Jade had burned a fair few bridges in her life, and she was okay with that. She kept the people in her life that meant something to her, and lost no sleep over the fallen relationships that never mattered in the first place. But her friendship with Cat was never one of those. It had always, and would always, mean something to her.

Despite popular belief, Jade was capable of guilt, and her abandonment of her best friend on her birthday was stretching her to the limits of that feeling. On top of this, she knew that Beck had also bailed, spending his afternoon chasing after cameras. She dreaded to think how Cat had felt, celebrating her birthday without even so much as an explanation for the absence of two of her best friends.

Dropping Toby off at daycare had been difficult, given it had only been two days since his emergency room visit. He was looking much perkier now, however, just about convincing enough for Jade to leave him for the day. Perhaps, if she hadn't been aware of the need to face Cat unencumbered by other priorities, she would have tried to take him with her to school.

Now, Jade's only company was a bouquet of pink tulips and a colouring book bound in securely taped gift wrap. Naturally, these were peace offerings that Jade could ill-afford. The only positive of Beck's neglect of his son on Saturday had been that his guilt had blinded his common sense. When Jade had informed him that she needed twenty bucks for medicines, he duly obliged, without further questions. The medicines Jade had secured on Toby's insurance lay safely in his baby bag at daycare, whilst the gifts in her hand would attempt to medicate something of a different kind.

Cat looked thoroughly unimpressed upon opening the door. She was dressed in faded pyjamas, and had not yet applied any makeup or brushed her hair. In her defence, it was seven am.

"Hi Cat." Jade said. Her voice held something almost timid, something quiet. Vulnerability, perhaps.

"Jade."

Jade almost winced at the formality of Cat's reply.

"How are you?" Jade asked, with a weak smile.

"What are you here for?" Cat asked, bluntly. The retort reverberated through Jade like a bullet.

"I'm really sorry for missing your birthday, Cat, honestly. I'm so, so sorry, and I want to do what I can to make it up to you."

Cat lingered for a moment at the door before shrugging. "It's not my birthday anymore."

"I know, but I couldn't be around then, so I want to be there for you now."

"Couldn't or didn't want to be? Because I don't remember you texting me to explain that you couldn't come." Cat asked with a surprising mix of ferocity and lucidity.

"I know and I'm so sorry. I had an emergency with Toby and-"

Cat groaned obnoxiously, taking Jade by surprise.

"Of course."

"What?"

"There's always something else you have to focus on. It seems like ever since Toby was born, you only have time for him."

Jade furrowed her brow. "I can't really leave him Cat. He's not even one."

"That's fine, Jade, honestly. You're a different person now. You don't need to come to my stupid baby birthday parties."

"Cat, that's not true! I wanted to come, honestly! I'm so sorry that I wasn't there, both because I let you down but also because I really did want to go! It sucks to miss out on so many fun things. I'm sure I would've had a great time."

Cat's lower lip wobbled and Jade's heart jumped.

"No, you wouldn't." Cat said, her voice cracking slightly. "You wouldn't have had fun."

"I really would have, I swear, I-"

"No one came, Jade!" Cat cried, her voice fully breaking this time. She buried her head in her hands and began to weep.

Jade took in an intake of breath so deep that she could almost taste the leaves on the trees in Cat's garden. Without a second thought, she jumped onto the top step in Cat's doorway and bundled her friend back into her house. Only once the redhead was settled into a kitchen chair did Jade speak.

"What do you mean no one came? Who did you invite?"

"Everyone." Cat sniffled. "Tori and Andre and Robbie and… Beck." she wobbled over Jade's ex-boyfriend's name as if Jade was going to collapse just at his mention. "And Sinjin and Burf and Trina and Sikowitz and Courtney and James and…"

Jade tuned out as Cat named another handful of Hollywood Arts students, apparently none of whom had turned up to Cat's party. Her heart dropped into her stomach as she pictured Cat, a sagging party hat atop her vibrant hair, sharing an entire sheet cake with just her parents.

"I'm so sorry Cat. Did they say why they couldn't make it?"

Cat merely shook her head and sobbed.

Jade made a mental note to give the gang a ferocious admonishment when she next saw them. If they'd deserted Cat to join Beck following after The Wood team, she would personally find a hidden documentary camera to shove down each of their individual throats.

"I really hope they all had good reasons. And if they feel even a tenth as guilty as I do, then you'll be inundated with apologies today."

Cat gave no sign as to having heard.

Jade sighed. "We all suck, and I hope it didn't ruin your birthday. Give my apologies to your parents too - it's not fair that they prepared stuff that went to waste."

At this Cat shook her head and began to cry dramatically. Jade put a hand on her shoulder.

