AN:Sothisone'salittlelonger.PersonallyIlikethischapteralot.Ihopeyoudotoo.
Disclaimer:IdonotownVictorious.
"Teapartytonight.I'llpickyouupat8."
I pressed send and waited eagerly for my reply. It came only a few seconds later spelling out a simple "K" and a smiley-face.
I had given a lot of though as to where I was going to have my Tea-Party and finally decided on just taking her to the park. I had brought a little picnic blanket and a thermos filled with tea. I chose Earl grey, thinking that we hadn't had it yet and since it was the most boring tea on earth it would be nice to get it out of the way.
I drove to Cat's house at 8 just as I had told her and she came skipping out the door, plopping down next to me in the passenger seat.
"Hi!" She said, giggling away as usual. I would never understand why she always did that. But I kind of liked it.
"Hello Miss." I answered. "Are you ready for tea?"
"She giggled again. "I sure am Mister. Take me away!"
I turned y eyes to the road and pressed the gas pedal, rolling away down the street.
"Where are we going?" She asked. And I smirked at her.
"You'll see when we get there."
"What tea?"
I explained my Earl Grey theory and she agreed.
"Smart!"
A few minutes later I pulled up at the side of the road.
"Where are we?" Cat asked looking around, only seeing houses.
"Don't worry. We're not going to do it here. But we have to walk from here since there's no where to park the car where we're going."
"Kay." Cat giggled again and stepped out of the car.
We walked down the street and around the corner where big trees were revealing themselves.
"Oh!" Cat clapped her hands together. "The Park! I love the park."
She ran ahead of me picking out a patch of grass where I could lay the blanket and began jumping on the spot yelling at me to hurry up.
"Calm down!" I yelled walking up to her. "Here." I put down the blanket and sat down, starting to unpack the tea and the cups.
"Yay!" Cat sat down next to me her whole face shining with happiness.
"This is so much fun!" She exclaimed.
I nodded. I actually agreed. This had been a great idea. It felt nice spending time with Cat one on one. Like I could act 100% like myself and not try to satisfy everyone else. Cat liked me for me. Or at least I hoped so... But why would she be here otherwise?
~~
Almost an hour later we were both laying on our backs on the picnic blanket, looking up at the soon-to-be dark sky. We had finished the tea long ago and since then we had just been laying there on silence. At first I had found it uncomfortable and desperately tried to come up with something to talk about, but as time passed I started to relax more and more and now the silence was quite nice. Until Cat broke it.
"Robbie." She said. Her voice was quiet and insecure.
"Yeah?"
"Do you... You know... Do you think I'm weird?"
"Of course. Who doesn't?" I chuckled. She sat up quickly.
"That was really mean!" She cried out sounding very upset.
I sat up too, looking at her, understanding that she once again had taken things too personal.
"No." I said. "You're weird in a good way. The way that makes the people around you smile because they know you are something special" I said, surprising myself with the deepness of that speech. I wasn't deep, was I?
"No they don't. They all think I'm stupid or that... that I have some sort of mental illness." She replied, her face turning even sadder.
"Cat, where have you heard that?"
"There's rumours."
I felt disgusted and shocked. Why would someone spread a rumour about that.
"What?" I said.
She nodded slowly.
"But... You don't... You don't right?"
"No!" She cried out.
"No you don't. And even if you did it wouldn't really matter Cat. Because you have a hole heap of friends who love you anyway and you know that."
"Yeah but... But sometimes I feel like they feel like that too, you know." She said, looking me right in the eyes.
"What do you mean?"
"You guys always look at me like I am a stupid five year old..."
I fell silent. Maybe we did. But that was only because she acted like one. And that was why we all liked her. She was herself. Her special, childish self.
"Why did you come to me with this, Cat...?" I asked, suddenly realizing that it was me she was talking about this with and not any one else. She could've gone to Tori or Jade who she was a lot better friends with. But she had come to me...
"Because... Uhm... I see how the other guys are all mean to you and you know… I think that's really unfair and I figured maybe you would understand me since we're the two people that no one seems to get."
It was the most sincere thing I've ever heard Cat say. And for once she didn't sound like a five year old. This girl did actually have something inside her head, and in her heart... Because she was right.
"But you do realize, Cat, that they actually like you, and they only hang around me because I basically forced myself onto them." I said. Feeling worse about myself as I spoke the words I had been thinking about.
"Robbie!" Cat shouted and I stared at her with wide eyes. "You know that's not true."
I fell silent not knowing what to say. Maybe she was right...
Cat was right. For once she was right and she was right about everything she had said today. We were the misfits of our group, and even though we may be considered as friends by the rest, or most part of them on my end, we were the ones who understood each other the most. Because we were both misunderstood.
"Thanks Cat..." I said, giving a half-smile.
"For what?" she looked at me, confused.
"I don't know really. For... getting me... I guess"
She nodded and smiled back.
"Now let's get going I said, standing up. And together we started packing up the tea and the blanket to go home.
Our next tea party was held a couple of days later. It was Cat's turn to choose place and sort of Tea, so all I had to do was wait for the text that was going to tell me where I should be and when. It came Friday while we were having lunch at the Asphalt café.
I looked up at Cat as I saw that she was the one who sent me the text. She just giggled frivolously and continued to eat her sushi.
I read the text under the table.
"Robbie!HAHAlookI'mtextingyoufromacrossthetable.Icanseeu.Anywayy. Teatonight.Andwe'rewalkingthere.Comeoverat8:D"
I looked over at her and nodded slightly, barely noticeable for the people around us and she giggled again.
