Becoming (INSECURE SEQUEL)

Seven: Hit the Streets

"I only joke about stuff to keep from saying anything else. Like how I really wanted to ask you do you ever mind your business, but I didn't."

"You just said it."

"I did not. We're strangers now, you don't know me."

Catalina scoffs under her breath."I know what I know, and what I know is enough. Trust me."

"There are layers to people Catalina." I tell her and I sound exhausted, because I am. She thinks that she knows everything.

To her, it may feel like she's been around forever and has seen it all, but she hasn't. Catalina, like most people who are forced to grow up at a young age, forget how young they are. She got engaged at 22, married at 23, and now she's 25 with three children. She didn't use those fundamental years of growth for mental development because by the time she was 21, she had experienced enough trauma to know that there was nothing more about the world that she wanted to know. She only knows two things: extraordinary love and immeasurable pain. All she knows how to do is love her loved ones with every fiber of her being and hate with the same equity.

That it isn't the case for everyone though. Like me: I loved Catalina, but not like how I love Lily. I hated Christian, but now how I hated Emilio. Each of those people know different versions of me and it's not because I'm pretending to be someone else. To Catalina I'm just the person who killed her mother and ruined her life, but to my daughter, I 'm her hero.

"I'm not the same." I admit to her. I may seem like I don't care about anything, but I do. Just because I know how to get under people's skin doesn't mean that I'd ever hurt someone again.

"I would hope so. Your child should never get to meet the man that I knew." Catalina responds with her arms crossed as her eyes stay on the skeleton across the room.

"What was I like to you?"

I know, at least, I think I do. I never listened when she told me before because I was reluctant to accept  the horrible things I did. I liked her so much and knowing that I put her through all of that would've just complicated that for me. I knew then that she didn't deserve it, but I'm willing to admit it now.

"Should I start with the catalog of everything you've done?" She shakes her head, being sarcastic.

"Yes."

Catalina glances at me to look at me like I'm crazy.

"Well?" I know that she wants to

"Mmhhh let's see.....first, you pretended to like me and kiss me, you killed my mother right in my face, but only after you decided not to kill me instead. You told me you loved me after what you did knowing that I was emotionally weak, when I finally got a boyfriend you hated him and if he'd been anyone else that probably would've driven him away..." Catalina takes an exaggerated, long sigh in between like she's out of breath before she starts again. "You kept antagonizing me about the fact that I had a boyfriend so bad that I had a panic attack arguing with you, you told that same boyfriend that you killed my mother, you killed my aunt and then I saw her dead body and had a miscarriage—"

"Okay."

"Oh no, I'm not finished." She clears her throat. "You called me an evil bitch in front of the entire hospital I worked at, you told my fiancé that I was pregnant before I could, said you should've killed me. You came to my wedding rehearsal to shoot my brother, but let's not forget how you pushed me out of your way so you could go attempt to murder him. Then, you pointed a gun at my fiancé and father of my unborn child..... I might have left some things out, but I think you get it."

I really did love her and looking at it now, how could I have loved her but did all those things to her? I'm not sure if I can explain what it is I used to feel because I wouldn't know where to start; I'm sure it'll sound stupid if I put it into words, but when I was 25 and irrational, it made all the sense in the world.