Stay With Me
Third Person POV
Catalina, or Cat for short and as most people called her, was so excited. In just three short days her big party dream was going to come true! Her father is what you would call rich, so her family had a huge three story cabin out in the Washington State Forest. Her plan was to invite the the entire 6th through 8th grades from her school, up to it to spend a couple days, two or three probably, depending on what her father says.
She wakes up on Wednesday morning pumped, for once, to get to school. She couldn't wait to hand out the little pieces of paper that she calls invitations. She hops out of her bed and walks to the bathroom. She steps into the shower and turns the water on waiting for it to heat up. Once it's at the perfect temperature she steps into the streaming water, and let's the warmth melt away any doubts she ever had about the party. She continues her morning shower routine quietly humming some song she'd listened to the day before. When she's finished she turns off the water and steps out.
She grabs her things and walks out the front door, and maybe she's just so happy she's skipping. She pulls open the car door and takes her seat. Her dad and brother come out and get in the car as well. The car starts and the radio turns on, blasting Happy by Pharrel, the perfect song for Cat's mood. As they drive to school the radio station ends up playing a shit load of bubbly happy songs, just making Cat's happiness stronger.
As she walks up the steps to the school, she tightly clutches the stack of papers she plans to hand out to people. As she passes anyone from the 6th through 8th grade, while walking to the library, she hands them one of the small papers.
Throughout the day all she could think about was her party, and even though it was only Wednesday and her party was planned for Friday she kept planning and planning everything she wanted to happen. Finally it was time for PE, and almost time to go home. Mrs. Brandon thought it was too hot outside to stay out, so they went into the gym. Cat thought it was a stupid decision considering it was December 1st. They ended up playing dodgeball, and damn that game is scary when you have to play the 7th grade.
Finally the bell rings and she runs, literally runs, towards her backpack. She grabs it and hurries towards her dad's car waiting in the parking lot. She gets in and he drives home. After she gets home and has dinner, she showers again and goes to bed.
She wakes up the next morning, still excited, but dreading school. She realized yesterday, that no matter how excited you are about something school always sucks. It's Thursday. So close but so far away from Friday. She showers, gets dressed, grabs her things, and trudges out the door. She may not be wanting to go to school but there's still a slight smile on her face, because she gets to see Luke.
Her dad pulls up at the school, while still blasting the full Van Halen album. She tells him bye as she steps out of the car. As he pulls away she can hear him shouting "VAN HALEN!! YEAH!! ROCK ON VAN HALEN!!!" She rolls her eyes and smiles as she walks up the steps to the library. She meets Chelsea, her second best friend next to Tori, in their spot right by the door just as the bell rings. The bus is late again, oh well sucks for Tori. She walks down the hall to the classroom and only has to wait a minute for Mrs. Brandon to show up. What a change. She walks into the classroom, pulls down her row of chairs, and sits down. She can faintly hear the bus pulling up to the school. A few moments later Tori is sprinting for the classroom, along with Lacy, while Perrie was lazily strolling behind them at a leisurely pace.
She's halfway through her day, and they're all at lunch when Luke walks over to their table, along with Jaxx, Cam, Matt, and Kendal. The boys at their school had always been close with the girls, being that it's a small school. Jaxx sits down next to Tori and she blushes. Cam takes his seat at the end, being the loner he is, Matt places himself near Chelsea, and Kendal seats himself right by Lacy. Cat keeps hoping Luke would pick a seat near her since she's on one of the ends and finally he sits down right next to her. She internally starts freaking out, but on the outside her facial expression couldn't be any calmer. Even she's amazed at herself. She sneaks a glance at Tori, her being the only one who knows that she has the biggest possible crush on Luke, but she's too wrapped up in talking to Jaxx. She's even twirling her hair around her finger, how cliché. Cat stifles a laugh. Then the bell rings and they all have to get to their next class. Social Studies for her. She rolls her eyes, yay.
