magnificent. I'm limp in her arms as if I'm dying in one final embrace. The grass tickles the back of my hand that simply lies there, like the rest of me, in peace.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Huh?"

She looks from the sky back down to me. "I have a question, Beauté." she repeats, planting a kiss on my forehead.

"What is it?"

She hesitates, looking out at the city lights and concrete streets far in the distance. "Have you told anyone about me?"

"No."

I see her nod her head in the night darkness. She licks and bites her lip. "I've told someone about you."

I sit up, staring at her. I can't tell if it's an incredulous, angry, or fearful look. My face feels contorted into all three. She stares back at me with wide blue eyes. Her grip is tight on my wrist, her other hand frozen where my head laid earlier. "Who?"

She begins to smile.

"Who did you tell, Babette?"

"Kernel."

My eyes go wide and I collapse back into her arms, really dying this time. The biggest exhale exudes into the air. "Your dog?"

"He listens to me. He's really adorable. He keeps all of my secrets."

I still reel from the adrenaline. "Jesus, Babette…"

"He knows more secrets than you do."

"I'm pretty much your biggest secret so everything else kind of takes a backseat, don't you think?"

"You're angry with me."

"You just scared me, that's all. I didn't realize it was going to be that damn dog."

I can tell that she's sad, but not because of what I said about Kernel. Really, I do like the little thing, and I hate talking this way to Babette. She just scared me. She literally frightened me. "He's a good boy," she says, melancholic.

It's a while before either of us talks again until she breaks the silence. "I wish we didn't have to be a secret." She looks at me with those wide eyes again. "I love you, Beauté," she says with a faint voice and soft accent.

I wonder if she feels me tense up. I hate when she says those words. The word "love" is an iceberg, and carries much more than it shows. "I wish we didn't have to be one either, but we are, and it has to stay that way, okay?"

She doesn't answer me. She just goes back to her gazing of the polluted sky and her silent musings. It's like this for a while before she drifts off to drowsiness, her head resting against the trunk of the slumbering tree. I look at her for a while and admire her. I wiggle my way out of her arms and slide over to lay right next to her to where she's facing away from me. She's not quite asleep but that's good enough for me. The coincidental thing about her is that she has bad hearing in her left ear, so I tentatively cup it with the palm of my hand and speak softly into the back of it. It acts as a microphone for me but a muffler for her, and I pray she doesn't hear when I whisper, "I love you, too."

"Your father really cares for you, you know," my mom says, and I open my eyes. Mom stands in the doorway, her arms folded and her face contemplative.

I sit up on the bed, rubbing my eyes. "Funny."

She looks at me with that odd expression again, as if she's trying to figure me out and see what Dad hates so much.

"I'm serious."

Loud cheers echo up the stairs from the living room, and following that is the loud bellow of a victorious spectator.

Hearing him cheer and be proud of grown men he will never know makes me angry, but in turn it also reminds me of something I did that actually was worthwhile. "Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you remember when I won like three spelling bees in a row in elementary?"

She smiles and says, "Of course."

"Dad doesn't." In a way, me saying that is daring her to defend him now, but she says nothing.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and Mom stands quietly as I read the text message. It's from Cat, asking if I'm okay and telling me to come over. In vintage Cat fashion, there's a smiley face alongside the words. I press "back" and I see the previous messages I've been sent. The last one is from Beck from two months ago. Only I would have their very last text conversation be from two months ago. The conversation ends with him saying "I love you". He loves me. Beck loves me…Beck loved me. He loved me two months ago.

"I have to go, Mom," I say, getting up from the bed.

"Well, just be safe and know that I love you."

I smirk and put my hands on her slim shoulders. "Mom, if you think I'm gonna safe, and you love me," I lean in closer, "Then you're too optimistic."

When I reach Cat's home and knock, she opens the door with a little bit too much enthusiasm. Even Cat can't be that happy to see me. She half-hugs half-pulls me into the living room which is right by the front door. She's running on her toes, like taking the time to plant her whole foot on the ground will slow her down.

"My parents are asleep upstairs so we have to be quiet!" she says.

"But Cat, you just slammed the door."

