Caterina Valentine: My Life.
FlorMorada
I do NOT own Victorious, or any songs that may be used.
…
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I only had school for ten minutes today, so decided to get off my lazy ass and write. (And look, it's so long! :)) Thanks, Maria (SagaChronicles), for the really nice PM about this story you sent me.
It was a really cool way of getting me to hurry the fuck up. :)
…
NOTE:
" Real life ", " "Cat speaking" ", " Cat's flashback/past happenings ".
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Chapter Nine
Uncovered.
…
/Beck./
It's quiet. The room's quiet.
I may have been half asleep those periods before, but what Cat's just said in the last tape has woken me up, completely.
I never liked Lilith. Not particularly. I never really saw her too much, I guess, but there was always this vibe that came off of Cat when she would talk about her – I guess that's where I got my disliking.
No wonder she randomly seemed even further from her than usual one day. They weren't living together anymore.
Jade's here. I don't even know how, since Tori said she was 'sick' at home. Not that I mind she's here. I mean, her sickness's always suspicious but I don't like to have to worry about her being home alone. When her dad was out and her mom was abroad for work, she'd always call me, and we'd stay on the phone for hours and we wouldn't even say anything, really, but it was so nice, I just loved how we used to-
'You're not together anymore, Beck, remember?'
The harshness of my thought makes me think I've somehow said all of that out loud, but it's André who speaks, and by the way we all look at him, I release he's the one who breaks the silence.
"And we thought it was her mom who was bad," he says.
And it's true.
And, like with a lot of stuff, Cat never told us.
The arrest, the juvie – what if that stuff had gotten more serious? What if Cat had had to go to that detention centre? How'd she even have come to Hollywood Arts?
I mean, it's bad enough she's gone, but what if we never even knew her? I can't imagine that.
I don't even want to try.
I don't have to be told this time to insert the next tape. My bag, on the chair beside me, is half open and I reach inside it. I realise the floor's different to the janitor's closet's carpet and it registers with me that we've obviously moved, halfway through, to the Blackbox Theatre. God knows why.
I pull out Cat's white box, which I feel I haven't seen for ages. I take out the third tape and look at it.
This one has one of Cat's hearts scrawled onto it, in black marker, with the letter 'J'. I put it into the cassette player. As that whir starts up again, Robbie looks up at each of us.
"Cat said- cutting, didn't she?" he says quietly.
None of us say anything. It's a question that's been on the tip of each of our tongues as soon as the last tape ended, I'm sure.
"And eating," Tori continues. "Not eating - what could she have-"
I begin to try to think of a response, but, like us all, I have none. There are so many questions I have for Cat, really, but that's the thing with these tapes - we can't get answers for them. We get answers from the past, what happened back then, but anything she tells us on here, that's all we'll ever know.
I hear the sound of Cat clearing her throat and the third tape begins.
I don't know what the answer to Tori's question will be, or Robbie's. I don't think I even want to find out.
But these tapes kind of remind me I don't have a choice.
…
"Hi, guys.
Jade.
I only have one thing to say to you, Jade. And that is,
I'm sorry."
...
"Are you sure you can't have a little bit more, Cat?"
I shake my head, almost automatically. Which I'm not sure is good or bad anymore, really. "No thanks, Jade's dad," I reply to him regardless.
He reaches across the table pushes my plate towards me, Jade only watching with her own mouth half full.
"Come on, Cat," he says. "Growing girl-" I'm about to protest, "-yes, Cat, you have grown. So eat a little more?"
I sigh, heavily. From having to go through this ordeal - once again. It gets so tiring. "I can't eat any more," I groan.
Lies, of course.
My stomach even consequently protests.
I've just swallowed down a carrot and two freaking florets of broccoli - I shouldn't even be hungry.
"Cat-"
Jade's dad continues to try to get me to eat, but honestly, at meal times, I prefer to just block him out. It sounds bad but...I just have to.
Eating. That's the only thing I hate about living here.