Finally PE period rolls around and Cat walks out to the playground, trying not to die of sourness because of the warhead she'd gotten from Mrs. Maxton's room. She walks out to their little spot by the bushes on the playground as she waits for Mrs. Brandon to blow the whistle, signaling the start of PE. She sits down next to Lacy who's too busy with Kendal to even notice she'd showed up, and only god knows what Tori's doing, probably off somewhere with Jaxx. She tries to get Lacy's attention but fails, as Lacy doesn't even notice her existence because of Kendal, so she goes to look around for Chelsea. Cat finds her, but it's not the most pleasant sight. Matt was forcing Chelsea to kiss him. She pulls them apart, slaps Matt and drags Chelsea back to the playground. During the walk down the hall Chelsea stops and searches for something in her backpack. Cat gets impatient and walks back out alone and sits on one of the swings. She looks back over at Lacy and Kendal, they were kissing. Great. She sighs. Everyone either has someone they like that likes them back, someone that likes them, or a boyfriend, and she has no one. She takes a deep breathe and thinks about tomorrow. That puts her in a bit of a better mood. For PE they play a big game of soccer. Ew. She hates soccer. There goes her slight mood change, and she's back to being upset. The entire time everyone else is playing soccer, she just wanders around the field pretending to play until the bell rings.
She walks through the hallway to the lockers and picks up her backpack. She smiles to herself. Tomorrow is Friday. They have tomorrow off because of some holiday or something like that, and she's glad she doesn't have to go to school. The whole car ride home she's curious as to who will show up tomorrow, and she really hopes Luke does.
In the morning Cat wakes herself up earlier than normal in order to get everything ready to have at least 20 to 30 people at her house, in her cars, and at the cabin. The cabin was set up a couple weeks ago because they knew they'd have a lot of people coming and they wanted it to be clean. They'd already vacuumed and washed their four rented "creeper" vans, as Cat calls them. All that was left was to tidy their giant house, just in case people showed up early and decided to look around. Cat was picking things up off her floor just as her mom calls her downstairs. She asks what she wants and her mom tells her that a couple of people are here. Her heart speeds up a little. What if it's Luke? She walks out her front door, onto the beige rock path down to her gigantic driveway to greet who'd shown up. She cranes her neck to see who was in the car that had pulled up. It was Tori's mom. Cat's smile fades a little, but returns when she sees everyone get out of the car. Even though It wasn't him, it was still some of her friends and she was still super excited.
Tori had brought with her, Michelle, Lacy, Julia, Chelsea, Azalea, and Olive. They'd been at the house for a good hour before anyone else showed up. They'd all been watching Say Yes to The Dress in the foyer, and making fun of the preppy little bitches who wanted everything to be perfectly perfect, that and a little bit of Ridiculousness. Then the alarm that sounds when people drive up in the driveway goes off. Cat walks out the door again, a little less hopeful then before, and greets whoever had come. This time it was Jess, Kristy, Tayla, Laura and Raquel.
After about another two hours almost everyone was here, everyone except Landon, Bella, Angelina, Tyler, Cam, and Luke. Cat had almost completely lost all hope that he was going to come. She shouldn't have believed he was going to anyway, why would he? She's not anything special. Just then the alarm thing sounds, and she rushes out the front door, a sliver of hope still lodged in her brain somewhere. She looks to see who pulled up. It was Luke. He came, he actually came. Granted, he came with Tyler, but still. He came to her party. She greets both, Luke mumbles a hey Cat while looking toward the ground, and Cat swear she could see a small pink dust spread over his cheeks. Then Tyler yells at the top of his lungs HI CAT!! She says a polite hello to both of them and walks with them back up to the house.
As soon as they reach the house, she sees her parents rushing around telling everyone it's time to leave, and that they need to get all of their necessary items and put them in the car. She mentally facepalms, she didn't want Luke to meet her parents like this. He's probably creeped out now. Damn it. Never the less, she, and everyone else, pack their things into the cars. Then they themselves get into the cars.
She doesn't get put in a car with Luke but she does have Tori with her in the car she's in. The whole ride to the cabin, which by the way is like 4 or 5 hours, her and Tori talk nonstop about Jaxx and Luke. They talk about double dating, getting called cute couples, and everything and anything you could talk about that involved having a boyfriend in any way. About halfway through the ride though, Tori asked an important question. Do you love him? It took Cat a minute to answer. She had to think about this. She knew she really really liked him. She liked his eyes, his body, his personality, his looks, how sweet he was to her, how he could be rude and sassy if he needed to, she liked his lame jokes and pick-up lines, she liked everything about him. But did she love him?
Yes. She did. She loved Luke and there was no one who could ever deny her that privilege. That was her answer to Tori. They were about a half hour away from reaching the cabin when one of the cars pulled over. Everyone looked to see what happened, and most of them wished they hadn't looked when the saw what the reason was. It turns out Carson had to "relieve himself." In other words he had to pee. After he was finished the cars pulled back onto the road and finished the drive to the cabin.
