Sam's POV:
Cat and I decided to treat Nona and Dice to a nice dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant because we have earned a ton of money babysitting. Who knew you could get hundreds of dollars for looking after peoples' snot-nosed kids?
We're all trying to look fancy. Dice is wearing a collared shirt and Cat is wearing a ruffly pink dress. She put on more makeup than normal and had her hair in a fancy updo. She may be a bit of a ditz, but she does clean up well.
A cute red-headed guy about our age walked over. I assumed he must be related to the owner because normally guys that young don't work at these types of restaurants unless they are family. He tells us his name is Conner and gives us the menus.
"What can I get you for drinks this fine evening?"
"Sweet tea please." Cat chirps.
"We don't have any."
"In that case I'll have a root beer."
"One root beer. How about you." He pointed at me but was still kind of looking at Cat. Here we go. Whenever we go out to eat there's at least one guy looking at her with longing. It can be pretty hilarious in the right situation.
"Blue dog soda."
Dice and Nona both ordered lemonades and we started looking at the menu. After looking at the menu for a couple minutes I decide that I will get the fettucine alfredo.
"What are all of you planning on getting?" Nona asks.
"Spaghetti and Meatballs." Dice answers.
"Fettucine Alfredo." I reply.
"4 -cheese ravioli for me." Cat says excitedly.
Conner walks over a couple minutes later with our drink orders. He hands the lemonades over before giving me my Blue dog and Cat her root beer. Along with her glass and straw he gave her a little piece of paper. That puzzled me a little bit.
She put the straw into her drink and took a long sip, then she looked at the piece of paper. Her eyes slowly widened, and she shivered. Pursing her lips, she takes another sip except in a more rushed almost manic manner that startled the rest of us.
"Cat, what is it?" Dice questions.
"It's his phone number." She whispers.
"Oh, good going kid. The hot dude wants you to call him. That's a good thing."
"Not really."
Why wasn't she excited about the possibility of dating Conner? She seems like the type of girl who would normally be up to going out with about anyone.
I decide to voice my confusion. "How come?"
"I don't want to go on a date with him. I don't date anymore anyway." She said it in a bitter way.
"What do you mean? You used to go out on a lot of dates. Sweetie-" Nona said.
Cat opened her mouth like she was going to say something and then paused before folding the note with the boy's number in half. "Um…I am going to go to the ladies' room."
Her behavior was definitely puzzling. Now that I think about it, Cat usually avoids the subject of boys. Then again, I do the same thing. I exchange glances with my friends. "I'm going to go see if she's okay." Nona nodded and I got up from our table headed in the same direction as Cat.
Cat's POV:
Getting the number from Conner was a surprise. Guys don't usually catch me that off guard. I would have expected him to flirt with me first. Anyway, when I got it, I couldn't help but have an instantaneous flashback. It was from my first day of freshman year, back before I started using a straightener on a regular basis. My hair was all frizzy and I was chewing a piece of blue gum.
-
R: Hi! My name is Robbie Shapiro. What's yours?
C: Cat Valentine. (I had held my hand out for him to take and then we shook hands. That was the first time I felt a connection. I thought he was kind of nerdy cute on first glance, not that I would have ever said anything to him about it.)
R: Is Cat short for Catherine by any chance?
C: No, Caterina.
R: That's a really pretty name.
C: Thanks. I like your name a lot too. Who do you have first?
R: Some guy named Sikowitz.
C: Me too. I heard his classroom is that way. Come on!
I don't think I will ever forget the day that I first met him. At the time I had absolutely no idea how much I would come to love him. He was just this guy I was hanging out with on my first day at a strange new place. Now he is so much more than that and I know it, yet I deny it every second of ever day and it's killing me. I want to scream. I can't date anyone anymore because the one guy that I should be dating I am too afraid to date. I realized after the Cow-Wow that I also couldn't date guys and try to get over Robbie like I used to because it wasn't fun anymore to go on a couple dates with other guys while I was playing a part in real life. The part of the girl whose feelings for her best friend have been gradually growing over the past three years at Hollywood Arts.
I start ripping the note that Conner gave me apart. As I am throwing the little bits into the restroom trashcan, Sam walked into the bathroom like a woman on a mission.
"What are you doing? Someone gave you that and you are throwing it away."
"Sam, I can't. I can't. I can't go on a date with that guy. I just know it."
"Okay, you're starting to creep me out. What is this? Premonition?"
I had gone to the sink and was undoing my updo and wiping all my makeup off. All my history with Robbie is slowly replaying itself in my head like a haunting montage of the life that I live.
Sam waits as I do a bunch of stuff to my appearance to make me feel a bit comfier. "No, but I do know that if you keep pestering me while we are in a public place about this than I am going to need you to shut up until we get back to our apartment or I am going to start ugly crying all up in here."
Sam seemed surprised by my words but nodded and led me back through the restaurant. When we got back to the table Nona told us that she ordered our food for us already. Dice asked me if I was okay, and I told him that I hadn't been for a long time. I didn't elaborate.
When Conner came by with our food, I didn't make eye contact. I suppose that probably bothered him, but honestly, I was just trying to eat my food and listen to the conversation at the table enough to look like I wasn't daydreaming. By the way, the others were looking at me with a look between pity and curiosity I'm guessing I wasn't doing a good job.
After we ate our food and left a check with a good tip, we all headed back to the apartment. I was still feeling a little shaky, so I lagged behind the others.
As soon as we got inside, Sam turned to me. "Cat, spill. What was so terrifying or weird about getting the number of someone that you were telling me to not push you until we got back to the apartment because otherwise you were going to start crying?"
"Uh…I changed my mind. I am not going to tell you."
"Cat…" Nona plead.
"Nona said that you used to date a lot, but I have never known you to date. What changed? Did something happen?" Dice inquired.
"Nothing exactly happened. It was always growing in the background, but it took me a while to realize that I couldn't keep going on like I was with other guys when it was just a way to pretend that my problems with love didn't scare me or that they didn't exist."
"So, you like someone." I concluded.
"Yeah, his name is Robbie. He's one of my best friends, but we've never truly dated. I mean… we kissed a couple times, but that was a while ago, and I…"
Sam's POV:
She started to sob a little bit. Then, a lot. You could hear her heart breaking.
"You love him don't you." She nodded.
"But you don't do anything about it?" Cat began to sob even more.
"Why not? And why haven't you asked for my advice?"
"Oh, because I want advice about love from the girl who checked herself in an insane asylum because she liked her nerdy friend just like me." My mouth felt open. I hadn't expected the comment to make her angry.
I sat down on the couch next to her. She had sat there after she had begun to cry.
"Do you know how he feels about you nowadays?"
"Yeah, he likes me, but I think it might be too late to tell him that I love him."
"Why?" Nona asks.
"Because—because when he kissed me last year I kissed back, but then I ran away. We haven't really talked about it since. We both know that something special is there, but we're too scared to actually do anything."
"Do you have a real reason to be scared?"
"Not in the terrifying type of sense, but yes."
"Well, Cat don't forget that every relationship has it's flaws, it's complications. That's part of life. If he liked, you then he probably likes you now. It's probably not too late. You just need him to know why the relationship never happened. If there is no reason than he'll probably forgive you, and you may get a chance to be with him yet." Nona said as only a wise old lady could.
Cat nodded and then wiped her eyes. She got up and hurriedly said "I am going to go. I think I should go try to talk to him." She ran out the door before I could really warn her about how late it was.