10

Fire & Rain

"So Catherine, tell us about yourself."

Her fork froze in midair, causing the peas she had scooped up to spill one by one to her plate. Her hand gripped the piece of silver, pinching the utensil until her knuckles drained of their pink flush into a pale white as she tried to pinch the nerves slithering just beneath her skin from her body. As if doing so was as simple as juicing a lime. (If only).
Slowly, her white-knuckled, iron grip loosened one finger at a time, and that's when Cath realized her mouth was hanging partially open. She bit it shut, using most of her steady focus to do so, causing her grasp on the silverware to loosen completely in the process. Her teeth dug into her lip as she cringed away from the clang of the utensil when it clattered against the ceramic of her dish.

"Sorry." Cath mumbled through clenched teeth and the sliver of an opening in between her lips.

The dining room quickly fell into a spell of silence thick and heavy with heat. And it was as if everyone and everything in the room-Levi, Cath, Marlisse, all the little antique features displayed throughout the completely furnished living room: the ceramic dishes, tea set of a pot and two dainty little cups, (all seemingly hand-crafted and painted by the looks of it), the array of family photos arranged neatly upon the bookshelf, which held not a library of Simon Snow that Cath was so familiar and well-acquainted with but rather an entire Barnes & Noble stock worth of religious works with more bibles then Cath could count. There was even one titled; 'The Teaching Of Preaching' tucked snugly away between the Encyclopedia Of American Religion and The Age Of Reason-were all holding their breath. It was like the silence before the storm; the moment you suck in a breath and silently count down the seconds while you wait for either the sun or rain. When the sun's rays of gold break through the sliver of a crack in the clouds, it burns. But when it rains, it pours.

The sweat began to bead her forehead, her nerves revealing themselves in the drop of perspiration that glistened on her skin. She could only hope that the dimmed bulb of light dangling from the lamp in the ceiling above their heads concealed the evidence of what a wreck she truly was well enough. Because Cath herself was sure as hell not capable of hiding what her body had a mind of its own for in the way of revealing what is best left buried beneath a plot of earth and the sunk deep in the very depths of the ocean where none may discover the craziness that pulsed through her every vein of blue.

Even though Cath's blue eyes rested on the perfectly spotless dark indigo of the velvet table cloth, she could feel the back of her orbs and every inch of her skin burn under the pressure of the watery-grey that leaked from the orbs of Levi's mother as she studied Cath's wavering hand suspiciously. Studied Cath suspiciously, as if she were some insect. An insect from some kind of foreign realm a whole other planet apart. A dangerous foreign extraterrestrial insect that had to be squashed quickly.

"It's just Cather mom." Levi spoke up around a mouthful of mash potato and deep fried halibut.
Cath could hear the smile behind his voice, and she was glad for his charismatic charm.
Bless him. Bless him to infinite and beyond.

His mother dismissed Levi's words with a single flick of her wrist. It was with her fingers that she simply swept his words under a rug as if they were never spoken to begin with. "Please Levi, we were discussing Catherine."
At this, Levi's grin withered and shriveled into a thin pink line of his lips the a flower wilts one petal at a time, and Cath couldn't determine whether her stomach was aching, twisting, bleeding, gnawing or crumbling for him. Or perhaps all at once. But what she knew for certain was that she felt him there. The constant tug of Levi beating in the very center of her being. He drew something out of her with even just the slightest of stolen glances upon his long, lanky figure and finely sketched face etched on the canvas in lines of charcoal. And Cath wasn't quite sure whether she liked what he drew from her or whether she was afraid of it.

"Just Cath."
Cath mumbled in a squeak. She had to stifle the hiccup of nerves that rose in her throat and nearly caused her to choke on her words.
She pressed her palms flat against her thighs, trying to rub the jitters from her hands along her jeans. But when that failed, she returned to clenching her fists and pinching the nervous energy from her skin.

"Well, Just Cath," His mom spoke. "Do share a little about yourself."
Her every word bled from her lips like the breath of steam from the flared nostrils of a dragon. And when she spoke Cath's name, her lips released the fire brewing on the inside. Cath quickly realized she couldn't go on dodging the flames forever. It was time to fight fire with fire. Sword of Mages or no Sword of Mages.

"Well, I live up in Omaha with my dad and sister..." Her words shook only slightly on the way out, and she had to grin a little at this. Her lips breathed the pour of rain as fast as her mouth could move.
Cath could just hear Wren whispering to her through the dark as she rubbed circles with her thumb into Cath's skin, "Fire and rain."
"We are unbreakable."

But the fire came just as quickly.
"No mother?"

"Er, no." Cath's shoulders deflated only slightly at this little tidbit of the conversation, and she beamed at this.
It was getting easier to talk about She Who Must Not Be Named without letting the anger to reveal itself in her trembling fists and strained face just oozing tension before her face crumbled one muscle at a time. The thin line of her lips would quiver into the approaching tears. The sharp, narrow corners of her blue eyes would soften into the puddles of salty water that had pooled in each eye. Her clenched fists would unravel into the tremors that crawled through her hands as they wrapped around her stomach, hugging her middle. All the while she tried to hold herself upright. To hold her broken pieces together. To dim the detonation of the disaster of the animated grenade she was underneath her veneer of slightly crazy and socially inept. To keep her fragments only from briefly falling away and not apart.
She would have to hide it all. Because she never wanted She Who Must Not Be Named to know exactly just how much she had affected her. Just how much she had impacted her and her sanity. How much she had broken her. How much she had meant to Cath.
But That's the thing, she had meant to Cath. She had shifted from meaning completely everything to meaning absolutely nothing over the years.