They were about five minutes away from the actual cabin, but they were well up into the beautiful snowy forest. Literally anywhere you looked there was snow. Maybe there was an occasional tree that only had a few drops of snow, but other than that it was a completely white blanket as far as the eye could see. It was so pretty. Cat currently had her earphones in listening to her playlist, while leaning against the car window staring out, watching the little snow flakes fall from the darkening sky. It was getting moderately late. She wasn't tired though, and judging from how loud it was on the bus when she took her earphones out, no one else was either. At least on this bus, she didn't know about the others, but if she had to take a guess she'd say they weren't either.
They pulled up in the large covered driveway. When Cat's family had come down to clean the cabin out, they'd put a large transparent dome type thing over the driveway. The dome had an opening door, and you needed a pass code to get in, so that no burglar could get in. The vans each pulled up to the pass code input machine, entered the code, and drove through the automatic opening doors. Once all the vans were in the five car garage, the kids piled out, grabbed their things from the storage compartment underneath each of the vans, and hurried inside.
Cat was one of the last ones in, but only because many rude people had shoved her out of the way. She could've easily kicked them out, but she was too lazy and she didn't want to make her parents drive back to California this dark or late, especially in the snow. She grabbed her bag from the compartment and walked inside. All the kids were gathered in the large middle room. She sat down next to Chelsea who, as always, had Matt next to her trying to gain her undevided attention. He always fails. Her parents were the last people in. She could tell because as they walked in she heard the loud slam of the garage door. She wasn't startled because she was used to that noise, but everyone else was, and as the sound echoed through the house, they all got quieter. Her dad walked to the middle of the room and clapped his hands, signaling the beginning of the room arrangement explanation. He told everyone that the girls and boys would be on separated sides of the house, you could hear many displeased sighs roam about the crowd. He said there would be about five people to a room for the girls, and a medium of three for the boys. The girls got the bigger half of the house, seeing as there were many more of them then the boys, and the boys got the smaller half. Her mother stepped in during the explanation to tell everyone that the biggest room at the front of the house was to be off limits, and that no one but her and Cat's dad could enter it. After that Cat stopped listening, she knew everything else there was to know about this house.
When her parents were finished they read the rooming situations aloud. Cat only half paid attention for three reasons. To find out what room she was in, to find out what room Tori was in, and to find out what room Luke was in.
Cat ended up with Cassie, Aniyse, Jess, and thank god, Tori. She heard that Luke was going to room with Tyler and Kendal. After everyone knew what they were doing they went up the stairs, either one flight or two, to their assigned rooms. It was already pretty late but knowing the people at her school they'd want to go downstairs and play truth or dare, it was a party tradition with those wild people. She wasn't tired, not at all, but she really didn't want to play truth or dare. Especially knowing that Luke would have to do something sexual with many other people, she didn't want to have to see that. So she decided to stay up in her room, listen to music and re-read her favorite book, The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. It was such a cute love story. Sometimes when she read it, she pretended that she was Hazel Grace, and Luke was Augustus Waters, without the cancer of course though.
So she put on her pajamas that consisted of fluffy sweat pants, and an over sized sweater. She wasn't planning on seeing anyone else this evening so she took off her makeup and put her hair up into a messy bun. She laid down on her bed and plugged her headphones into her iPhone. She picked up the book and was about ten pages in when she remembered that her nighttime routine also involved a cup of tea. She could hear the laughter coming from below her, in the middle room. She really didn't want to go downstairs looking like this, but she also couldn't fall asleep without a cup of tea. She decided on the latter, and trudged down the steps, hoping no one would notice her.
She stopped on the bottom step taking a second to observe who was playing Truth or Dare tonight, she knew they'd do that, or something worse, every night they were here. She saw almost everyone, except the few shy people, herself, and even Luke. She wondered where Luke was, he's usually up for that kind of stuff, and judging from the laughter she could tell it was sexual, Luke definitely loved that kind. She was walking towards the kitchen at the same time as watching the group of people roll on the floor dying of laughter, not watching where she was going. She didn't expect to, but as she was about to reach the kitchen, she ran into something. At first she thought it was a wall, but then she realized she was laying on top of something, more like someone. She quickly scrambles to her feet and apologizes to whoever she knocked over. She hears the person laugh and tell her it's ok, and they stand up. She's still dusting herself off but as she looks up her cheeks go bright red. She ran into Luke. Of all people, it had to be Luke. It couldn't have been Tori or Cam? Nope, life hates her so it threw her right into Luke. Her cheeks are still pink as he asks if she's alright. She nods her head yes and apologizes again as she speed walks away from him into the kitchen.
