Chapter Twenty-nine - Cat
Her fingers trailed across the objects in her path. As the different textures touching her skin, Cat could sense the familiarity of what was in front of her. She hadn't touched it since before what Kyle did - she was surprised that she even had it still. It wasn't as though she could ever use it again. She picked it up to study the feel of it.
Before, she only ever focused on the look of it and even how to use it. Now that she could focus on its texture, she truly understood why it worked so well. The bristles that tickled her were once ones she used on paper - it was just a little unfamiliar without the paint. Still, it had too many memories, so she hastily threw it away.
Instead, she picked up the object beside it, placing it onto her knee as she plucked the strings. It let out a desperate cry; it hadn't been used for a while. Once, Cat believed herself to be a female Stevie Wonder, playing the guitar blindly like he played the piano. The experience now seemed to be ruined for her. Again, she slipped her fingers from string to string, letting the tune take over her body. It was simple at first, giving her a sensation that she hadn't felt in ages. As much as she hated to admit it, she missed the feeling it gave her - not that she lasted long without it anyway. It grew more vicious whilst she continued, as everything began to hit her like the glass that hit her eyes: Aaron, the band, even Mickey. Everything was so muddled.
That was when the realisation came clear to her - she wasn't as happy as she led herself to be, and she wasn't even one hundred percent sure why. Mickey was great to her, taking her out to places she already enjoyed, as though he was getting to know her all over again. Even without the band, Cat found that she was able to relax more, so why did it still feel like something was missing?
Cat let out a hum. Against the window, drops of rain came rushing towards the sound, as though to mask her voice. The guitar slowed down a little as she tried something new, something she remembered Aaron doing. Her hand hit its front like she would do to a drum, tapping it repeatedly. Its effect was much different to that of strumming it: whereas switching her fingers between strings soothed her body slightly, knocking it brought a new kind of energy through her. It was only when she mixed the two actions together that her everything seemed to fix up. She sat up and changed her hums to words.
"It's a fire I'm holding onto, but the sunshine I'm searching for."
The words slipped out of her mouth before she could even make sense of them. They didn't even make sense but they were the first that came to her.
As much as she wanted to admit otherwise, her love for Aaron kept her bound to any thoughts of him. Her memory of him would always be charming; no matter how exposed he made her feel. Mickey was certainly unalike - the fire diminished, replacing with a sort of light that was pleasing but not one that put her into a state of frenzy. She did like him, nonetheless, as he always seemed to put a smile on her face recently. Giving him a second chance was the right thing to do, even if a small part of her told her otherwise.
"Somewhere he's there, waiting for me."
Her inexperience in love made things trickier than it should have been. Girls like Rachel knew what to do - how to get over someone - whereas she was left uncertain. Her first love was now her current and some people would call her crazy to even consider giving him another chance. Maybe she was unwise to do so, yet forgiving him brought so much change into her life, changes that, a few months ago, she never would have predicted.
