The Disappointment Kid (Completed)

22

Putting my plan into action was a piece of cake. In true Shelley form, the latest incident was simply ignored, and everyone got on with their lives.

I paid a great deal of attention to being polite to my mother and to ignoring her taunts and her constant Katherines. I had to bite my tongue, figuratively and literally, more than once, dig my fingernails into my palms until I nearly drew blood, to stop myself from rising to the bait, but I am proud to announce that my good intentions prevailed, despite the evidence that changing myself is no sure-fire way and definitely no quick-fix solution to changing the people around you. But - and again this might not apply to your life in a million years – it made me feel better about myself and about my home life. My father was very proud of me, and he was not hesitant to communicate this.

"I am so glad that at least you are actively trying to ease tensions, Cat. I know that your mother doesn't make it easy on you. She isn't the most perceptive or observant person in the world, but your laid-back reactions are slowly rubbing off on her. Have you noticed?"

"I'm not even so worried about all this anymore, Dad," I answered. "It's just that all that hatred was eating me up. I was literally running out of fight. It drained my resources to live like that and it didn't drive my life forwards."

"It hurt both of you," my father said mildly.

I straightened my shoulders.

"I'm not going to apologise, Dad. The anger and the hate might not have helped to shape my future life. But they are basically the reasons that I am still here. You of all people know how close I came, before I found all this anger inside of me. The woods, you know."

"I know, Cat. Please, don't talk about that. That's behind us now, I hope. Your mother will mellow out as well. Give her a little more time and try to look behind the words she uses to find the real message. She does care about you."

I mentioned this before as you might remember. Talking about my suicide attempt was still a big taboo in my family, and still is today. I don't like talking about it myself, but I feel it necessary to point out that, while I do feel a little guilty and a little ashamed of some of the things I did leading up to, but, more importantly leading away from that day, I would most likely have tried again, this time more successfully, if it hadn't been for all these outward symptoms of anger: the sarcasm, the alcohol, the disrespect and failure to observe social rules and norms. It kept me treading water in the same place, but at least said place was in the here and now and not in some kind of afterlife.

School was nearly finished. My grades were pretty excellent again, and the final exams went to plan. Not knowing what to do with my life, I decided that it might be worth listening to my mother for once in my miserable life, to loosely paraphrase her, so I applied to various universities. Couldn't hurt, I reasoned, especially as Henry was applying to the same universities. We were hopeful, not to say carefully optimistic, that we would be able to stay together for the foreseeable future.

Our graduation party was coming up. That was kind of a big deal. All the girls were talking non-stop about the dress they were going to wear; the boys were talking non-stop about whether they would be able to score and who would be an ideal candidate to make this happen. All of us talked about how drunk we would get as soon as our parents left the premises. I don't know where you come from and what your school-leaving do was like. Where I come from, you book a big venue about three years in advance, come up with a party programme about three minutes prior, then let the teachers and the parents in to have a bite to eat and reminisce together for a little while. Then you crank up the current chart music to boot your teachers and parents out shortly after dinner, so you can get paralytic in your cocktail dresses and killer heels or evening suits and leather soles. The challenge is not to break your leg and not to get any sick on your fancy clothes. No curfew that day, no parental guidance. That ritual has never changed.

When the big day finally arrived, everything seemed perfect. The weather had been abysmal, with torrential rain flooding roads and some unfortunate families' cellars, but on that day, the sun had finally fought its way through the thick clouds and was shining down on us. Emma had come home to attend the civilised adult ceremony at the beginning, too. My father was running around with a stupid grin plastered on his face the entire day, repeating, "My little girl did it, and by God, how she did it!" every five minutes. Even my mother kept smiling. Just before we all piled into her car (of course, we took the shiny Merc to this official gathering of the neighbourhood, but as long as it kept my mother happy... you get the drift), she gave me a fleeting one-armed hug and said, "You did well, Katherine. I knew you would." Then she opened the driver's side door, but before she climbed in, she added, "You look really nice in that dress, too."

My heart stopped, I swear. My happy-hormones went rampant. My mum had just praised me. Me, of all people, and she had said something nice about my looks, too.

Surreptitiously, I pinched myself hard. Ouch. Definitely not dreaming then. At least I hoped. This whole pinching thing was a little stupid, I guessed, because I was pretty sure that you could feel physical pain in your dreams, too. But then it dawned on me that the mere fact that I was with my family, that I was happy and that the sun was shining was more than enough proof that I was not in Morpheus's arms, but wide awake. After all, I had never had a happy dream about my family before. But here I was, and even the bloody sun was shining, for crying out loud.

Henry, his mother and his stepfather were already there when we arrived. Henry had told me that he was still a little wary of Derek, but that, true to his word, Derek had not laid a finger on either Henry or his mum, mainly because he had not laid a finger on any liquid with alcoholic content. At first, Derek had found it a little difficult to reconcile himself to the fact that his stepson was gay. But, eventually, he had come to understand that sexuality, like intelligence or looks or anything else, is just one segment of a person's character. One little thing. A thing that was fact, not choice, basically nothing anyone can be judgemental about, really.

So, while he was still reluctant to acknowledge his stepson's sexuality in public, he had accepted it. "He needs a little time to grow in confidence." When I expressed some outrage at that, Henry had added, "Derek and I had a really deep and fruitful conversation. He apologised for the things he has done to me and to my mother. And he promised he would work on his confidence problem. I was more than impressed that he realised that the problem lies with him and not with me and my sexual orientation. So, if all he's asking is to give him time, that's what he's getting. Sober, he is actually a decent guy. I can finally understand what my mother sees in him."

Well, as you might have noticed, I was not half as forgiving a person as Henry was. Thus, I sort of felt like kicking Derek in the private parts now, but I also trusted Henry's judgement. And I was happy that Henry had finally found his peace. I wasn't going to stir things up, so I shook Derek's hand instead.