Even without the trauma of the day, her walk into school wasn't a great one, it never was, as LA was not a very walkable city. Sometimes her Dad would drive her, those days were nice. When he wasn't so caught up in his job. It wasn't his fault he had to work as much as he did. With Mom not able to work cause of Matty, someone needed to provide, so he said. Cat herself was 'meant to the working by now' according to him. She had tried but it was just too much for her, a part-time job on top of the commitments of Hollywood Arts. There was always some after school play to attend, some costume to work on in the evening. Whoever said the Arts was easy was lying. And not to mention how she needed to help her mom with looking after Matteo on top of that.
Dad wouldn't help much anymore, he was at work so much. Cat was surprised he was still even there that morning. As soon as the ambulance arrived he'd be off to work she was sure of it. Mom couldn't take it on her own, so often Cat looked after him. It was okay a lot of the time, she calmed him actually. When it was his mind that is, when it was the drugs there was nothing anyone could do. The more they locked him away from them the worse he got. Hell, he threw himself out of a the 4th floor window in his last rehab centre. Those windows weren't meant to be easily broken, but somehow, he did it. They were running out of options for him-
"Hold up there Kitty Cat!" Robbie chirped behind her, catching her up on the final stretch of path before the entrance of their school. "Bye Mom!" He waved as she drove by.
"Hi Robbie!" Cat perked up instantly after seeing the curly haired boy. School time meant she needed to act like school Cat. She didn't need to think about the hours prior, just the hours ahead now. Just about school. "How was your evening?" She asked.
"Oh you know, pretty boring. Rex had a Northridge girl over so I had to leave him in my room for a while I read a book downstairs" He sighed, running his hands through his fro as they walked through the school gates and into the carpark.
"Right-" Cat replied, unsure what he meant by, well any of that. "Good book at least?!" She asked.
"Yep it had a lot of words!" He replied, ever the one to accidentally kill the flow of a conversation by not giving any leads.
"Well that's good!" Cat smiled at him. "Hiya Andre!" She beamed as he also joined them, locking up his car as he walked over.
"Hi Little Red! You finished writing the lyrics for us to practice today?" He asked.
"Sugar." Cat gasped, her notebook was in her bag, that was still laid in her bedroom at home. "I left my notebook at home. Sorry Andre"
"It's okay Little Red." Andre said, shaking his head slowly. "We have loads of time to finish it off this week."
"Did you forget your whole bag?" Robbie laughed, noting that she was without it. "I swear Cat, you'd forget your-"
"Head if it wasn't attached" Cat finished in unison with the boy, a phrase seemingly said 5 times a day within the group.
ADHD was both a blessing and a curse to her. No one seemed to realise how bad it affected her sometimes. It made her forget, it made her restless, it made her lose focus. But it also brought a world of creativity that others could only dream of. It brought a unique perspective and - well today wasn't the reason she forgot her bag. But she wasn't going to correct anyone today. They only saw it as a bit of a joke. Her parents didn't even believe it was a problem. It took her years of begging and a note from Lane for them to even get her tested, and then they got her the meds as a way to shut up her complaining. How dare she say she has it so hard when Matteo was right there, suffering tenfold. They pills helped her so so much, they helped her focus, to keep up her mood, to control her erratic behaviour. She normally took three a day, one at each meal. But she guessed today she'd have to go without today.
Her first class of the day was theatre tech, a class she shared with Robbie. All in all Cat didn't know how she ended up in this class. Sure the lights were pretty and a lot of her knowledge from her music mixing class came in helpful on the audio mapping side but- tech wasn't entirely her thing. Robbie on the other hand loved it. Every new piece of lighting they got, the curly haired boy would be over the moon.
"Look Cat!" He started, this particular day they'd been gifted a new set of lights from a local studio who, themselves had had an upgrade. "Martin Rush MH3s!" He squealed, pulling a light out of the box and carrying it over with Sinjin. It looked rather heavy as both boy are struggling.
"Oh cool." Cat replied, unenthusiastically, "How is it different from the other ones?" She tilted her head off to one side.
"We have MH2's, these are much bigger and -" He started, Cat drowned him out. Not because she didn't care- well she didn't care, but it was mainly because she had other things to think about. Her next class was songwriting so and she was desperately trying to remember the lyrics she'd come up with for her and Andre's song. "Cat are you listening?" Robbie asked, letting go of the light, leaving Sinjin to half fall over on the weight of it. "Cat?"
"Whattie?" The redhead asked suddenly, aware of her name being said.
"Nevermind," Robbie muttered, walking away, leaving Sinjin to drag the light behind him. Rex would surely have something to say about that interaction later. She suspected that he was heading over to his bag to go get the puppet.
