Caterina Valentine: My Life.

FlorMorada

I do NOT own Victorious, or any songs that may be used.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

OmG im so late guize im sorri.

Editted and made this last!Lilith part an extra long chapter. Enjoy.

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NOTE:

" Real life ", " "Cat speaking" ", " Cat's flashback/past happenings ".

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Chapter Eight

Lilith IV.

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"God, Cat. I thought you didn't even 'like' me!"

"I don't like you!"

"Then why are you upset?"

"Because I'll still miss you!"

My sister sighs, and closes her eyes. She doesn't say anything, despite that fact that she just has been saying things - so many that we we're even having this half-argument. Lilith, she's weird with feelings. She's either defensive or goes quiet, like this - that's only how I know she's feeling something.

I spin the cereal bowl in front of me around on its place.

I can move my hands now. The bandages are off, stitches out. The scars on my palms are still there though, even though the incident was over four weeks ago. It's really because of them that if I ever wantedto forget that incident, I wouldn't be able to. If these scars were gone, the whole thing could be wiped from my mind. But they're not.

Maybe that's what scars are for.

To remind you of the bad that was there at the time; whatever pain was there that'd caused them. Scars, they're there so you don't forget, no matter how long ago it was. A proof of your pain marked onto your skin, for you to always remember.

Unforunate, if you ask me.

I stop spinning my bowl. "Lilith, believe it or not, I do actually want to stay with you."

She opens her eyes. "Yeah, well, so do I, Cat."

"Then why can't I?"

"Cat, it isn't my choice."

"Why not?"

Though, I know why not…

I know we'd been given a choice from only a selection of options; the first being me going to Kearny Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility, but the second, me being put into 'the care of someone more responsible'.

Not foster care, someone we, already knew, who could accomodate to my needs with school and stuff. Someone who the authorities could check over and trust. An adult who maybe had somebody I could 'play' with during my stay there. A place I could love, or I already love.

So, basically, Jade's.

…

"It wasn't forever. Obviously.

But for a while, I had to go and live with Jade."

…

I press stop.

Wait, Cat never told me this…neither of them ever told me this?

I want ask to Jade about this, now - but I remember she isn't here. We're not even in the janitor's closet anymore. André and Tori are on some stairs and Robbie's on their same step, further along - we're in the Black Box Theatre. All of us, except Jade.

I wonder what it'd be like if she was sat here, and a secret of hers was just revealed like that.

Then I remember, that's how it will be for all of us. We don't knows what Cat will say. We haven't even had our tapes yet.

I want to ask what the time is and whether the guys realise that skipping classes like this is plausible for, like, an hour's detention with Vice Principle Dickers. But I think otherwise.

I realise- not realise, no, I've always known, Cat's tapes are more important. Especially this one. Her, and Lilith. And Jade.

All of us say nothing as I press play again.

…

"I won't go into detail about 'my stay' now. Jade, she'll be in the following story. There's a lot to say about her…too much. So.

I spent a lot of time with Lilith that last day. Her boyfriend had dropped my bags at Jade's the day before then stayed at his place before his community service the next day - I didn't see him after that. So, that morning, it was just Lilith and I.

We never said it, but it was almost as if we were spending that time together because we knew it wouldn't happen again for a while.

It was weird. But okay.

But of course, if I hadn't been with her, she would have never have said those things to me. I wouldn't have asked those questions; those thoughts wouldn't have been put into my head.

Honestly, if Lilith hadn't pointed anything out to me, I doubt they'd ever even have crossed my mind."

…

I look across the room at the clock and see it's 9:25am. That's only thirty-five minutes to leave the house, drive to Jade's, and for Lilith to get to her service - and my sister hasn't even had breakfast yet.

I stare at the empy place on the table in front of her. "You don't want to eat?"

She shakes her head. "Not really."

I pick my spoon up from the table, and take bite of my own cereal. "You're not hungry?" I ask her, chewing.

She shrugs. "So what if I was? I wouldn't eat."

I swallow.

That's probably true.

Over the past few weeks, Lilith hasn't eaten as much. Not weeks, even - months.

She does eat. It's not like she's starving herself, I don't think. But she doesn't seem to eat a lot, at all.

And it's only when Chrome's literally cried for her to.

I somehow know it's not the best of questions but, leaving today, I'm suddenly curious. "Lilith, why don't you like eating?" I know she won't answer me, so I also add, "I know you must have a reason."

Lilith gets up from the table. I think she's going to leave the room, but she goes over to counter and sits up on it, her back against the window.

"Because I'm fat," she says frankly. She doesn't look at me.

Her voice is so quiet, I hardly recognise it.

I take another bite of my cereal. I stare at her, sat the few metres away on the wooden counter.

Fishnet tights and tight tops with skirts and bracelets - that's all I ever see.

Not 'fat'.

With the pair of shorts she's got on, I can see all the way up to her thigh. They look little and thin despite being squished across the counter; it's as if she could fit a pair of hands around one.

Quite different to mine.

