A/N: Hi all! My earnest apologies for being so delayed with this update! I've just recently transplanted to Philly for yet another semester of college and have been swamped with schoolwork & moving in & such. Sooo updates may be a bit slow for a while, but I fully intend to finish this story, so please stay tuned. Also, a huge THANK YOU to all readers, followers, and reviewers! You guys are the best.
Anyway, enjoy! And share your thoughts! :)
In the cluster of travelers, Kat weaves through to find her sister.
The environment she's immersed in reminds her so much of her last year in college, when she had the opportunity to explore Tokyo and Istanbul and Belgium for sixteenth months on a special study abroad program. Throughout that time, she'd gotten accustomed to always moving, always running, that at one point, she noticed that she didn't have a home, not exactly. At first, she couldn't care less. Home was where the heart was, and her heart belonged to making a difference in the world. She was sure of it. But as time passed, Kat got lost in all the traveling. And sooner than later, Kat realized she didn't really know where her heart was.
Her reminiscing thoughts are interrupted as she spots Bianca in the crowd. Bianca is standing by the doorway on her tip-toes, her blonde hair mashed on top of her head in a messy bun. Kat feels those betraying tears in her eyes as she loops through the cloud of busy people and rolling suitcases to embrace her younger sister.
"Come on," Bianca says, returning Kat's hug with just as much strength while still pulling her sister forward. "Cameron is outside waiting. He can drop us off at the hospital."
Kat nods, following her sister out to door. She recognizes the small Prius parked around the corner of the airport, and a tall handsome Cameron in the driver's seat.
"Hi Kat," he greets cordially, as Kat climbs into the backseat.
"Hey Cameron, how've you been?"
"Wonderful now that Kat Stratford is back in town."
"You always were the charmer."
"Why thank you."
Bianca stifles a giggle in the passenger seat as Cameron puts the car in drive. Kat and Cameron had always gotten along—and Bianca was lucky that it rubbed off on their father a little bit too.
Cameron merges onto the highway as the silence bores into Kat's mind. "So, what happened?" Kat asks, clearing her throat.
Bianca doesn't pretend not to know what Kat is talking about. "Dad was in a car accident driving home from the grocery store," Bianca says. "He broke a few ribs and his arm… but the doctor says considering how smashed the car was, Dad was pretty lucky he didn't end up the same way. He's going to stay at the hospital for a few days, but he'll be just fine."
Kat lets out the breath of relief she didn't know she was holding. "Thank god," she whispers, mostly to herself.
"I called you right after it happened," Bianca explains softly. "I didn't know how severe the accident would be. And I just…I knew I'd need you here."
Kat feels the lump in her throat, but she pushes back. Even with her own emotions, she has to win the fight.
When the three of them enter Walter's room at hospital, Kat braces herself for the worst. But when she walks in, her father is laughing on the bed, his face smiley against the pale boringness of the room. Darlene is next to him, and she is clutching his hand as he lets out a loud guffaw that echoes in the room. There's a cast on her father's arm, and he's in patient clothes, but nothing else indicated any severe injuries.
Kat widens her eyes in disbelief. "Dad?"
Both Walter and Darlene turn their heads. Walter's eyes light up at the sight of his eldest daughter.
"You don't look like someone with broken bones," Kat says, before her father can open his mouth. She rushes over to the bed immediately, throwing her arms around her crippled father—gently, as not to hurt him. She can feel Walter startle underneath her, but it doesn't take him long to recover. "I was so worried," Kat says breathlessly, looking at her father.
Walter can't hide his amusement the same way Kat cannot hide her smirk. "Now you know how it feels."
"I knew he'd say that…" Cameron murmurs thoughtfully from the corner of the room. Bianca elbows him gracelessly in the gut, as Kat unleashes herself from her father's arms. They exchange a heady glance—one that said just about everything they needed to say.
After much insistence—from the doctor, Walter, and Darlene—that Kat's help was not needed anymore (even if, she thinks irritably, she came all this way), Bianca and Kat head back to the house they grew up in.
"Cameron's not coming?" Kat asks curiously as Cameron departs suspiciously from the two sisters.
"No," Bianca says, as they climb into the Prius. "He has to head to the school."
After college, when Bianca landed her spot at Chanel and started traveling around Europe, Cameron got a job as a private accountant for a local grocery store. When he found out that wasn't quite the path for him, he went back to school to get a degree in student counseling. Now, he's one of the most respected guidance counselors at Padua High. Or so Bianca says.
Five seconds into silence, Bianca peels her eyes off the road and asks her older sister pointedly, "All right, Kat, spit it out. You haven't been yourself since you got back."
"You can't be exactly yippy giddy after flying eight hours to see your father in the aftermath of a car accident, Bianca."
"I realize that," she says defensively, her voice similar to that of when Kat used to criticize her for caring so much about what high school nimrods thought of her. "But it's something else. I know you, Kat. What's going on? You can tell me."
Kat has held it together on the taxi ride from Patrick's apartment to the airport. She has kept her emotions in check for the long hours she spent on the plane, only allowing herself to think of her father. She has left behind all—okay, most—thoughts of him behind when she arrives at the place where those feelings first began.
But now, as she looks up at the eyes of her sister—the one who differed so much from her, the who didn't seem to see the world like she did, the one who is here now to say, I understand—and suddenly, the words are pouring out of Kat's mouth like bulleting rain. Fast and furious and full of disorienting meaning.
When she is out of words—unknown truths and half-hearted excuses and frantic explanations—she waits for her sister's response. Bianca's eyes are hard-edged, on the road, as she says, "I don't see the problem."
Kat blinks, disbelieving her ears. "Were you not listening to a word I was saying?"
"Oh, I was listening," Bianca insists, making a left to their community. She hastily puts the car in park in front of the house. "Look, Kat. I know it's been six years. I know he's hurt you. But God, you could have run into anyone in the biggest city in this country, at some retro bar downtown. But you ran into him. Doesn't that mean something? That's, like, fate!"
"Oh my god," Kat says, rolling her eyes, "are you seriously still stuck in your fairytale? My life's not like yours, Bianca. I won't find Prince Charming and get married and live in a picket-fenced house or drive a white horse Prius! He walked away from me. It's not like we can just pick it up where we left off—which was, may I remind you, screaming at each other on this very lawn!"
Bianca regards her sister calmly. How could Kat still be so blind, after all these years? "I realized Cameron was who I wanted to be with because I knew I wasn't happy with anyone else. You and Patrick had something special—you still do, by the looks of it. Maybe you can't pick up where you left off, but it's not too late to start over."
"It's not that easy."
"It's not supposed to be," Bianca says softly. "Look, all I'm saying is, you found each other. Don't walk away again."
Kat is quiet, and as Bianca twists the engine off, the silence is suddenly excruciating—cutting through Kat's emotions like a knife.
It used to scare her to know that someone knew her the way he did.
He knew every curve of her body and the feel of her lips when he kissed her goodnight. He knew that her tickle spot is right at the middle of her feet, and that the pattern of tiny birthmarks on her left shoulder shaped exactly like the Orion constellation. He knew that she slept with her limbs curled, her hand on her heart, for the many times he had tried to envelope her.
But it had been the little, subtle things that scared the shit out of her; the ones she didn't even notice about herself. Like when he knew exactly what to say during an argument to truly set her off. Or when she'd hear his motorcycle gunning outside her window, at the exact moments she so desperately wanted to escape. Or when, after they made love, he'd squeeze her hand tight—a reaffirmation that he wouldn't be leaving, because he knew that was exactly what she feared.
Now, she realizes, these things are what she longs for the most.
