"You go in first." Jade muttered. The two girls were standing outside the door to Cat's room. Tori shot the other girl a look of disgust.
"You go in. You're the one who needs to talk to her so badly." The singer shoved at the Goth.
"You go in and butter her up so my thing doesn't sound so bad." Jade explained, gently pushing the half-Latina towards the door.
"How about you both come in so I can have actual people in here? I haven't seen people in, like, forever." A hoarse voice called out, muffled by the door. The two girls looked at each other accusingly and huffed. Tori pushed open the door and strode in first.
"Sorry. Jade's being a big baby." The singer set down her bag and leaned down to give the redhead a gentle hug, laying a soft kiss on her forehead. The redhead giggled delightedly. "How're you doing?"
"It's so boring here, Tor!" She whined, sighing discontentedly. Tori smiled, amused.
"Well…it's your lucky day, cause I brought Jade!" The singer flourished her hands at the Goth standing next to her, looking much less amused with her arms crossed.
"Yay, Jade!" The redhead stuck her arms out for a hug. The Goth rolled her eyes and sighed, exasperated. "Pleease?" Cat pleaded, wiggling her arms. Finally, Jade stomped her foot.
"Fine." The raven-haired girl shuffled next to the bed and gave the girl a quick hug.
"I'm…gonna go get Dr. Daniels." Tori gave Jade a quick smile and then made to leave.
"No." The Goth growled and snagged her wrist as she turned. "You're staying for this." Tori winced, rubbing her wrist.
"Why? I've already heard this…" The singer sighed, slumping into a chair by the window. "Fine. Whatever." She crossed her arms. Jade stared at Tori for a couple of seconds, and then turned to the redhead.
"Okay." The Goth blew out a breath and raked a hand through her hair. "You can do this." She muttered under her breath. "Okay." Finally, clear, green eyes looked up and into the redhead's brown ones. "First of all, I want to apologize. For not being here. This morning. And for…leaving. Last night." The actor paused, then took a deep breath. "This is really hard." She turned to look at Tori, who, in turn, quirked a eyebrow. The Goth rolled her eyes and huffed, pacing. "Look. I know this isn't an excuse…I just…" Couldn't stick around because I couldn't emotionally handle your trauma? Couldn't handle the pain I was feeling for you? Pathetic. Jade found the thoughts sneaking into her mind, and she closed her eyes, locking away her disappointment and self-hatred. After what seemed like an eternity, Tori spoke.
"What Jade wants to say is that she was taking your being in the hospital a bit hard last night, because she blamed herself for it." The singer spoke gently, rising to place a reassuring hand on the Goth's shoulder. Jade took a deep breath, and opened her eyes. "But I really think you should explain the rest." The singer turned to the paler girl, who nodded her gratitude, then turned to the redhead again, taking yet another deep breath to settle the anxiety a little.
"I have anxiety. And I'm depressed. So sometimes, certain things will trigger me. And when I saw you having your nightmare last night, I just…" The Goth's voice broke on the last word, and she covered her mouth with one hand, looking away. Her lip locked firmly under her teeth, she bit down to keep the emotions from surfacing. When she looked up again, the little redhead was smiling serenely, her arms wide open. With a sob, Jade slowly walked over and sat next to the smaller girl, crying into her shoulder while the redhead wrapped her arms around her.
"Well…looks like we don't need Tori here. So I'm just gonna…go get Dr. Daniels now…" Smiling awkwardly, the tanned girl slipped out the door. After a while, the Goth lifted her head, wiping tears off her face, reaching for some tissues and cleaning up the running makeup on her face. The redhead gestured to the tissues, so Jade pulled off her boots and sat, cross-legged, on the bed, handing the girl the tissues and her makeup bag. Carefully, Cat dabbed away the ruined makeup and reapplied the Goth's makeup just the way she liked it.
"Wait, you're left-handed?" Jade questioned, noticing that the redhead's right arm was in a cast.
"Nope." Cat's brow was furrowed in concentration, the tip of her tongue poking out between her teeth. "Hold on, I'm gonna redo your eyeshadow."
"How…"
"Jade! If I do my left eye with my left hand it just looks better!" Cat rolled her eyes. "Everyone knows that." The redhead shot her a condescending look. "Duh." She added, as an afterthought.
"I have…never done that before in my life." The Goth admitted, shoving her makeup back into its pouch and holding up her phone to check the redhead's work. "Damn. Your eyeliner is just…damn." She whistled, shaking her head in disbelief.
"I'm awesome." Cat shrugged, smiling brightly. "Do you like it?"
"Yeah…is this…brown?" She pointed at her eyelid, an eyebrow raised.