"You don't need to apologise to them. They forgot too." Cat whimpered.

"What?" Jade asked, all the blood rushing out of her face.

"They forgot. They took Marco to the butterfly sanctuary to get him to calm down and didn't come back until eight in the evening." Cat eked out through her tears.

"You're joking?" Jade growled, but Cat merely shook her head. Jade removed her gentle hand from Cat's shoulder, afraid that the anger now coursing through her veins would cause her to unintentionally inflict pain towards her friend.

In timing so impeccable that Jade would have thanked her lucky stars, had she not been certain that they had died out years ago, Cat's mother suddenly walked into the kitchen.

Valerie was a short and slightly plump woman, with dark brown hair, and no real distinguishing features. She was, in fact, the epitome of mundane, which made it all the more fascinating that she produced the eccentric sibling duo of Cat and her elder brother Marco.

Seeing Jade, she gave a small tight-lipped smile and continued on towards the cupboards on the other side of the room. She did not seem to see her crying daughter sat before Jade.

Jade wouldn't say that Valerie either liked or disliked her. Whilst she was certainly aware, and not the biggest fan, of some of her daughter's friend's more infamous qualities, Jade had always felt that Valerie was quietly grateful for her presence in Cat's life. She was loyal to a fault, a true friend, if not necessarily a good person, and Lord knows Cat needed someone like that in her life. Nevertheless, as had been the case with most people, Jade was pretty sure she'd gone down in Valerie's estimations ever since there had been a whisper of Toby's existence. Most mothers did not appreciate their daughters hanging around with a "teenage harlot", as Jade had been branded, by the parent of a fellow student she'd never even spoken to. Regardless, if Valerie was still a fan, she was probably about to change her mind.

"What the fuck, Valerie?"

Valerie's body visibly stuttered, as though she'd walked into an electric fence. She spun round wildly, her eyes blown.

"Jade? How dare you use that language in my house!"

"Did you actually forget Cat's birthday?" Jade spat, saliva actually leaving her mouth in her disgust.

Valerie went to retort, before her brain made a couple of calculations and she gasped violently.

"Oh my god!"

"You're a joke."

"Cat, baby, I am so sorry!" Valerie said, finally seeing the weeping redhead sat at the table. She leant down and placed her hands on Cat's knees, willing her daughter to look her in the eye.

"How could you forget your own daughter's birthday?"

Valerie took a moment away from attempting to console Cat to shoot Jade a glare.

"It was an enormous mistake made because we were incredibly busy." She snapped.

Jade scoffed. "You forgot because, as always, you were too busy with Marco."

Valerie spun around, her attention on Cat now fully lapsed.

"You have no idea what it's like to have to be his parent, to have to juggle these two. You think you're in a place to judge my parenting just because you chose to get knocked up whilst you're still a child yourself?"

"At least I pay attention to my child."

"Just shut up, shut up, shut up!" Cat cried, throwing her hands over her ears.

At the sound of such commotion, Cat's father, Tony, came bursting into the room, his eyes immediately lurching to the confrontational stances of his wife, and his daughter's goth friend.

"What the hell is happening in here?" He boomed. His loud voice used to scare her elementary school friends, Cat had once admitted, but it had never had any effect on Jade. She saw Tony as a bald, beer-bellied man who loved his children, but had not done a particularly good job of raising them, nor himself. In fact, upon his entrance to the kitchen, Jade noticed that there was a large orange stain on the wife-beater underneath his unbuttoned shirt.

"Tony, get this girl out of here." Cried Valerie, pointing a finger dangerously close to Jade's face.

"You forgot your daughter's birthday, that's what happened." Jade retorted, and in an almost identical manner to Valerie, Tony's face completely fell.

"Oddio, Cat, I am so sorry!" Tony said, his palm slapping against his forehead. "We will make this up to you, I swear."

Jade shook her head, gritting her teeth. "This was bound to happen. If you paid attention to her for one second, you wouldn't have forgotten."

The eyes of both Valentine parents shot to Jade, Valerie's anguished, whilst Tony looked shocked at her audaciousness.

"Don't you dare speak to us like that!" Tony bellowed, his voice even deeper than earlier if that was possible. "You need to get out of my house."

"And you need to treat your daughter better." Jade spat, causing Tony to forcibly grab hold of her arm, though not with excessive force, and move her towards the door.

"Don't fucking touch me." Jade said, struggling against Tony's grip.

"Jade, just leave!"

Now, this surprised Jade. She had spent the last few minutes castigating Valerie and Tony for their poor treatment of Cat, but it had not been either of them who had just opened their mouths.

Jade, Tony and Valerie all looked over at Cat, who had found the energy to lift her tear-streaked face from her hands.