She shakes her head at herself, mumbling stupid over and over. She walks over to the sink and fills the tea pot with water and places it on the stove, waiting for it to let out the familiar whistle. She leans against the counter, reliving what just happened. She was so embarrassed and he probably hated her now. God she felt so stupid. After reliving it for about four times, the tea pots screams her out of her nightmare. She lifts it off the stove, turns off the heat, grabs a cup from one of the mahogany cupboards, and pours the tea into it. She takes two sugar packets, a cup of creamer, and quietly walks back upstairs.
As soon as she reaches the room, she let's out a breathe she didn't know she was holding in, sets her tea down, and falls face first into her pillow. She let's out a scream that becomes muffled by the fabric. She sits back up grabs her book, music, and tea, and settles into the bed. She's about 137 pages into her book, when she begins to feel sleep take over her body. She marks her page so she can continue tomorrow night, sets her tea on the nightstand, and lays her head back into the plush pillow as her body falls into relief from the stressful, and some what fun, day.
In the morning she opens her eyes and looks around and she sees she's the first one up, in her room anyway. She gets out of her bed and takes a shower, dresses herself, does her hair and makeup to the best of her ability, considering her hair and face are still wet from the shower, and walks downstairs. She doesn't see anyone awake, not a single person. So she really is the first person up. She goes into the kitchen and makes herself a bowl of cereal, and walks to the couch. While she's flipping through the channels a few more people wake up that include her parents, Lacy, Perrie, and Chelsea. Her friends would be the first ones up. She laughs to herself. Finally she settles on watching something about pawn shops, Pawn Stars, she thinks it's called. She laughs again. It sounds like porn stars. Her friends get their breakfasts as well and join her on the couch. Over the next few hours people slowly start to emerge from their rooms.
Cat looks around. Everyone one is up.. wait. Tori. Cat walks upstairs back to their room and sees Tori face down in her pillows, wrapped in blankets, snoring. Cat walks back downstairs, grabs a small cup of ice, and walks back up to their room. She dumps the ice down Tori's pants. Tori jolts up immediately, screaming out of terror, and the freezing cold. It was colder than cold too. Outside it was about 38 degrees, and add ice to that, it makes only just bearable. While Tori was screaming Cat was on the floor literally rolling. She was laughing so hard her stomach hurt. Once Cat calmed down, she sat up and saw Tori staring at her angrily. Tori starts to cuss her out, but Cat has to stop her and remind her, that her parents were just downstairs and that the walls and floors were thin. Tori then proceeds to whisper cuss out Cat. When Tori was finished with her little rant, Cat hugged her and they both walked downstairs.
Everyone was either in the kitchen or on the couch. The Pawn Stars show was still on TV, cat was puzzled as to why no one had bothered to change it, it pretty much sucked. She looked to her left and began to ask Tori if she wanted to go get her breakfast, but she was already in the kitchen. She followed Tori in, and helped her find the bowls and such. Then they both walk over to the two person love seat and sit down. Cat was surprised one of the couples hadn't taken the love seat, given it's name, you know, but oh well, at least they get a seat.
After everyone finished breakfast they went back to their rooms and dressed into their snow appropriate clothing. When everyone was back downstairs, they found Cat's dad waiting for them in the middle room. He told everyone to be careful because the snow was deep, but to have fun. Cat's mom then told them not to go passed the sign or "boundary", as she called it, marked MC. That was the end of their property, and if they went passed it, it was considered trespassing on the neighbors land.