If I were still at home, Lilith wouldn't force me to eat - she wouldn't be eating herself so telling me would only be hypocritical. But Jade's dad's always wanting me to eat and is taking us out and food's always everywhere and it's horrible. It's a horrible environment.
I've only lost thirteen pounds since last year. Well, I lost some more, but a few months ago Jade was really pressuring me and I had every single meal with her, so gained it back. And I've grown a little too, if that makes a difference. But I was 109 pounds last year - last month, I was 96.
I don't actually know what I am now because Jade said I was 'getting obsessed' and one day, I woke up, and my bathroom scales were gone.
It registers with me that Jade's dad is still talking and Jade is looking at me also. But for the fourth time this week - and it's Thursday - I disappoint both Mr. West and my stomach and stand up from the table.
"I really can't," I say to the two of them, cutting off whatever Jade's dad was saying. "I'm full today." Lies. "And I've got studying for next month." More lies.
He sighs. "Alright," He lets go of my plate, defeated. As usual.
I feel bad because he does cook for us and I waste it, all the time. But somehow, the thought of being skinny seems to debilitate all elements of guilt.
I'm about to leave the room, but I notice Jade is still looking at me. Not glaring, but not completely sweetly. She seems to be enjoying her food (which isn't surprising, because it really does look nice), so when she puts her fork down and turns to her dad, I'm confused.
"Can I be done too, Dad?" she asks.
There's a pause. Jade's dad looks at her plate, before up at her. "N-no. Sit and eat please, Jade."
Jade raises an eyebrow and looks, almost irately, back at me, before picking up her fork again. "Fine." She continues without further protest.
You could eat if you were skinny, like her, a voice sneers at me. And I can't object with my thought because I know it's absolutely true.
I place my plate by the kitchen sink and quickly leave the room. I make my way upstairs.
It's not the first time Jade's done that; asked a question linking to something I've just asked or I've too done. I don't see why. It's not even as if it's genuine - like, just now, it only seemed as if she asked because-
Well, I don't know why.
It's like she's testing something.
I don't know what though - and the outcome's always the same anyway, so there's no point.
Whatever Jade's dad's let me do or said I don't have to is the opposite for Jade - that's how it always is.
...
"Dark clothes; 'yes, wear those, Cat - Jade, I want you to change'. Eating; 'okay, Cat, you can be done - you, Jade, I want your plate finished. Piercings and hair dyeing and whatever shit else; 'of course you're allowed, Cat, when you're a bit older - never, ever, ever, Jade'.
All the time.
I only got afterwards why you used to ask all of my questions, Jade.
To see what your dad would say.
He'd answer me with whatever would make me happiest but you, Jade...well, he just replied with what he thought was best.
It wasn't fair to you. I don't know what things were like before I stayed, but I know I took away whatever small piece of justice you might have had before.
Even your mom, when she wasn't abroad for work for three months, she'd treat the two of us differently. It was like...like I was the daughter - you were the adopted second child. I changed the whole of your family's dynamics, and not positively.
And you didn't say for ages, Jade. Not properly. You let me know, that same day I left the table for the fourth time in the week, but you never really explained. I just kind of figured.
With, I guess, awareness of how your mood was when both me and your dad were there. With instinct - I could just see I was doing something to you, Jade, you didn't really even need to say. With evidence.
I figured it out with your evidence.
Evidence that wasn't existent because of just me, I don't think, but certainly added to. I half caused it and I probably worsened your evidence for me, Jade.
And I'll never be able to apologise enough."
...
It takes about twenty minutes for Jade to join me upstairs. She must have been taking her time. Or talking to her dad or something. Or maybe she was having desert, which I saw in the fridge earlier.
It looked nice. I would have wanted some, but I probably would've been too full to eat it.
Again, lies. Even to myself.
The door opens and I stand up from Jade's desk. Jade stiffens, before leaning against the wooden door frame.
"Your room's down the hall, Cat," she says sarcastically - as always, "I thought we established that, what, a year and a half ago?"
I laugh. That personality of hers, it's ever-present. Jade pushes the door closed and walks into the room, flopping down bed. "What do you want, Cat?" The duvet muffles her voice.
