Flaws (Part 2)

Both Katy and Christian flinched when they heard a door slam and Odette's angrily raised voice. Katy blinked. "Uh oh. William must have puked in the bathroom floor and didn't clean it up again."

"I honestly don't know how she stands him sometimes." Christian flipped through the TV channels some more. "… You don't think she likes him, do you?"

"You mean actual like?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know. I haven't really talked to her about it. I know she cares about him a lot but I don't know if she's, like, attracted to him." Katy chewed on the end of her pencil as she thought about what she might want to draw.

"Because that would suck if she did like him." Christian looked at her.

"Christian, have you even tried approaching her with actual romantic intent and not just flirting?" She said without looking up.

"There's never a time for it! We're never alone with each other, there's always other stuff going on." He absent-mindedly kept changing channels.

"It also might benefit you to stop giving all the other girls attention too. Just a suggestion."

"I like to keep my options open," he said defensively.

Now she looked up with wide eyes. "And that's why I would never date you," she said harshly. "Look, if you like her you need to get your priorities in order. And keep in mind that you can't mark William off the list of your competition just because she may not be attracted to him. He's twenty-six years old. He's got that older guy appeal. Maturity, all that stuff that girls like Odette are attracted to."

Christian met her eyes. "William, mature? Last month he got drunk and pissed on his homework. Literally pissed on his homework! And turned it in!"

"He's her weapon, he resonates with her, he knows her mind, he takes care of her, she takes care of him. Yeah, he has his quirks, but when you get down to the important stuff, William's not a bad guy. Last month he also cooked for her and cleaned the whole time she had the flu. He did all of the errand-running—he picked up tampons for her, Christian." She said with emphasis. "I don't think you understand how much you are in the hole compared to him even if he does pee on his homework on occasion."

"I'm—ten times the guy he is," he mumbled, staring at the TV screen again.

"Okay. Go get me tampons," she said flatly.

"… You—don't have the flu."

Katy made a small noise of victory as she put her pencil to her sketchbook.

"I have my priorities in order, okay? I play it all smooth-like and I'll ask her to check my soul for me, ya know? That's kind of romantic. I'm letting her see the deepest parts of me. All me, just—raw Christian James and she's got full access to the truth about me. That's deep."

"Mhm." Her tone had already conveyed her loss of interest.

"And it's an excuse to be alone with her. I'll just pop in every once in a while and be like, 'Hey, can you check me out?'" He bounced his eyebrows. "Of course, last time I asked her I really did want to know what she saw. Probably good if I don't look suspicious…"

Katy looked up from her drawing. "You wanted her to check your soul?" she asked quietly.

He glanced at her. "Yeah."

She blinked. "Why?"

Christian shrugged. "Ya know. Just… a general update."

Katy didn't take her eyes off him. "… An update?"

"Yeah. I mean… You and I have been kind of off and I just wanted to make sure that… I wasn't causing any issues." He began to nervously tap his finger on the arm of the couch and kept watching TV, though not paying attention. Oh God, what had he done?

She stared. "… We've been off?" she said with a hint of argument. "This is news to me. In what ways have we been off?"

"Kind of off, not completely off."

"So, when Odette checked your soul… she found that you're not the reason why we're off. I'm the reason?" The argument in her tone was replaced with a bit of hurt.

"Katy, it's okay. It's no big deal. We're okay, we're resonating fine."

"But it's not okay, not if you feel like we're off, I have to do something about it."

"You're making this a big deal and it's not. Please, just relax. Don't worry about it."

She set down her sketchbook. "Christian, if you feel like something's wrong we need to talk about it."

"No, we don't need to talk about it, it's okay. I shouldn't have said anything because it really doesn't matter."

She sighed and looked down. Now it was quiet for a while. But she didn't even keep drawing. She only stared sadly at the outline of something she had started to draw.

Christian tried to keep watching television, but her sad eyes were screaming at him even though they weren't on him. She would continue this. For days. "Okay, you know what's wrong? This."

A little taken aback, she lifted her eyes to him again. "… This?"

"Yes, this. This moping thing that you do, this—sitting in self-doubt and self-pity and worrying-about-nothing thing that you always do. That's what's wrong, Katy." He tried to keep his voice gentle but it didn't matter when his words were so sharp. He could feel his dormant frustration start to crawl up through his ribs and there was no stopping it now.

She flinched a little but forced her voice out to sound harder than his. "I'm sorry. I can't help that I get discouraged when you announce that you aren't clicking with me as well anymore. Sue me."

"It's not just this situation, Katy! It's everything. Every single little thing that happens—you let it get you down and make you feel crappy and it's really hard for me to keep being optimistic enough for the both of us when you're so depressed about the universe all the time." So much for keeping his voice gentle.