They all walked out the door and into the freshly fallen snow. Cat estimated that another inch or so had fallen last night, but she couldn't be happier, it was beautiful. It had been at least an hour since they'd gone out, and everyone was sledding or having snowball fights. Some of the hardcore white girls were taking snow selfies holding Starbucks cups made out of snow, AKA, Chelsea and Lacy. All the boys were burying themselves in the snow, everything but their heads of course, but she hadn't seen Luke since they'd walked out the door. She looked around the area for him, her eyes lazily scanning the snow for his familiar shape, or sound. She'd been seated against the door, not really in much of a mood for snow play, so she had a view of her whole property. Everywhere except one small place. The large dog house they'd had for Chip, their old dog. It was definitely big enough to hold a person, maybe even two. So Cat stood up and walked around the corner of the house to look into the dog house. There he was, in the dog house. She manages out a hi, and he looks up. Cat could, once again, swear she saw a small pink light cover his face. He mumbles out a hey, and looks back down. Cat asks what he's doing and all he says is "I'm just thinking about stuff." Cat really wants to ask what "stuff" is, but she doesn't want to seem nosy, so she just mumbles a short reply back and begins to stand up. She's halfway up and sort of in the middle of dusting the snow off her knees when she hears a "Wait!" come from Luke. "What?" she asks. "Stay with me?" He looks down and this time, Cat can see the blush on his cheeks, plain as day. She giggles a little bit, but tells him sure.
Cat feels a little silly sitting in a doghouse, after all her name is Cat. She laughs. "What?" Luke asks. "My name is Cat, and I'm sitting in a doghouse" she explains with a small laugh. Luke laughs too. Soon they're both in a fit of laughter over almost nothing. Once they calm down they look at each other. Luke is staring into her eyes, and she blushes. She's not used to being looked in the eyes, and it's even more intimidating when the person who is staring at you is the person you fell in love with. Luke brings his hand up to her cheek and brushes it softly. "I love you so much" He mumbles eyes almost closed, lips barely moving. Cat almost couldn't hear it. "What?" she asks startled. Luke starts to stutter and corrects himself to something along the lines of "I love chewing on toast." Cat laughs and asks why he would say something like that. He tells her it's because he was randomly thinking of toast, and that he loved the crunch noise it made. Cat laughs even more. She believes him though, he was known for being pretty random and weird. "How did I ever fall in love with this dork?" she thinks to herself.
After that little interaction, she hears her mom calling her name and tells Luke she has to go. Luke's smile fades a little, but he tries to play it off by flashing his teeth and dimples at her, full blast. "Ok" he says "See you in the house later then." Cat nods, gets up, and walks away. When she's around the corner where she's sure Luke can't see her, she does a happy dance, and skips the rest of the way to the front door. A smile plastered on her face. "What's got you all smiley, sweetie?" Her mom asks. Cat tells her it's nothing and asks what she called her over here for. Her mom tells her that one of her friends had crossed the "boundary" line and that the neighbors called and said their alarm went off. She tells Cat she needs to either control her friends or they can all come back inside. Cat glances over her shoulder and looks at how much fun everyone is having out I'm the snow. She turns her head back to her mom and tells her that's she'll control them.
She hops off the front porch and back into the snow. Her feet sink into it, making it hard for her to walk, but somehow she manages to stomp her way over to Tori. At the moment Tori was building a snowman while singing that terrible song from frozen "Do You Want To Build a Snowman" or whatever. Cat taps her shoulder, and she turns around. All Cat wanted to do was help build the snowman, but the grin on her face made Tori steer the conversation into a totally unrelated topic. That topic being "Why are you so smiley right now, and did it have to do with Luke?" So Cat spills everything that happened. At the end of the speech Tori is smiling as well. She brings Cat close to her and hugs her tighter than ever. While they're hugging Tori whispers "Just use protection tonight ok?" into Cat's ear. Cat shoves Tori away, and she laughs and fakes a dramatic gasp. "Tori why would you even say that!!?" she exclaims while laughing even harder. Tori is laughing so hard, she can't even get a proper word out. She finally gets to the point in her laughing fit where she is able to manage "Just kidding" in between her laughs and gasps for air. After she's finished, she sits back up, and hugs Cat for real. Cat couldn't be happier, today went amazing.
By the time everyone was tired from the snow, they'd discovered they'd accidentally skipped lunch. It was about 4:00pm and everyone was hungry. They all went inside the house just as it started to snow, and damn it was snowing hard. They all went up to their rooms to change into more house appropriate, but still warm, clothing. Once they were all back downstairs, Cat's mom and dad started to cook dinner. They were probably going to have chicken or something, with rice. While waiting for dinner to cook, which was estimated to take about 45 minutes according to Cat's mom, all the kids sat in the room next to the kitchen, on the carpet or on the couch, by the blazing fire in the fire place. They talked about their day, and the memories they made. Mean while Cat sat on the far edge of the couch, almost falling off, thinking about what happened with Luke. Well at least she knew he didn't hate her after she fell on top of him. Cat shivers at the memory, she felt so freaking stupid after that, but it's all good because he doesn't hate her. Thank god too, she could go on knowing the one she fell for, hard, hated her.