I walk over to her bed and sit by her feet. "To talk."
"We're talking now."
"Fine, talk about."
"About what, Cat?"
"About what's up with you."
Jade lifts her head and looks at me. I can tell by her pause that she's going to both disagree with what I've said, and protest about the talking.
Talking 'about'.
"Nothing's up," she eventually says. She puts her head down again, crossing her arms over the duvet. "We don't need to talk."
"Jade-"
"You can go now."
I sigh, and Jade turns to face the wall.
Of course she'll tell me nothing's up. I can tell by her body language. She doesn't want to make me upset - not that I don't deserve to be.
"Jade, I've done something to you. So I'm sorry, okay. But can you, like, tell me what?"
She stays faced away from me. "You haven't done anything."
"But I have."
Jade makes a noise but I can't understand, and she only shifts her body into a ball.
"Jade," I say, tapping her. She shakes me off her shoulder. "Jade, tell me. So I don't do it anymore."
"It's not even just you."
I raise an eyebrow at her verbal giveaway. "So it's partly me?" Jade, pressing a hand on her face, realises her word error also. "Tell me the part then, Jade. Please? I'm really sorry. I just don't want to keep doing it."
With a groan, Jade sits up from her bed and swings her both her legs off it. She takes a hold of my wrist, and looks down at each of her fingers gripped around it, eyebrows raised. "Christ, Cat. Someone's getting skinny."
I'm about to reply - and protest - but she immediately pulls me off the bed and stands us both in front of her body-length mirror, on the other side of the room.
I have one in mine, but it's cracked down the middle.
I threw a hairbrush at it last month.
"Okay, Cat," Jade says to me. "Look at us both. What's different?"
'You're skinny, I'm fat,' - my first thought, of course.
But that'll just piss Jade off and we'll end up arguing (as happened once before), and she'll end up not telling what's wrong. So I actually look at our reflection.
Well, there are lots of differences.
Jade's hair is longer, and a darker brown than mine. She's wearing a red streak; mine is dark pink. Jade's taller. Only a little, though - I have actually grown in the past year and actually look old enough for junior high next month now. Different…skin shades. Different...I don't know - Jade's Jade, I guess, and I'm Cat? What does she mean, 'different'? All of these have been differences from the start - nothing different.
Honestly, more about us is the same.
We dress alike. Dark reds and purples and black. The top Jade's wearing is almost the same as one I bought a few months ago, like Lilith's - Jade's is just tighter over her stomach and mine is wider around the collarbone. We're both wearing black skirts too, as we both usually wear. Jade's always look smaller than mine but she disagrees and says it's because my legs are so skinny - which, I then disagree with. We even both bought the same shoes last month. Black patent Dr Martens. Only, Jade's are a size six and mine are four and a halves. But they're practically the same.
"We're practically the same," I say.
"The same?"
I nod. "The same."
"Well, exactly." Jade lets go of my wrist. "So, tell me, Cat, why is that my dad treats us like we're two different species?"
...
"See? As I said, what I was thinking the problem was: him treating us so different."
...
I don't have an answer, so Jade continues. "Why does he treat you like a baby? A baby who's, like, 'too cute' to not get what she wants; like a princess too up there to not get what she wants - and me, a normal, thirteen year old girl who has to just do whatever her father says?"
"I-"
But I see for the first time, I swear - other than six years ago when she fell from this climbing frame - I see Jade's eyes begin to glisten, with slowly welling tears. I realise that she's serious, and I shut up. I reach an arm out but she quickly steps away.
"Why does he treat you differently?"
Of course, I don't have an answer.
"Even my mom," she continues. "She's hardly here. But when she is over, she still treats you better than me."
I look down at the floor and cross my ankles, attempting not to cry. My stomach makes a sound and I attempt to supress it but it only carries Jade on.
"Like, even just now, with dinner - I only asked my dad if I could be finished because you were. I didn't want to be, I just wanted to see what he'd say. And of course he said no, unlike to you...like always!"
I close my eyes.
"Cat can do this, Jade can't do that, Cat won't do this, Jade will do that - it was never like that before! Until you came."