Her face transformed to a mix of horror and fury. But she didn't move yet. "Okay, you want me to apologize for being depressed? You think I like being depressed?"

He nodded with wide eyes. "Yeah! I really think you do sometimes."

Katy's eyes turned wild and she stood up and threw her things on the floor. "Oh, thanks! Thanks a lot, Christian! Real nice. You're my partner! You're my support! Now you're just going to blame me for being sad? You're supposed to be helping me and building me up!"

Christian stood up and turned to her too. "That's exactly what I do, Katy! I do build you up! I spend nearly every breath building you up! But you happen to have a knack to just Godzilla right on through that bitch when I'm done. Every time. I'll spend an hour telling you how great you are and how awesome you are and how you have nothing to worry about and then when it's over you're like—" He started roaring and stomping around and pretending to be a giant dinosaur as he smacked the TV's remote into the floor. "That's what you do. To yourself. Every day."

Katy watched him with her eyes watering and her chest heaving.

"So, forgive me if I'm a little impatient right now. But it really kind of sucks when I'm the only one who's trying to fix you."

She nodded, tears close to escaping their barrier. "So, I need to be fixed. All right." She walked around him towards her room.

"You need to fix yourself, Katy. You need to make an effort to help yourself!"

She went in and closed the door.

Christian sighed and plopped down on the couch again. He ran his fingers through his short blond locks and sat in silence. Silence only until he could hear her muffled sobs. It was then that he had to go to his own room and shut the door. But no matter how softly she cried, he couldn't stop hearing her.

The next evening, the group reported back to the edge of the trees behind the castle for their next session. Though it was a little quieter today, they all went on about their regular process of resonating and experimenting with sending small thoughts and feelings to each other in their link. However, there wasn't perfect harmony anymore. Something was wrong. And it was easy to tell. In that white void where they all converged, there was the cello and Nikki's voice. But the piano and the baritone vocal seemed to be flat. Or sharp. Or off time. Or something.

Odette sighed and dropped out of the resonance, the light blue light that rose up with the wind from her feet fading quickly. Soon after, the other meisters opened their eyes and looked around at each other.

Dr. Stein put his hands out beside him. "What?"

"Something's not right," Nikki announced without hesitation in her weapon form.

"It's me," Katy retorted nervously with her eyes downcast.

"No, it's me," said Odette. "I'm sorry, I'm just—"

"Wait, wait, wait," Soul interrupted. He pointed at Odette. "I know what's wrong with you, but what the hell is wrong with you?" He looked at Katy.

She spoke in a shaking breath. "I have to fix myself. I'm sorry." She gently set down the naginata in her hands and walked away from them all, further into the trees. Soul furrowed his brow and looked to Stein and Marie. Christian called her name and changed back into his human form with a white flash.

Tim immediately looked to him and spoke gravely. "What did you do."

"We—we had a bit of a spat last night." Christian said with guilt laced through his words. Rachele silently let Kian transform back to his human form as she jogged after her best friend into the trees.

Tim let Nikki do the same as he stepped closer to Christian. "What did you say to her?"

"I—I said that she needed to try to be more optimistic and that she needed to try harder not to tear herself down. Just—… not that nicely…"

He looked to where Rachele was walking with his girlfriend then back up at the taller boy. "You have to be careful, man. She lets negative criticism fester."

"Yeah, I know! That's what I was trying to say!"

"Well, apparently you didn't say it the way you should have." He started off into the trees as well.

"I'm sorry! I know, I'll—I'll talk to her, okay? I'll make it right."

"Let me do the preliminary clean-up. You stay away. I'll let you know." Tim gave him a glance over his shoulder.

Christian sighed and put his hands in his hair. "Crap."

Nikki patted his back. "Good job."

Dr. Stein looked between the ones left standing either in guilt or awkwardness and threw his cigarette on the leaves and stepped on it to put it out. "Well. I guess this session is over."

Kian pulled nervously at his red scarf. "What do we do now?"

The scientist put his hands in the pockets of his coat and started crunching his way back to the castle. Soul followed him and replied, "Try not to fall apart while everyone else gets their shit together."

Marie stepped forward. "I'm so sorry, guys. If there's anything I can do for any of you, please don't hesitate to ask." She gave soft looks to each of them before solemnly following Soul and Stein back to school.

Odette sighed through her nose and looked beside her to her partner. He looked back at her, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. She rubbed her lips together before speaking quietly. "I've got some things to apologize for. Do you want to go get some coffee?"

He blinked. "Me too… And yes."

She put carefully put her hand in the bend of his arm and they began their walk to his motorcycle in front of the school.