𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐚¹- hp.

𝐱𝐱𝐯𝐢. can you tell that i'm lying to you?

Katalina is untouchable in her sense of self and dignity. Amour-propre, if Lavinia had to think of a word to describe it. She holds only herself in the highest of regards, and when asked, Katalina would tell her that no one else could ever come close to rising above it. And perhaps it's the unknown that draws Lavinia to her, that idea of dismantling Katalina's amour-propre that appeals so much to her, but day and night she fights with herself to figure it out. She wants to know what it is that makes her Katalina. Tell me your secrets, she wants to whisper, evince your soul bare to me. But if she can't bring herself to pry with Harry, how is she to pry with Katalina? She doesn't know a damn thing about Katalina, but Katalina doesn't know a damn thing about her. And she often finds herself wondering if perhaps she's better off to keep it that way.

"Well," Katalina starts, unfazed by her pauses of silence as she usually is. "It's ridiculously easy to bribe the older students into buying them for me."

"Really?" That has certainly piqued Lavinia's interest.

Katalina smugly nods and stretches her arm out, dangling the cig in front of her in an almost mocking way, "Want a puff?"

She shouldn't. She knows that. Feels it so deep within her bones that it rattles her mind around until it's nothing but mush and incoherent thoughts. She thinks that if anyone were able to look into her mind and read her thoughts that they just might send her to a mad house; mooie jongen... Kat will you like me more if... mooie jongen I miss you... Kat can you just... Harry... Harry... She feels like maybe she is cursed with the constant unease of never knowing when they'll abandon her next. She's unlovable, unwanted, a burden in the lives of those around her. Her mother has drilled it into her since she was a child, and what difference does it make that she has Harry and Katalina on her side now? Alida may not be many things, but she knows without a doubt, that her mother is viciously brutal and she wants to be nothing like her. But things rarely ever go as planned, and they certainly don't for Lavinia Vinke.

You're no better than your mother, she's thinking, wrapping your greedy fingers around anything that'll numb you. Still, in the end she is no better than her mother, and isn't all that surprised when she finds herself reaching a hand out and plucking the cig from between Katalina's fingers. She thinks it might make Katalina like her more ( and what a fucking lie because it won't ) might make Katalina view her as almost as cool as herself and keep her around for longer. Like she isn't some incurable disease you find yourself burdened with at the most inopportune moments.

Lavinia lifts the cig to her mouth, hovers it just a smidge before her lips and sends a dubious look towards Katalina. The smell wafts throughout the air and she isn't quite sure she likes it. It's like her heads been shoved into a pile of actively burning paper and chemicals, with a hint of mind-numbing lethargy. It's all too suffocating and reminds her of the multiple late nights where she caught Christiaan smoking in the rusty worn down beige patio chair, watching the stars with the same mix of awed jealousy she watches Katalina with. But his was always for a different reason; the idea of life and death, that floating between the planes of blissful ignorance and gut-wrenching acceptance as the Gods judge where your soul deserves to rest. He'd craved the concept of nothing like one craves sweets, that tenebrous space you find yourself in when you close your eyes — bliss or purgatory, he'd always said, and she thinks that perhaps in death he may be happier than he ever was when he was alive, despite the gruesome details surrounding it.

"Deep inhale." Katalina says, watching her in curious wonder. "Put the butt in your mouth and inhale, not much to it."

Lavinia nods and brings the cig closer to her lips, "Brilliant." She says, hoping Katalina can't see how much her hand is visibly shaking.