Several hours later I was walking up to Cat's front door, wondering where we were going. I had no idea what could possibly have come to the little red-heads mind and I was kind of curious about it.
She opened the door before I even had time to knock and skipped passed me. "Uhm... Hi Cat...?" I said and she giggled.
"Come on Robbie!" She called, already across the lawn and on the street. I walked over to her and she looked at me.
"Guess what?" She said, practically jumping out of pure eagerness.
"What?" I asked.
"I'VE GOT UNICORN TEA!" she yelled.
"Cat, there's no such thing as Unicorn Tea..." I said, looking at her in disbelief.
"Yes there is!" she said picking something out of her bag. "Look! It's so cool!"
I looked at the bag she was holding in her hand. On it was a picture of a unicorn and it was coloured as a rainbow. "Unicorn Tea" was spelled out in big pink letters across the small bag that was containing the tea.
"And look!" she shouted, then breathing in heavily out of excitement. "It's pink!" She opened the bag and held it up in front of me, urging me to look into it. As I looked down I saw the tiny tea leaves, all of them pink, I caught the sticky sweet smell emerging from them. I smiled vaguely at her.
"Wow... Very cool." I stated and she giggled once again.
"I know!"
We started walking down the street. I was wondering where we were going. Looking over at Cat i noticed how pretty she looked. Her scarlet hair let out, dressed in a simple purple dress and a black cardigan with white little hearts on it. I loved Cat's sense of style, or maybe not sense oof style, but you know... I loved the way she dressed. It was just so preppy and... Cat.
She was bobbing her head slightly as if she was listening to music. i knew she had gone back to her own little world and I couldn't help but wondering what it was like. Cat-world?
Everything was probably, rainbows and Unicorns and cotton-candy. And tea? Did she have tea in Cat-world? I found myself hoping that she did. Not really knowing why though.
She stopped abruptly and I looked around. We had only walked down the street and around the corner. There were still houses everywhere and the only place that wasn't inhabited was a little square patch of grass with a slide, a swing set and a huge tree.
"So... This is where we're going?" I asked...
"No." she giggled. "We're going there!" She pointed upwards at the tree and through the branches I could see boards. A tree-house?
"Uhm..." I began, not really sure about what to say to her...
"It's my tree-house!" she shouted.
Of course Cat would have a tree-house. She probably had it built for her when she was little and she probably, being Cat, still came here every once in a while.
"Do you… Uh... hang out here often?"
"Uh-huh!" she nodded. We were now standing at the foot of the tree. "Kay... Help me up!" she giggled a little again and I stared at her.
"Help...you...?"
"Come on Robbie!" She waved at me to come up closer and I linked my fingers together so that she could use my hands as a step. Lucky for me she wasn't wearing heels.
She stepped up and grabbed one of the lower branches, heaving herself up. I was stunned by her strength and her flexibility...
"Cat I don't think I can do... uhm... that. I'm a teenage boy. I'm clumsy and I have pretty much no control over my own body."
She giggled again. She had climbed her way up to the platform up among the branches and she was looking down at me, her hair hanging in strands all around her head.
I frowned as I contemplated how on earth I was going to get up there. She was smaller, more flexible than me and besides she had me to step on. I did not. But I was taller than her, so maybe if I jumped...
My hands gripped around one of the lower branches and slipped right off. I jumped again but my hands would not seem to like to stay around the tree. I sighed.
"Cat... This isn't working..." I said in an exasperated voice.
"Wait..." She said and her head disappeared for a moment.
"Yay!" I heard her call and the next second a rope-ladder was falling down through the branches, almost hitting me in the head when they came clashing down.
"I found the latter!" She called and I shook my head.
"Yeah I noticed."
It took me a while to climb up since the latter kept twisting and twirling but eventually I was sitting next to Cat upon the platform of boards she apparently called a tree-house, even though I wouldn't have...
We filled our cups with the sweet-smelling pink Unicorn tea.
"Where did you find this anyway?" I asked but I thought I knew the answer already.
"Sky Store!" she giggled and took a sip.
I nodded... She never really came off that addiction.
"So this is your childhood get-away?" I asked and she looked at me with a confused look.
"It's my tree-house."
I sighed at her imbecility but at the same time finding it quite amusing...
"Okay... when did you get this Tree-house then?"
"It's been here since forever. I share it with all the kids in the neighborhood." She said.
"So you do actually come here a lot."
"Yeah..." she took a sip of her tea, a dreamy look finding it's way to her eyes and she was back in Cat-world. And right then, something hit me. What ifthis was Cat-world? The place where she could just do whatever she liked, play with the kids, sing and dance out loud, sit in her 'tree-house' and just be Cat. I came to the conclusion I wouldn't ask her about it, but I assumed I was right, and even if I wasn't, I could always pretend I was. The thought kind of satisfied me. Because it meant she had invited me to come there with her.
As I went to bed that night I thought about it again. Cat and me. We did really kind of get each other even though we didn't at all. And these tea party things had really got me thinking. Cat obviously thought a lot more than we thought she did. And she obviously had a life we knew nothing about. Sure, she was off in her own thoughts most of the time, but we didn't know where she went... Although I think I maybe had figured it out. Maybe.
AN: Yes I do put AN's both at the top and at the bottom. Does this bother you? Oh well. We'll see when the next chapter is up. Thanks for reading. I do like reviews.