By then dinner was ready and they all went and grabbed a plate of food. Cat was right, it was chicken and rice. She wasn't complaining though, that's one of her favorite dishes. Her mom is the best at making it. Everyone gathered at the long dining room table in the room to the right of the kitchen and began to eat. They eat in peace and quiet, although you could sense some sort of awkwardness between the children and the adults. Her parents finish quickly, presumably because they don't want to deal with screaming kids with food, and leave the kids to be by themselves. As soon as they are around the corner everyone goes nuts. They're all giggling and laughing, a few of them are planning a late night something. Cat doesn't even want to know what it is though. Pretty soon a food fight breaks out and there is chicken flying everywhere. Cat just sits calmly in her chair, this happens almost everyday at lunch and the teachers have tried to stop them before, but failed, so they kinda gave up. So Cat is used to this kind of thing. Great time to have rice for dinner though isn't it? Cat giggles to herself, but then feels bad for her poor parents. They're probably so stressed out and now they'll have to clean this huge ass mess. Then Cat remembers the promise she made her mom "I'll keep them under control." She sinks back into her seat, just in time to not be hit by a flying bread roll, and sulks to herself. Then she comes up with a solution, she makes a promise to herself that after everyone is finished fighting she'd clean up the mess, so her parents wouldn't have to.
That food fight lasted forever. By the time the last person had left the table, it was 7:00pm. Cat had gone to sit on the couch to avoid being hit by any hurling food, and she was currently listening to music. She paused it to get up and get a drink of water. As she was walking, she passed by the door to the room the food fight had occurred in. She rushes in only to find that it's already completely spotless. She sighs and slouches down into a chair. She bangs her head on the table repeatedly, calling herself an ungrateful spoiled brat. She'd gotten distracted by her music and her parents had to clean up the room. Her banging must have attracted the attention of Tori, either that or she had a fifth sense and could tell Cat was upset. Tori quietly walks on the plush carpet over to Cat and rubs circles into her back. "Why are you dramatically banging your head on the table darling?" Tori questions with a posh English accent. "I fort to clen te rum after the fud feet, so my prants had to do it" Cats words were muffled by the table, seeing as she was still face down on it. "What? Speak up girl" Tori pokes Cat's back. "I forgot to clean the room after the food fight, so my parents had to do it" She says much more clearly. "Ohhhhh!" Tori exclaims. "No they didn't, Luke stayed here after everyone was finished and cleaned everything! Isn't that nice?" Cats head shoots up. Her eyes as wide as the moon in the sky tonight. "WHAT!?" She shouts. Tori shushes her and reminds her that her parents are still in the house. "What?!" Cat whisper yells this time. "Yeah, it was all Luke" Cat slams her head back onto the table. Why would Luke do that, he barely knows she exists, and now he's cleaning entire food covered rooms for her? It just didn't make any sense.
Cat had gone back to her room by this time, and was preparing for bed, but she heard hollering coming from below her. She padded down the stairs and glanced into the middle room. Everyone was seated in a big circle. Cat assumed they were playing truth or dare again and turned around to proceed up he stairs, but a gust of wind passed her with a "HEY CAT!" and she whipped back around. There she saw Tyler standing out of breath, and naked. God they must have been streaking tonight. She looked around the room her eyes searching for Luke, but there was no sign of him. Huh? It's the second night in a row he's skipped out on stuff like this. Cat was sure he loved it, but who knows? Maybe she could've been wrong. She's walks back upstairs and settles herself into bed, bringing her book up to her face and falling deep into TFIOS land. That was her favorite place, where basically nothing went wrong, except for the fact that Gus dies, but that's beside the point.
