Lonely Souls
Chapter Two
Emptiness and Little Bits
Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious. Not even a little.
When she got home, her face was still stained with mascara, and her hair still smelled like cigarette smoke but once the tears stopped, she felt nothing.
She walked through the front door, and couldn't even care about the creak of the floor boards, echoing through the halls. She knew her curfew was two hours ago, and she knew that her Mom would be asleep, but she also knew that no punishment her mother could come up with could make her feel worse.
She closed the door, and walked up the stairs, still making no effort to muffle the creaks and squeals that the stairs made under her weight. She went to her room, and flung herself on the bed.
Cat willed herself to feel something besides utter hollowness. Anger, or sadness, or anything but this empty feeling in the pit of her stomach like nothing mattered now, and nothing would ever matter again.
When Cat was younger, her mother had told her that friends would come and go her whole life, and to never be so attached to someone that it hurt her to let them go. She had promised her that it would be easier this way. And, as Cat sprawled out on her bed that night she truly believed that her mother was right. If this was how every last one of her friendships ended, Cat did not want friends. She did not want to be left alone and empty, again, and again, and again.
She did not want any more Becks to come and leave and take all of everything she had inside of her. She hated him for doing that, she thought.
Anger swelled inside of her, filling up her empty parts, and she gripped fistfuls of zebra print bed spread, her knuckles turning white, and the anger and the hate felt better than the empty, so she wallowed in it.
How dare he? How dare he leave like that? How dare he make her fall for him and his Devil's smile? How dare he never love her?
She wanted to find him, and hit him, and tell him that she hated him, and she wanted that to hurt him, and she wasn't sure that it would. He had Jade. That thought ripped Cat's heart open.
She slept that night, all wrapped up in her blankets of anger and hate and zebra-print, and when she woke up the next morning, the empty was back.
"Where did he even go?" Tori asked, peeling a banana. The usual group felt so much smaller without him there. Cat, and Jade, and Tori, and Andre, and Robbie, and not Beck sat around their table at the Asphalt Café.
It had been four months, three days, twelve hours, and five minutes since Beck at had left. Cat counted.
"He told me not to tell anyone," Jade said. She was the only one who knew for sure where Beck went. "Not that I'd tell you anyway. God knows you'd go chasing after him."
"You know, I'm-"
"A skank? We know." Jade said.
Andre jumped in. "Aw, c'mon now, ladies. Eat your fries."
Tori stood up, ignoring him. "What is your problem?"
"You! You're so-"
But Cat wasn't listening anymore. She drew patterns in her ketchup with a french fry, and sighed. Four months, three days, twelve hours, and six minutes felt like a forever. "I think I'm going to go now, guys." She stood up, and carried her tray to the burnt orange trash cans.
"Cat?" Robbie said from behind her.
She turned around. "Hi, Robbie!" She said, feigning happiness, but it sounded too forced, even to her.
"Are you- I mean, you've been acting kinda funny since Beck left. Are you okay?"
"Of course I'm okay, Silly-Willy!" She forced a smile, and tried to giggle. If Robbie knew that she was being fake, he didn't say anything.
"Right. If you say so, but you seem really…" Robbie put his hands in his pockets and looked at the sky. Cat wondered if there was a bird up there, but she didn't see one. "I was wondering if we- if I could take you to see my cousin Emily's kittens. I mean, maybe it could get your mind off of… Well, they're orange."
"Kittens?" Cat asked, genuine ecstasy rising in her voice. "Orange kittens?" She jumped up and down.
Robbie smiled. "Yeah," he said. "I could come pick you up tonight. Like, around six, maybe?"
"I'll be ready at six!" Cat said, still jumping. "Don't be late, okay?" Cat skipped off.
She spent the rest of the day a little bit bouncier and a little bit squirmier and a little bit gigglier and being a little bit herself again.
Except, it was a little bit awful to feel wonderful. Having fun without Beck… Cat thought that that might be wrong. It made a little ball in her tummy roll around, and make the French fries she ate for lunch feel a little bit gross. Cat wasn't very well acquainted with guilt, and she didn't like it at all.
That evening, the Valentine household was empty. Cat's parents were gone to a marriage counseling session, and her brother was, well, Cat wasn't sure where her brother was.
She sat in her room and tried to make sense of all of the sounds an empty house makes. There was the squeal of a rusty cabinet door, disturbed by some unknown force, and the impossibly loud drip from the shower head at the end of the hall, and whispering whir from the vents. If Cat listened really carefully, she could almost hear the house speaking to her.
The house moaned as it settled, sending chills up and down Cat's spine. She really didn't like being alone.
But the real problem was, she wasn't alone.
A/N: Hey-ey party people, I'm back! I apologize for the update being so slow. I was at a camp. I don't usually like weird cliff-hangers, but it felt natural to cut it off there.
Tell me what you think! Too slow-going/boring? Amazing beyond all human comprehension? Claw your eyes out awful? Reviews are super-duper-DUPER helpful!
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