"Jade-"
I don't even think she wants me hear the next part, but I do. "He just feels sorry for you, 'cause of your sister and all that shit."
And I only have one thought...why didn't I realise?
I look back up at her. "Jade, I'm so-"
"So sorry?" she cuts me off. "Of course you are, Cat. But sorry doesn't change the fact that I'm treated like an outcast and you're treated like a queen, like you're the freaking daughter."
...
"And that was a tone, Jade, I'd never heard you use before - you sounded so small and helpless and broken and, of course, I then started to cry. And then you got pissed as to why I should even have cried, and the you cried.
It's because I was shocked. I was shocked that I'd been doing this to you, Jade, and I had to let it out - let it out in a way other than what I'd have done if I was in my room, alone.
But you started asking me - or yourself; I don't know - why you couldn't do what I did. Why was I special in a way that you weren't, why, Jade, why we couldn't both do what we wanted to if we both wanted to do it.
And then I remembered about you. I remembered how you'd known about me even though, early on back then, it would have been impossible to notice; it was so hidden. And I remembered what you'd said to me, how I 'didn't deserve it'. And I don't know whether it was the mix of my shock and sadness and guilt, but suddenly, I felt pissed- angry.
And I brought it up.
Something I swore to myself I'd never talk about because I knew how it was for me. I didn't want to put that pressure on you.
But I did. I used that evidence.
Evidence, as I said before, that I realised about long afterwards. Evidence that something was wrong, that someone was causing, that made you feel so much that you had to do it.
I brought that up, like a cunt. Like the cunt I fucking am."
...
I assume Jade's going to continue crying to me, or shout at me for crying to her, or kick me out of her room, but she doesn't. She just shakes her head to herself and looks at me, wiping her face, and sighs, falling down onto her bed again. She covers her head with her duvet.
I take a few steps towards her on her bed. "Okay, Jade. Alright. So, again, I'm sorry. That…it's not fair you can't do what I do, was it?"
Jade shakes her head against her pillows. "Were you not listening? Yes! We deserve the same."
I walk slightly closer. "Deserve the same? So, you should be able to do what I do? And I do what you do?"
"What- yes, Cat. If you can't, I don't have to; if I can, you're allowed to - like that. Everything should be like that. It's not fair."
I close my eyes as prepare myself to say the next bit. I press my nails into each palm, both sweating.
I'll regret this, I'm sure.
But I don't care.
She's contradicting herself, and though it was a while ago...that's what's not fair.
"Okay, Jade." I swallow. "So, you know when you asked if...you asked if I was harming myself, Jade?"
I see her physically change. Jade stops hitting her arm against her duvet and her body completely stiffens.
"Like, self-harming?" I add. As if she doesn't know.
I hear Jade swallow. "Yes? The week after you first came, Cat," she says slowly. "Like, over a year ago."
I walk even closer to her. "I know," I say. "But you know how you said I shouldn't? Because I didn't deserve it?"
"Cat, what-"
"And right now, you're saying how we both deserve the same?"
She sits up now, and I notice, now, not sadness in her eyes, but absolute fear. I walk all the way over to her. "Cat, I-"
But before I let her stop me, I take hold of both of her wrists and feel her bracelets slide down to my fingers - all seven on each.
"Tell me, Jade," I say, as she tries to pull her arm from me, "if we're 'no different', and 'you can do what I do', and we 'both deserve the same'..." she continues to try to get free from me, but my grip is tight - I'm determined to do this now.
I place both my hands on her left arm and wrap my fingers around majority of the jewellery. I slide them down her wrist and off her hand, each one landing with a small clink on the bed beside us. And I see them again. Like I did first fifteen months ago, and then a few months ago, and then just last week.
All of her straight-lined, horizontal, - like mine, undeserved for -scars.
Jade doesn't say a word.
"Tell me, Jade," I whisper, and my voice is thick. She's no longer sniffing but her silence is unequivocal. "If we deserve the same, Jade…why do you deserve this? Why do you deserve to cut? Yet I don't?"
...
FlorMorada.