She was only a few pages from the end of the book, when her door opened and a tired looking Tori, Cassie, Jess, and Aniyse walked in. They were all pretty much half naked, each holding a bundle of poker chips. Strip-Poker. Of course they would play that. They all put down their "winnings" and fell face first into their pillows. It was quite funny actually they all went down simultaneously. Cat laughed. Tori's tired makeup smeared face looks up from her pillow "what?" she slurs. Cat laughs even harder at the sight of her best friends face. Tori was usually quite pretty but over the night she had somehow turned into a monstrous looking demon of some sorts. Tori gives up on finding out what Cat is laughing about and plops her face back into her pillow. Cat can soon hear small snores eliciting from Tori, and the rest of them.
Within the few minutes that her friends had fallen asleep, Cat had finished her book and gotten cozy in her bed. She couldn't fall asleep though. She felt, no, knew something was missing. But what? She hops out of her bed and walks downstairs searching for the missing piece of her nighttime routine. She reaches the bottom step and walks around the house, still searching. She knows the thing she's missing has to be something she can touch because she can literally feel it missing from her. She walks into the middle room and sees the fire still going from this evening. She's about to go put it out with the kindle stick when she's hears someone say "Please do not put that fire out, it is my only source of warmth at the moment" She whips her head around, a little too fast giving herself mild whiplash, and sees Luke bundled up on the couch inside a cocoon of blankets. She laughs at the sight before her. Luke looks up and smiles, showing off his dimples. Cat just about died right there. "What? It's cold and everyone in my room stole my blankets." Luke says. Cat laughs even more. After she calms down she apologizes for intruding on him and begins to walks away, until she's hears his voice again "Stay With Me?"
She turns around again, she seems to be turning around a lot lately, people want her attention. She laughs a little, but only loud enough so she can hear. Luke looks up into her eyes. "I mean you probably don't want to, considering I'm such a loser and someone so cool and pretty like you barely knows who I am but, please, just. Stay." He rattles out. He spoke so fast she could barely tell what he said, but somehow she understand it. Cat opens her mouth purely in shock, but to Luke it looks like she's about to respond so she closes her mouth, re-opens it, and this time says a quiet "Sure." She sits down next to Luke on the couch, a good foot or so away from him. "C'mon I don't bite" He teases. Luke smiles at her and opens the edge of his blanket cocoon. Cat's unsure at first but then gives in to temptation. She scoots over, and cuddles into him and he wraps the blankets around both of them.
They'd been sat by the fire for a good hour or so without saying a word, just silence. It wasn't an awkward silence though, it was surprisingly comfortable. Cat's curiosity got the best of her and she decided to ask him a question, she was silently hoping that curiosity wouldn't kill the Cat this time. "What were you doing up?" She whispers. "I'm just thinking about stuff." There he goes with that word again, "stuff." She was feeling bold though. "What is stuff exactly?" She asked nervously. Luke looks at her. He was staring again. Cat also wanted to ask him why he kept staring at her, but she thought it better to focus on the question at hand. "If I tell you, you'll be freaked out and want to leave. I don't want you to leave. You're warm." He says with a laugh as he snuggles further into Cat's body frame. "You really think I haven't heard the worst? Tori is my best friend for god sakes! Go on take a shot, I promise I won't leave" She says, smiling at him. "Alright, but you're not allowed to be scared or weirded out ok?" He asks. "Ok." She says
"Every time I say I'm thinking about stuff, I'm thinking about..." He pauses and looks up at the ceiling, contemplating whether or not he should tell her. Cat takes a deep breathe, she knows it's going to be Lacy. Luke had always liked Lacy but had never had the balls to admit it "...You." He breathes out. Cat lifts her eyes away from her lap, up to meet to Luke's. She just stares at him for a minute or two. Purely out of shock, because damn, she definitely hadn't been expecting that answer. "See I knew it. You hate me now DAMN IT!!" He stands up and tugs at his hair. "Shit shit shit" he mumbles to himself. "I-I'm sorry Catalina. I'm so so sorry, I shouldn't have said that. We were just starting to be friends, and now I-I ruined it!" He's freaking out and pulling at his hair, pacing back and forth. Cat is still staring at him, but her facial expression had turned into the biggest smile ever possible. "Luke. Luke?" He wouldn't answer her. She laughs a little, but them screams his name at him. That finally gets his attention. "W-what?" He stammers. He's about to cry. Cat stands up and he backs away fearing she's going to slap him or something, but instead she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him in close for a hug. She hugs him tight and whispers in his ear "Shh Luke it's ok, I'm not mad or grossed out, or weirded out, or any bad emotion I can think of. Trust me, I'm as happy as ever Lukey." Cat pulls back as her hand flies over her mouth and her eyes go wide. Luke is smirking at her. "Lukey?" He questions her. "Um..I..I....Didn't mean...uh...sorry?" Cat stutters. "No no, don't apologize it's cute." He's still smirking. "You can call me that, as long as I can call you Catty." She agrees and they both laugh.
