Day 5 without her meds was by far the hardest. She could not focus one ounce. She'd spent all of days 1-2 struggling, days 3 were the weekend, but today was Monday and the worst she'd felt by far. She'd considered skipping school completely, but Matteo was being released from hospital today so she couldn't hide away at home. A part of Cat was surprised they didn't take him back to the rehab centre, but that never did him much help anyway.

Her next cycle of meds should be ready for collection this afternoon, so she just had to power through one more day until she got 100 more of the little pills. Just one more day. She felt like a kid again, where there was a cloud almost surrounding her brain, a continued fuzz that stopped her thoughts from feeling complete. By the time she realised she needed to think about one thing, the next thought was already there, and then she was trying to remember what the first thought was before BAM there's thought number three!

Today was their first run though of a short play Sikowitz had written for them to practice over the weekend. 'Them' being Cat, Jade, Beck, Tori, Andre and Robbie, of course. This was the only class all of the group shared together, taking it every year just for Sikowitz' sake - he kept shovelling random credits at them for doing it which was a bonus. There were other kids in their acting classes, it just seemed like Sikowitz chose to ignore their presence often. This play wasn't to be performed for anyone, just one of his many acting exercises. As always, their first run though was more of a table read, sat in a circle of chairs in the Black Box Theatre. Well, they were all on chairs apart from Cat, who had almost fallen backwards off the bugger twice in 5 minutes, so Jade took it away and made her sit on the floor. It was for the best really.

"And I say CHEESE sandwiches are better than peanut butter!" Robbie yelled, reading his script.

"I'm allergic to peanuts!" Cat quipped, laying on her front, legs kicked upwards, doodling in the top corner of her script.

"And I will personally shove a Snickers down your throat if you interrupt again." Jade glared at the redhead, who pouted and went back to her drawing. She was meticulously sketching everyone out from her low angle.

"I think your sandwich judgement is off good Sir." Tori continued the script read. "You're missing a whole side of meat sandwiches."

"This isn't ABOUT meat sandwiches!" Robbie('s character) yelled back, he slammed his fist down onto the chair next to him in mock anger. "If I wanted your opinion on meat sandwiches I would have ASKED you!" Finishing his line he looked to Cat. "Cat its your line."

"Oh!" She squeaked, she hadn't had a line in a few minutes, she didn't even know what page they were on and hadn't really committed anytime to learning the script this weekend. "Don't uh-" she made up a line, "don't yell at Tori like that!"

"Cat my character is called Sarah." Tori sighed.

"Oh that's a boring name." Cat pouted, going back to doodling.

"Cat if you refuse to take part in my acting challenge, you are more than welcome to join the shruggers." Sikowitz interrupted, pointing to the bunch of students sat across the room, seemingly scraping chewing gum off the bottom off a pile of chairs.

"EEP!" Cat squealed, quickly flicking through the script.

"Page 12." Andre whispered, leaning down to the redhead, his finger pointing at her line on his script.

"Sarah!" She read, "you shouldn't question the king's sandwich taste like that!"

"I… I wasn't" Tori fake stuttered, "I was just… providing alternative options."

"I don't want OPTIONS- I was CHEESE Sandwiches!" Robbie (the king) yelled.

Cat once again stopped listening. What a dumb script. Normally she'd absolutely be down to fulfil the script written in a coconut induced high, but today she was just not feeling it. "I gotta pee!" She announced, jumping to her feet. That was her escape plan, she decided. Pretend she needed to pee, and then go anywhere else. Actually, she really did need to pee, she realised as she skipped out of the room. Hopefully one of them would bring her bag to her at lunch, cause she definitely wouldn't be back for the rest of the class

After her detour to the toilet, Cat decided she'd go to the music block and see if any of the rooms were free. Luckily, it seemed like the freshman class that had them booked were doing theory work in the main classroom, so she went into practice room number 8. Number 8 had always been her favourite, it was the smallest with only enough room for a piano. She liked it because, as a freshman it was the only room she could get away with staying in while the seniors (who had booking priority) practiced after school. Most of them just wanted to play around with all the tech that HA had to offer in the other music rooms, if they want to just play piano most of them had one at home. But for Cat she didn't want to play with the fancy tech. Of course now she was a Senior herself, with 3 years of learning and playing with all the equpiment, but the core of her music always started with just a piano and her voice.

"Hmmm-" She thought aloud, trying to think of what song to play. This was what she always did when she needed to get away from everyone during classes- just come down to the music block and play a song or two. No one ever really noticed she did this- but it was rather often that she did. Most of the time the music rooms were taken, so she'd just go outside and sing there instead, or within the school's toilets. Wherever she could really, just to get a burst of energy out and calm her brain. "Hmmumumumumummmm" She continued, turning her hums in a quick vocal exercise. "Hmumumumummm... Ahah!" She decided on a song, placing her hands on the piano to find the appropriate chords, testing out the opening progression a few times to make sure it was right; and started to sing.