Her bracelets slide down to her elbow every time she moves her arm - they once were all perfect sizes. Either metal jewellry can magically grow…or her wrists have gotten thinner also.

Even her shirt. It's not as tight as it always was; it isn't hugging her - if anything, it's kind of loose.

Lilith isn't fat. At all. In fact, she's really skinny.

I tell her so.

She tells me I'm wrong.

…

"And what she said next planted the first 'thought seed' into my brain."

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"I'm fat, Cat, I am. And even if I wasn't, if I ate, I'd get fat."

"But, Lilith, you're not-"

"I am!" Her voice is high-pitched and defensive. Like she couldn't disagree with me more. "Trust me, Cat. You don't realise it. But you're fat and it gets worse and you become unbeautiful."

I ask what's even so important about beauty. Lilith's pretty – she's never said anything like what she's saying before.

"Because, Cat. You have to be beautiful. If you're not, people won't like you. You won't get people like Chrome. No one will love you, if you aren't beautiful. And unbeautiful is fat."

…

"Then, calories and fat storage and goddamn weight. More I learnt from her than I've learnt in any Science lesson, ever. Almost twenty of those thirty-five minutes, she lectured me for. Explaining everything.

One of the main things being that eating was 'bad'.

And I half wanted to not believe any of what my sister was saying, because half of me knew it was, frankly, completely disordered bullshit. But half of me did believe it. In fact, three quaters of me soon did.

And then looking at that bowl of Lucky Charms I had in front of me, began to make me feel revolted."

…

Lilith stands up from the counter, and looks up at the clock, as I did. She notices the time, as I also did. "I need to get to the stupid service, Cat," she says. She runs a hand through her hair – bright red, at the moment. "You need to get to…Jade's." My sister smooths her giant shirt down, her bracelets clinking together as she moves.

See, I still see Lilith…but not just Lilith anymore. Looking at her, I see beautiful and loved and skinny.

Everything I'm obviously not.

"Finish your-" and I don't know how she can say it, not after the conversation we've had. She almost chokes it out. "Finish your breakfast. I'll be in the car."

I nod. As soon as Lilith leaves, I push myself away from the table and get out of my chair.

I pick up my cereal bowl, still three quarters full, and clenching the spoon, slowly scrape its contents into the bin. I watch as it slides into the trashcan, a splat as the bits of food all land on top of each other. Milk drips down the bin's side. I look at it trickling down. Down the bin, onto the floor…exactly as it would have gone down my throat, into my stomach. I sigh, grabbing a cloth from beside the sink. Bending down, I begin to wipe the pool up.

I swirl the mess around and feel the food on my fingertips through the cloth; the milk and bits of cereal all wet and mushy - fat. Disgusting.

I remember the floor's wooden - the wetness is going to make it smell. But still, I laugh quietly, wiping the last bit from the floor. I chuck the cloth and its filth, too, into the bin.

I run a hand over my stomach, digging my nails into it slightly. I feel the quarter of the bowl of cereal I ate inside it – all the…fat. I stare at the remnants of the food on the floor, down the side of the bin.

I convince myself it is disgusting.

"Better there than in me," I say. And my voice wavers.

Pathetic, Cat.

…

"Lilith, she never got it. That I'd never felt loved, not properly. And if she told me that she was loved because of being beautiful and shit, she should have been smart enough to know I would have believed it.

That's why she's on this tape - she's a cause for this suicide, really. Yeah, I long ago realised that I should perhaps not listen to her…but my overall self-hate. She caused that.

She made herself my Barbie doll; the worst possible Barbie doll an eleven year old girl could ever look up to. And that ruined me."

…

I hear Lilith call my name, and quickly drop my bowl and spoon into the sink.

I stand up, tall, like her, pull my shorts that bit higher above my waist, like hers.

Because love comes to her, and maybe if I'm like her, brothers won't die and mothers won't leave and sisters won't be taken away, and I'll be loved.

I reach to scratch my arm, but it hurts – not my hand but my actual arm. I pull up my right jacket sleeve, just past my wrist, and I remember why. I didn't forget, really.

It's those little cuts I made with that sharp little blade that bled and hurt but didn't 'hurt', just felt okay. Yesterday. And a few days ago, and days before.

I don't know why.

No one's told me to. No one even knows I've done it – I'm not going to tell anyone either. It's nothing, really, just a little bit of pain, not that 'ow, go away' pain, a different pain. A better one.

I like being the one to make those lines all across my arm; small and thin and red but almost invisible. They cover my wrist now, the right one. If I'm not wearing long sleeves, bracelets will be the only way to hide them. I might ask Jade if we can go shopping so I can buy a few - those heavy silver ones, like my sister's.

The ones, I've noticed, Lilith wears to cover hers.

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A/N:

Woah. Lot in there. ;) More will be explained in the next chapter. Which will be Jade's.

It's not written (and who knows when it will be?), but I know what'll happen. I just have to get up from (or, sit down on…) my lazy ass and write it.

And I will! One day. Probably…

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FlorMorada.