They fall back onto the couch, still laughing. This seems to be a habit of theirs, laughing at nothing. They'd gotten all cuddled up again under the blankets, enjoying the warmth they provided for each other. They lay there for a while before Cat speaks up again "Did you mean it?" She asks. "Mean what?" Luke replies. "Did you mean it when you said I was "cool" and "pretty?" Or were you just joking around, like you do?" Cat looks into Luke's eyes. They're like a deep ocean green. Beautiful and unique just like him. "Catalina Rose Clifford. I mean that and more. You're smart, kind, cool, beautiful, pretty, cute, gorgeous, funny, a great person, your personality is amazing, I've see you with little kids too and you're going to be a fantastic mom. You're one of those girls that you can't just find on the street, you're one of the ones who's down to earth and not obsessed with being perfect. Although at times you might not accept yourself, I'll always accept you for who you are because, Catty you're amazing and perfect, and everything I want and...and... and God dammit I Love You Catalina. Cat is utterly speechless. She can't even find one word to say. She starts to tear up. "L-Luke!" she stutters out. She jumps on top of him and hugs him tighter than ever. She can't even believe what she just heard come from her perfects boys lips. She's still hugging him, and after a while they kinda just end up staying in that position. Holding each other close.
"Catty?" Luke asks. "What Lukey?" Cat asks back. Their faces are close together, and Cat is laid on top of Luke, their noses touching. Cat rubs her nose against Luke's. "Do you love me too..?" He's asks so quietly Cat almost couldn't hear him. He sounded almost broken that Cat hadn't immediately said it back to him. "Luke Quinten Browns." She starts it off the same as Luke's little speech. "Of freaking course I love you. You're too amazing not to love. You're handsome, cute, talented in every single sport you ever play, you're the nicest person to ever live. Hell you cleaned up a chicken and rice stained room, I don't know many other boys like that and who would do that Lukey. You're amazing and everything I've ever longed for. I Love You so damn much I think I'm gonna burst. Don't you ever leave me. Stay with me forever. Stay With Me. I love you." Luke was about in tears, as well as Cat because each little speech one of them had given to the other was the sweetest thing either of them had ever received.
They were sitting across from each other on the couch in front of the fire. If you were to look at them from the bottom of the stairs all you would see is two silhouettes. They were staring at each other love in both of their eyes. Luke started to lean in, in turn making Cat lean in as well. Closing their eyes slightly with each inch they moved forward, when finally their lips met in the middle. They were locked in a sweet, love filled, passionate kiss. Every single emotion they'd ever felt towards the other person was put into that kiss. It was Love though, true Love, and no one could ever deny them of that.
Cat had to pull away for air, even if she didn't want to, she needed air to live. They both sat back into the couch, staring at each other. Luke then got a mischievous glint in his eyes. You could see it bouncing around from the reflection of the fire. Cat was still seated on the couch as Luke began to stand up. "Where are you go-" But Luke cut her off. He bows onto one knee and begins to talk "Catty, you are the most amazing person in my life, would you do me the honor of making me the happiest man on earth and Stay With Me?" Cat had a giggle fit. "Is that your way of asking me to be your girlfriend Lukey?" Luke sighs and rolls his eyes, still smiling "Yes, yes it is. Now, will you?" Cat decided to tease him a little bit. "Hmmm I don't know, should I?" Luke pouts from his spot on the floor "Cmooooon!" He whines. "My knee is going numb and you already told me you loved me, to taksie backsies" He pouts even more "Hmmm Ok, Yes I'll "Stay With You" Lukey." Cat laughs. "UGH FINALLY!!" Luke sighs dramatically. They both start laughing again.
Luke climbs back onto the couch as they cuddle up again. "So is that our thing now? Stay with me?" Cat asks. "Yes. That's our thing, and no one will ever take it away from us." Luke brushes his nose with Cat's and she giggles.
She looks up into his beautiful eyes once again. "I love you Luke. So Much. I hope you Stay With Me forever." She leans up to kiss him, and once again they are locked in a Love filled kiss. Staying With Each Other, Forever & Always.