Song her and Andre had been working on - she wasn't totally happy with some of the lyrics still and they had present It tomorrow. I wasn't a big project a tall, just a way to ease them back into song writing after their summer break. But Andre wanted to start releasing his music online, with hopes of getting a music producing internship somewhere, so the pair both wanted it to be good for that.

"I don't wear designer clothes

I don't go to the finest schools"

She started, playing a piano rendition of their song "Song 2 You"

"But I know I ain't no fool, baby

I may not be a star

I'm not drivin' the sickest car

But I know I can make you happy, baby"

I don't know what you been used to

Never been with someone like you"

"No I'm defiantly changing that". She thought aloud, pulling out her lyrics and changing 'someone' to 'a girl'. Andre wrote that part with the intetion of making it gender neutral for them both, but it never sounded right. "We may as well just commit to it."

"Never been with a girl like you."

"Much better" she nodded to herself

But I can give you a love that's true to your heart

Not material things"

She continued the rest of the song. It was much easier to hear the lyrics this way. She liked building the base, then the lyrics, then the song; while Andre liked to complete the instruments and adjudst them after adding the lyrics. She didn't mind working this way of course, but it required stripping back the whole song to its base for her to be 100% happy with the lyrics. Lyrics were her favourite part. That's really why her and Andre worked so well together. He preferred the instruments and she liked the voice.

After changing the odd lyric here and there, Cat was satisfied. Just as she was about to head back to class, she decided one more song wouldn't hurt. But then one became two, two became three and suddenly Jade had burst into the room.

"AAHHH" Cat screamed as she noticed the girl behind her. "Oh hi Jadey!" She added, realising who the girl was. "How did you get in here?"

"Through the window." Jade replied, rolling her eyes. "I walked through the door, you sing with your eyes closed." She finished, dropping the redhead's bag on the floor next to the piano. "You forgot your bag while running out of class."

"Thank yooouu." Cat beamed, jumping up and hugging the dark haired girl, who stiffened at this touch. "How did you find me?"

"Cat you've got one hell of a voice, and left the window open. I could hear you from outside."

"Oh oops." The redhead replied, getting up and closing the window before sitting back down on the piano stall. "Wanna sing with me?" She asked, giving Jade her best puppy-eyes look.

"Nope, we've got classes to go to." Jade said sternly, putting her hand around Cat's upper arm and pulling her up to her feet. "Are you off your meds? This is past just your normal airheadedness." She asked, looking into Cat's eyes, who was doing everything in her power to not keep the eye contact.

"I get them back tonight! I promise!" Cat said.

"Did someone take them?" Jade glared. "Did you let people buy them off you again Cat, you know how dangerous they are for the wrong people!" She scolded.

"No- I. Please don't say that." Cat squeaked, covering her ears. She'd been trying to not think about how dangerous it was what she did. Leaving them where Matty could get them. She was so lucky there wasn't more in there when he got a hold of them.

"Cat. What happened?" Jade pressed, putting her hand on Cat's shoulder.

"Matty took them a few days ago, about 15 pills at once." She mumbled, eyes locked on the ground, tears slowly filling her eyes. Jade was going to yell at her, like her mum had a handful of times over the last few days. "I said I was sorry! I didn't mean to-"

"Is he okay?" Jade asked. "Are you okay?"

"He left hospital this morning." Cat nodded. "I think he's okay now."

"Oh Cat you need to tell me these things, I wouldn't have been so mean to you in class if I knew you were just off your meds! I'm a bitch but I'm not that kind of a bitch. I know you can't help it."

"Swearing!" Cat shushed her, in which Jade rolled her eyes. "And it's okay you can be mean I don't mind. I know I can be annoying."

"You're not completely wrong there." Jade replied honestly.

"Meanie and Annoying. That's us!" Cat giggled, making Jade smile at her silly antics.

"Well come on Miss Annoying, we have class to go to." She smiled back, picking up her bag.

"You remember what class you've got next?" Jade asked as they left the room.

"Maths I think. Oh darn it, Maths." Cat sighed. "You couldn't let me just stay here another hour."

"Nope! To maths you go!" Jade pushed, leading her through the hallway.

"Welcome back Lil Red, I was starting to think you'd fallen into the toilet!" Andre greeted as Cat approached her locker to swap her books over.

"You're so silly Andre I wouldn't fit down a toilet." Cat laughed at the boy, taking out her abnormally heavy maths book.

"We could always test it." Jade commented, just before walking away to go to her own locker across the room.

"Ew no that's gross." Cat mumbled, locking her locker. "Coming to maths with me Andre?" She asked.

"Nuhuh I've got all my maths credits, I'm not in your class this year Cat."

"Lucky."