"Just leave, Jade, you're just making everything worse!"

"What?" Jade's voice was quiet, but both the word and the self-doubt within it were audible.

"You're just as bad as them. You forgot my birthday too and you've completely forgotten me in general! I don't want you shouting at my parents to pay attention to me when you don't!"

Jade's heart dropped into her stomach. She felt ungodly queasy.

"Cat, I haven't-"

"Just go!" Cat yelled, and this time Jade didn't need any intervention from Tony to head towards the door. Without so much as a look back, she found the handle and practically threw herself back into the early morning air.

However she thought the exchange would have gone, that was ten, no - ten million, times worse. Cat thought she had been abandoned. And, really, was she wrong? What kind of friend had Jade been in the past few months? She hadn't had a minute for anyone or anything but Toby in longer than she could remember. And if she hadn't had time for Cat, how could Jade argue that she hadn't abandoned her.

A solitary tear slipped down Jade's face and she hastily wiped it off before anyone could see such a sign of weakness. She had begun to walk without any plan of where she was going. It didn't seem to matter now. Cat clearly didn't want her around, and she certainly didn't want to see the others, their presence inevitable only to stir up a mixture of anger and guilt.

Everything was utterly broken. She was sat in an abandoned house, waiting for the end as the walls fell in around her.

Without even knowing how she arrived there, Jade sat down on a park swing, and began to cry.


Cat's Saturday had been shitty because everyone had forgotten her birthday. Then her Sunday had been shitty because her Saturday had been so shit. Then, her Monday had been shitty because Jade had turned up in the morning and had a screaming match with her parents when they were all in the wrong anyway because they'd all forgotten her birthday. Then, no one at school had acknowledged what they'd forgotten, and instead were totally transfixed on The Wood, a show that Cat couldn't even appear on because her life was so messed up. All she wanted to do was get into bed and cry.

However, she unlocked the door to her house with that pretty pink keychain, trying not to think about who had bought it for her, she knew that wasn't going to happen.

The hallway was unusually warm, and the smell of something baked and delicious seemed to waft through the corridors. Following her nose, Cat closed the door behind her and wandered into the kitchen.

"Surprise!" At the sight of their daughter, Valerie and Tony jumped up and waved their hands, Tony almost knocking the party hat off Valerie's head with the excessive force he used on a sparkling pink party horn.

Cat was almost knocked back by the force of everything in the room. Not only were her parents both dressed in party hats and pink clothing, but they had decorated the room with glittering decorations and the purple tinsel that Cat saved every year for the Christmas tree. The kitchen table was lined in a birthday tablecloth, though little of this was visible underneath the mammoth spread of pizza, charcuterie, hot dogs, french fries, sticks of fruit and veg, and chips and dip with which the Valentines had adorned their table. Front and centre, however, was the pièce de résistance which caught Cat's eye: a pink frosted heart cake decorated with the words 'Happy 17th Birthday to Our Sweet Girl".

Cat looked up at her parents' nervous faces. They looked as though they wanted her to approve, but not to satiate themselves, rather because they wanted to see her genuinely happy.

"We can't apologise enough for what we did." Valerie began, her voice a little shaky. "Your father and I will feel guilty for as long as we live for forgetting such an important day, but we're going to try our absolute hardest to make things up to you as much as possible, today and beyond."

"You are our special little girl, Caterina." Tony beamed. "We love you so much and it kills us that we've managed to make you feel upset and unwanted. We just want you and your brother to be happy."

At the mention of Marco, Cat shifted on her feet. She presumed that this celebration would have to be shared in some way with her elder brother, lest he feel neglected and start a commotion.

As if reading her mind, Valerie spoke again. "Marco's at Christina and Kevin's." She explained. Cat's Aunt and Uncle were used sparingly for respite from Marco, so it was something of a birthday gift that he had gone to stay. "We are so sorry for how distracted we've been lately. Marco is obviously… a handful, but we hadn't realised just how much we'd been ignoring you until someone brought it up. She may have been very rude about it, but perhaps we needed some external influence to buck up our ideas and start paying you more attention."

Valerie smiled timidly, matching her husband's apprehensive beam, and in that moment Cat could not have loved her parents more.

Like a spring rabbit, she bounded into their arms. They might have sighed in relief had she not utterly knocked the wind out of the pair. Their arms grasped tightly around Cat, and her father kissed the top of her head.

"We love you so much, sweetheart." He cooed. "And we will do better, I promise."

Cat closed her eyes and silently willed this to be true.

And several hours later, stomach bursting with cake, pizza and soda, Cat silently willed Jade to have an evening just as lovely as her own.