She turns around and hushes me ironically loudly, a finger straight up and down in front of her pursed lips which are covered in obnoxious pink-colored lipstick. We hurry through the living room and run up the stairs. Luckily for her the whole house is carpeted or her parents would certainly be awake right now and most likely angry. But I know Cat's parents really well, angry for them is not letting her have cupcakes for an hour or two whenever they make them, and sometimes they're generous and let it go after twenty minutes or so. She leads us into her bedroom, leaping onto her bed with a giggle as I close the door. Soft music plays in the background on the radio. Two textbooks lay on her floor with a pen lying in the spine of one book, and a pencil in the spine of the other. She's been doing homework, and from the looks of it, a lot of homework. Since it's June, I've shut down from school completely, not that I've been very involved to begin with. I didn't have the chance to take off my shoes at the front door so I do it now, sitting down in a beanbag chair and untying the laces. It's only when I toss them toward the door that I notice Cat's looking at me with a sad tone to her, like she's speaking but she's not.

"Why'd you ask if I'm okay?"

Cat's eyes open wider as if she was in some sort of dream state. She brushes back her red hair and sighs. "I heard about you and Beck."

My mouth goes dry. "Who told you?"

"Well, he did, silly. He texted pretty much everyone telling them about it and telling us to…" she stops and stares at me, maybe afraid to continue. "…just let it go if you seem angry or irritated."

"Did he?"

"Yep!" she answers me, and then she's back to her perky self. She jumps up from the bed and hurries over to me, sitting down on the soft carpet in front of me. The carpet's not as soft as the stranger's plush carpet, but it feels more right to me. It feels safer. "So I've got the best idea to cheer you up. We're gonna do make-up."

"I don't need cheering up, Cat," I say, rolling my eyes.

She takes my hand in hers. "You're sad, Jade. I can see it in your eyes, and when I touch your hand I can feel it in your bones. You're sad." She gives my hand a squeeze and smiles sweetly. "Be happy!"

I exhale and smile back at her, which only makes her smile grow wider. She doesn't even wait for me to respond before she yelps in joy and pulls me up with her and over to the huge mirror on top of her dresser. I snatch away my arm as she gets out a make-up kit. "I'd rather find something else to do than play Barbie, Cat. Is that why you have all that lipstick on, by the way?"

"Yeah…" she answers, contemplating what to do instead. I can tell by the arch in her eyebrow that never fails when she's thinking hard. And Cat thinks hard about what to have for breakfast in the morning. Despite her pondering, the choice is always cereal. A light bulb shines over her head as she runs to her radio, turning up the music slightly. "Not too loud so my parents don't get mad."

I laugh. "What are we doing?"

"Dancing, duh!" Cat says. She does a weird little dance, pointing her fingers, narrowing her eyes, pursing her lips. She's trying to act cool…but she's Cat. She's like the female Robbie, but she's adorable. I love her. She'll always be the first friend I made when I moved here from Ohio. She takes on a more serious tone when she wraps her arms around me. Her small frame gets lost in mine as we slowly dance in the room. She looks up at me from time to time to see if I'm enjoying myself. I don't know whether to fake an expression or not, because I don't know if I'm enjoying it or not, to be honest.

"I love this song."

"What is it?" I ask.

"I have no idea."

After a few minutes I do remember it. I heard it in a movie once. Cat's wrapped tight around my waist. It's as if she's trying to hold me up and keep me from the dark abysses below. I have half a mind to kiss her on the forehead and tell her that it's too late, but thanks for trying. Cat's always been brave, no matter what people think. Especially when we had first met, I was like a lion to her, vicious and protective. To keep the story short, she never backed down, and look where we are. In hindsight, she's the lion and I'm the cat. I'm sure she'd die to protect me, and I'd die for her. She's my sister, if there's any way to put it. And I don't think she'll ever leave. She won't be Babette, or Beck, or my father. She'll be what she is now, my sister, my mother, my guardian, my best friend. I can't imagine anyone else reaching me this way again. It was really only her and Beck, and now there's only her. I smile, realizing that she is, in fact, holding me up from the darkness. I'd be dead otherwise. She sees the smile, and it's not fake. It's genuine. Holy hell. It's genuine.