As she watched him walk away, Cat couldn't help but narrow her eyes slightly. She did like Robbie, but she didn't like Rex. She really didn't like Rex. And the more they grew up, Rex had stopped being a fun gimmick and more of a bully. Robbie had brought him Freshman year, a few days after Cat had met him. It started as a bit of fun, Robbie used him to practice his ventriloquism skills, and then he got a little too into it. It started being a way for Robbie to voice how he really felt without saying it. And it was often quite upsetting to Cat.
"Here! Sinjin let me help." Cat offered, watching the poor boy try and lug around the light on his own.
"Thanks Dog." He replied, beaming as she walked over and helped him carry the heavy thing to the end of their XLR chain. Cat faltered at the strange choice of nickname. Strange boy. As soon as they put it down she walked away again, choosing to hide up on the catwalk above the stage. The other few members of their class would all be happy playing around with their new lights on the ground below, so no one would bother her. That's a reason she took this class, it was an easy way to get out of the way of things. It was nice when Jade used to take this class with her, but she dropped it last semester. As much as Cat loved people, and being around people, even she needed her alone time. So, as planned, she pulled out her phone again and continued typing away as many lyrics as she could remember.
By the time songwriting class rolled around, Cat actually had a bit of a headache. The new lights just HAD to be tested out asap, which made Cat deeply regret hiding up by the main rig. The lights they were testing were on the floor, so why they had to turn them all on, Cat didn't know. Flashing lights plus skipping meds created a sour combo.
"Heya Lil Red." Andre announced, walking into their allocated music room for the next hour, flinging his bag onto a nearby chair. "What's making you so glum?" He noticed instantly when Cat was feeling down, they'd known each other since elementary school so at this point she was an open book to him.
"What, I'm not glum!" Cat pouted, not looking at him but instead at the floor in the rough direction he was. "What's glum mean?"
"Sad, annoyed-" Andre listed. "Pouty." He finished, stopping a few paces before her and crouching down, now in her eyeline. "What's up Chika?"
"I'm just sad I forgot my notebook at home." She lied.
"It's okay, we all forget things sometimes Cat." He comforted, "Besides, we have all lesson, we can come up with some more! It won't be the first time coming up with some that quickly."
He wasn't wrong, Cat and Andre constantly made songs together, ever since they were young. Back then they'd make up a whole song within recess. They didn't have any instruments of course, just Andre banging some sticks into the ground as a make shift drum. There was no theory behind it, and half the time the lyrics made no sense, but they were songs nevertheless. That's when Cat's love of music began; when her and Andre were little. Jade was there too of course, but it took a lot of convincing to get the young girl to join them. She didn't think singing was particularly 'cool' as a kid, but hung around with them anyway, finding them 'less insufferable than the other kids'. It wasn't until the end of Elementary where she finally gave in and joined them; and since then the three were inseparable. Beck joined from Canada in Middle School, and Robbie first week of Hollywood Arts, and finally Tori in Sophomore year. But still, it was always Andre, Jade and Cat at first.
Cat found Jade scary when she started hanging around with them. She always liked to just watch rather than join in. Not in a creepy way, just a lost kid kinda way, which was extra fine as they were all kids. She was very shy, always keeping to herself, and Cat was the opposite, bubbly as always. Andre was a mix, he liked who he liked and stayed away from those he didn't. Not that he didn't like many people- just if the vibe was off he'd find others instead. Jade had a weird vibe to him. She seemed very cold, but Cat seemed to like her, and if Cat liked her, Andre did too.
"Earth to Cat." Andre said suddenly. "Krrk" - he continued, mimicking a walkie talkie noise "Earth to Cat".
"Cat to Earth- I mean Andre!" The redhead replied, snapping out of the tangent in her mind.
"You're extra spacey today Cat." Andre observed. "Did you forget your meds?" He pried.
"Not everything is about my-" Cat started, used to have to defend herself. People loved to use her ADHD as an excuse for everything. But, he was right this time. "Yeh, I ... forgot." She nearly whispered. She wasn't going to go into it today. Every time she mentioned her brother people pushed her to stop. Andre was normally better at listening than most, but even he didn't really know how to reply. It was okay though, Cat thought. She was a few days from her next prescription dose anyway so it would sort itself out eventually.
Andre smiled sweetly at her, he knew she struggled a lot with remembering thing. People often mistook that as her being slow or dump, but honestly in the right environment Cat was one of the smartest people Andre knew. For example, she was one hell of a song writer. "Let's use all those thoughts then to write our song!" He concluded, finally standing from his squat, opening his laptop to up the instrumental and rough lyrics they'd written in their last few lessons.
"Kay kay", Cat smiled at him, he always knew the right things to say.