Love is Madness

15: Here's to Losing your M i ñ d

Cat said something colourful in Spanish or Creole, she wasn't sure, and tugged at Lissa's face so she could look at her with dark, sombre eyes.

"But you saw him, the bastard, and you talked, sì? You went out, to find him, but he was comin' here anyho'. And you were with Jared, and you talked with Sabe, everyone tells you that Mikhael loves you- what else is there to do?"

"Well, me and you," Lissa began very seriously, (thinking quietly that, she wanted to find out if he loved her, by herself)  "We go and get him and-"

"Batter him into next week, beat him like his momma never beat him before?" said Cat with a grin, which quickly pulled down somberly as she saw Lissa's face.

"She already did, querida. She and that mo-, that bastard, beat him bad enough he shouldn't even see straight." Lissa whispered, and the anguish made her pupils huge. "He's sleeping now, Cat, sleeping like he's dead-" her voice cut off into a sob.

"Oh, Lissa-" said Cat simply and sadly.

Lissa swallowed the tears harshly and swung her head to look out over the ocean. The water was a glorious medley of red and purple, black and tipped with dying sunrays. Escaped tears had made her eyelashes spike, thick and black. Cat looked at her best friend and heated emotion swept over her, fierce and protective.

Damn bastardly boy. Should cut his balls off, and break his fingers.

"He never sleeps like that!" Lissa said abruptly. "Never lies so still and quiet, he's always moving and fidgety, he almost sleep-walks." She brushed angrily at her face and continued, "He fell asleep before I could yell at him."

Cat laughed softly under her breath.

"So go and wake him just ta yell, chica," she said.

"He needs to rest some, I shouldn't," admitted Lissa. "And I-" she added with a burst of indignation, "I promised myself! I promised I wouldn't go to him, he's gotta come to me this time."

Cat regarded her with dark eyes that shone warm-amber-brown in the firelight. "He already did," she murmured gently. She laid her fingers, long and cool and uncharacteristically gentle, against Lissa's cheek, cupped her jawline with tenderness. "He was on his way here, sì?"

"Sím." Lissa said, and her voice was small. Her green eyes looked hopelessly blank, darkened in the strange light behind her.

"And you're gonna fix him up, proper?"

"I cleaned him up some, there's still more to fix, he's sleeping,"

"Then yo' not giv'vin in, are'ya?"

"Não, I guess not." she replied and cast her eyes away.

She looked over at the beach instead, at their friends and all the wild going ons. She'd known almost all of them at least half their lives. She wanted to know what they thought of her and Mikhael. Then something poked in her brain.

"Cat, querida," she started, and fiddled with the anklet around her foot. Cat tilted her head and waited. "Do you, any of you, know why Mikhael and me are mad, mad again at each other?"

"Aren't yo' always," replied Cat, and it wasn't a question.

Lissa gave a half sort of laugh-choke noise. "Yeah, we are, for something or nothing," she said, and looked at her friend. "But this time...it's different, y'know? Nothing's ever happened like this one."

Cat put out her hand and absently pinched Lissa's forearm, tiny, repetitive tugs of skin as she thought. "We'll guess here," she said. "Mikhael did somet'ing he never done before? Like, he done what he said he wouldn't? Like that?"