"Hmm... Interesting." Marlisse, spat with a bitter expression she hardly attempted to hide in her features. As if this entire conversation left a sour taste upon her tongue.

"Mom..." Levi spoke, his voice strained and almost pleading. His tone trickled with the color of irritation.

His words were met without acknowledgement or even a glance from his mother, as the grey watering her eyes never tore away from the blue painting Cath's. It was as if she were on a mission to either divulge or clean Cath from head to toe of her flaws, and Levi was the mere distraction of inefficient evidence that she had first tried sweeping under the carpet at her feet but was now smudging away with a bucket and cloth, spraying down the floor of his infuriating interruptions.

"And what are you studying at the University of Nebraska may I ask?"

"She takes Fiction Writing." Levi blurted, as if he couldn't contain a mouthful of secrets through his dinner anymore.

"Levi, who am I speaking to? Have I taught my children no manners?" His mother scolded her son, exasperation accompanying her every word.
Levi clamped a hand over his mouth, failing to hide the smile and laughter lighting up the blue coloring his irises. His eyes crossed Cath's a moment before he motioned sealing his lips closed and his gaze landed on his mostly-empty plate of food, whereupon he shoved another forkful of mashed potatoes and peas into his mouth.

"Fiction Writing you say?"

Cath nodded, pinching the grin that fought its way into her lips into a thin, flat line of pink as she endeavored to avoid Levi's eyes. For if she caught them the smile tearing her inside and out would surely devour her entire face in a fit of laughter.

"And what is it that you like to write about exactly?"

Simon Snow.
The world of magicians and vampires.
The school of Watford.
The band of Mages.
The evil that is the insidious Humdrum.
The good that is Penelope Bunce.
The black and white truth of the love of Simon Snow and Tyrannus Basilton Pitch.
In other words, gay fanfiction.
How exactly do you explain this to the religious mother of your boyfriend?

"Uh, well..."

"She mostly writes fantasy," Levi pitched in. And this time, he had piqued his mother's attention. "But she also recently just got an original story of hers published in Prairie Schooner. That's the school's Underclassmen Journal."
Cath felt around with her toes under the table, silently and cautiously searching for Levi's foot, (or possibly a shin), so she could kick him back into the spell of momentary silence his mother had cast upon him. Cath's goal to cross off her To Do list that night had been to survive both the introduction and dinner with his mom. Not to become her new favorite celebrity nor her new best friend, and especially not her enemy.

"Really?" Marlisse inquired, her tone less then whelmed, but still, even a little bit intrigued.

"Uh huh," Levi blabbered on, wiping his lips clean of the mashed potatoes that flecked his chin like snow. "It went on to win the Underclassmen Prize, which by the way is a incredible achievement and honor for an undergraduate. You should read it mom, it's all over the internet. It's a story definitely worth both the read and write."

"Perhaps... What's it called?"

"Left..." The word left Cath's lips in a whisper. As if it might explode on Cath's tongue if she weren't careful with the fragile letters. It held within it the obstacle of Cath's life that she had overcome with much difficulty and at a great cost. The difficulty being the walking, talking disaster of chaos that she was. And the cost being Wren. She was her best friend built in for life and she had lost her over the one who abandoned them. Who left them alone with only each other's shoulders to cry on. Wren was all Cath wanted. Who was all she needed.
And she wasn't about to lose sight of that again.

"Well then, I suppose I will have to read this story of yours Catherine," Marlisse said with a clap of her palms but without sincerity. She then stood from the table and began to gather the plates. "But, dishes first."

Cath began to rise from her seat. "I'll help you." She offered timidly, like she was expecting the dragon to spit fire at her any second now.

"Oh no, that's alright Catherine."

"You better listen to her Cather, my mom has serious feng-shui control issues when it revolves around her kitchen." Levi warned her as he lept from his chair, nearly sending it clattering to the floor in the process, and began to stretch his long body.

"Oh... Well, thank you for dinner Mrs-"

"Oh, please Catherine, call me Marlisse." She requested with a slight cringe at 'missus'.
She swept swiftly in and out from between the kitchen and dining room. She cleared the table of the stained dishes, stacking them one by one along her arm. Collected the utensils, tucking them away in the used cups. Packed away the leftovers and scraped the remaining scraps of food from the plates and into the trash.

"Yeah, missus makes her feel old." Levi said. He strode over to her seat and slid his palms into Cath's, fitting his narrow fingers in between hers, before yanking her onto her feet. She teetered on her feet for moment at the force, falling into his chest and catching his scent for a second before rocking back onto her heels.

"Come on, time for the tour." Levi announced and gestured with his hands toward the staircase spiraling up into the second level. "Magician's first." He said with a quirk of his eyebrow.

As they made their way up the stairs one step at a time side by side with Levi's palm resting in between her shoulder blades, Cath noticed that he was grinning from ear to ear. And seeing his smile, well, Cath just couldn't fight the tug in her own lips as they widened into a grin and devoured her whole face.