"I don't know…I think it's like, taupe. I like it. It brings out your pretty, pretty eyes." The redhead grinned, teasing a little. Slipping her phone back into her pocket, the Goth eased back onto the bed beside the other girl. The redhead carefully traced a finger over the cuff adorning the raven-haired girl's left wrist. Warm, brown eyes met fearful emerald ones inquiringly. Taking a deep breath, the Goth nodded sharply. The cuff fell onto the bedspread, leaving warm fingers around the pale girl's cold, trembling wrist. A small thumb traced the slashes gently, bright red against porcelain skin. When the singer spoke again, Jade let out a breath she didn't know she'd be holding. "You wanna know what I think?" She nodded, hesitantly. "I think sometimes it hurts too much on the inside. And we need to do something to help us get it out." Brown eyes stared directly into Jade's. "But don't you ever think that you're not important. Because you're important to me." Cat said, adamantly. "No matter how sad you get, Jade, you can always talk to someone. Just…I would be really sad if you died. So try not to, 'kay?"
"'Kay." Jade whispered harshly, blinking away tears. "I promise I'll try."
"Love you, babygirl." The redhead smiled at the Goth.
"Love you more." Jade whispered, laying a gentle kiss on Cat's forehead before sitting back down in her chair to wait for Tori to return. Just as she was about to text the singer, the door opened.
"Hey, guys. Sorry it took a little long, I was with a patient." The blonde looked distressed, reaching up to tie her hair into a sloppy ponytail. "Oh, shit. I mean…crap. Sorry." She dashed out to snag her clipboard from the reception desk down the hall. Taking a deep breath to compose herself, the doctor re-entered the room with the clipboard. "So…which one of you is Cat Valentine?" The blonde joked, a pretty smile adorning her face once more. The redhead giggled quietly.
"Me!" Her hand shot up enthusiastically. "Also, you have really pretty hair."
"Thanks, you too! I like your colour." The psychiatrist smiled, before taking a seat at the foot of the bed. The redhead smiled and touched her hair. "I'm Kate. These two insist on calling me Dr. Daniels, which is why I always looked annoyed around them."
"You do look annoyed a lot." Jade remarked, her head tilted to the side. "And now we know why!" The singer and the Goth high-fived, the paler girl mock-enthusiastic.
"Anyway." The psychiatrist looked down at her clipboard, sobering up quickly. "Serious time. How are you feeling right now, Cat?"
"Ummm…I feel a little better." The redhead said thoughtfully, wiggling her arms and legs. "The doctor said I was healing faster than normal, so I guess that's good?"
"That's good. That's what it says here on my copy, too. Okay, before we start talking, do you mind that Jade and Tori are in the room with you, or do you want them to leave? They know the drill, they'll leave if you say so." The blonde looked up from her clipboard at Cat.
"No, that's okay. I like having them here. And they can listen." Cat nodded.
"Okay, then. So, do you want to tell me what happened?" The blonde asked gently, putting aside the clipboard to look at the redhead. The girl sighed.
"What's there to talk about? I mean, it's pretty obvious what happened to me." Cat sounded defeated, leaning back against her pillows.
"Actually, initially, having only looked at the doctor's report, I thought you'd been in a car accident." The redhead looked up.
"Really?"
"Yeah." The blonde nodded truthfully. There was a long silence, before the redhead took a deep breath.
"Well, my daddy beat me." She got out forcefully, blinking rapidly. There was silence. "He came home drunk, as usual. And I guess my brother was having a hard time getting to bed or something. I was sitting in my room, doing my homework, and he barged in." The details were laid out very cleanly, in a detached tone of voice. Next to the window, Jade shivered.
"And was this the first time this had happened?" The psychiatrist inquired further, never pushing too hard.
"No. He's been doing it since I was ten." The redhead laid out. There was a hiss from Jade, and a soft sound of anguish from Tori.
"Wow." The blonde shook her head sadly. "Well, I promise you we'll do everything we can to stop it from happening ever again." Cat looked up hopefully.
"Really?"
"Really." The doctor nodded, her ponytail bouncing. After another hour and a half of talking, the psychiatrist made a diagnosis. "I'm going to go ahead and diagnose you with chronic depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. But these are just labels. I don't want you to think of yourself as a depressed kid or a kid with PTSD, okay? I'll prescribe some medication for you." The blonde jotted down on her clipboard. "But I don't want you to think of those things separately, for now. I want you to take the medication and tell me how you feel altogether, not how the individual symptoms are improving yet, okay? Can you do that?"
"I think so." The redhead nodded slowly. There was a stark silence as the doctor jotted down some more notes and took out a pad to scribble down the prescription. Finally, she looked up and handed the prescription to Jade.
"So, I'm gonna ask you to pick this up for Cat, since she can't do it herself right now." Jade nodded, grabbing her keys and her bag. "Is that okay, Cat?"
"Yeah, thanks, Jade." She smiled tremulously at the Goth as she and the singer waved to the redhead and headed out. The blonde caught the smile and placed a soothing hand on Cat's knee.
"You're gonna be just fine. Don't worry." The doctor reassured the girl.
"I just don't know what I'm gonna do after I leave here." Cat sighed, looking up at the ceiling.
"We'll figure it out, just like Jade, Tori and I figured that one out together." The doctor smiled at the look on the girl's face. "We will. I promise." As she headed towards the door, the redhead spoke.
"Dr. Daniels?"
"Kate." The blonde corrected, turning around. "What is it?"
"Thanks." The redhead finally smiled.
"Anytime, Cat."