waitress // lrh

36 // precious

My hand was resting on her calf the entire time, not wanting her to feel like I was ignoring her.

I drove us around after that, just around the town. She seemed very mellow.

"Baby," I sighed, aware of how she was huddled up in the corner against the window, reminiscent of the first time I drove her anywhere. "What's wrong?"

Cate shrugged lightly.

"You can tell me."

"I...I don't want to go to college."

Oh.

"You don't have to go, Catie, it's your life," I told her gently.

"I- I do want to go, but I don't want to go far away," she mumbled.

"Did you get any letters back?" I asked, glancing over at her quickly before glancing back at the road.

"Yeah..." Cate trailed off awkwardly.

"Did you... open them, by chance?" I raised an eyebrow, figuring that it would be better to go step by step than skip immediately to seeing if she got in.

"No," she mumbled.

"You want to do that today?" I suggested lightly, reaching over and placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged again.

"We can go to my apartment- it's almost set up, anyway," I offered. "I wanted it to be fully set up before you came over, but I can just shove the rest of the boxes into the bedroom closet for now. Maybe forget about them."

The corners of her lips turned upwards with amusement, but she pressed her cheek into the fabric of the sweatshirt.

I chuckled.

"Okay," she replied quietly.

"I'll go back to the house and then we'll come back."

She stood close to me the elevator ride up, and as we walked down the hallway to my door. I put my arm around her shoulder, and Cate leaned into my side gently.

I led her to the sofa. "Here. I'll go move the boxes out of the way."

"Okay."

I quickly stacked up whatever empty boxes were just lying on the floor against one of the walls, just so they weren't sprawled everywhere. Catie had set the letters on the cushion next to her, watching me intently.

She crawled into my lap the second I sat down, and it was all I could do to not chuckle. Instead, I wound my arms around her, shuffling the unopened envelopes into a pile on my lap.

"Which one do you want to open first?" I murmured .

Catie shrugged. "You pick."

I tore open one of the strips with my thumb, sliding the letter out.

"You want me to read it to you?" She shook her head no.

I scanned over it carefully. It wasn't a 'thank you for applying, however...' type thing. It didn't have that energy at all.

"Well, baby, you're accepted into Messiah University," I smiled, pressing a kiss to her hair. "Where is that, anyway?"

"Somewhere in Pennsylvania," she murmured, her lips turned upwards slightly.

"Oh."

"Don't worry, I applied to a couple New York schools," Catie reassured me gently, seeing how my face drooped at the distance that could potentially be between us.