Chapter Text
The sun streamed through the classroom windows as students sat in their seats, some listening, others not so much. Catra was chewing on the tip of her pencil, eyeing the back of a certain blonde’s head. Adora always had her blonde hair tied up into a neat ponytail, and Catra wondered if she’d formed the habit from having to keep her hair out of her face at all times during her football matches. She’d been the star quarterback for their school’s women’s football team for years now. Adora was their undefeated champion and sometimes Catra felt like asking her if she ever felt that fear anymore before her matches. That fear, that she’d fail, that she’d let down everyone relying on her, that she’d walk home alone with her head hanging low in shame. Had she moved past the need for the fear entirely? Catra always meant to ask her but in the fleeting conversations she encountered Adora in, it slipped away with the wind.
“Miss Weaver, your eyes should be on me, not on Miss Grayskull, this isn’t a class you can make up for with self study,” the teacher’s voice called out, snapping Catra from her reverie.
Adora turned to look at Catra, as did the rest of the class with their snickers and hushed conversations. But there was no malice in Adora’s eyes like she’d expected, just a curiosity that beckoned an unwanted swell in Catra’s throat.
“Maybe if you actually had something more to say than recycling an interpretation you could find on the first page of a Google search, I’d be more interested in looking at you,” Catra retorted.
The class gasped while the lump in her throat built up but Catra swallowed it whole like a sour pill before rising from her seat without a word, and marching out of the class, the loud whispers of her classmates trailing behind her. But Adora’s eyes never left her, and she knew it because she felt them on the back of her head like a gentle caress, a curious gaze probing her for answers to questions that still hung unspoken in the air between them.
Maybe she wanted to know why Catra had spent all forty minutes of their class time staring at the back of her head, watching her run her hands through her hair, ensuring the tightness of her ponytail. Maybe she wanted to know how she did it with no shame, how easily she stepped away from it all when she was caught, than to sit and stew in the judgement of her peers. They’d still talk about her, but now it would be for her disrespect to the teacher than any silly crush on Adora.
She hadn’t had a plan as she’d pushed open the classroom door but after collecting her belongings from her locker, Catra found herself making her way to the girls washroom. She quickly splashed a handful of water onto her face before stumbling into one of the stalls. She was surprised the teacher hadn’t sent someone after her or even shown up herself to escort her to the principal’s office. She silently cursed herself for her rash behaviour so close to the end of her time at school, but her self evaluation was cut short by the sound of the washroom door being hesitantly opened.
Catra could make out the intruding girl’s second hand sports shoes from under the stall and identified their owner to be Adora, confirmed by the soft voice that called out her name once as she stepped further into the washroom. They stayed at a stalemate for a moment, both aware of the other’s presence, breaths held and stomachs knotted in, until Adora took a step back, and then another, and made her way out of the washroom as surely as she had made her way in.
Catra let out her breath before she straightened her uniform skirt and slowly creaked open the door to her stall. She caught sight of herself in the mirror as she did so.
Pathetic. Ugly. Disappointing.
She blinked the words away, straightened up and walked out of the girls washroom with her head held high. There was nobody there but her and the poorly painted over walls of the public school. She let out another sigh, and headed down the hallway towards the school entrance.
She pushed past the large glass doors as the cold air hit her right in the face, blowing back her long brown hair in the wind. Catra’s driver eyed her with contempt from the rear view mirror due to the early nature of her departure from the school premises, but mostly, she realised, because her expression had contorted into one of annoyance than her usual absent stare. She rectified her appearance and watched from the side of her eye as her driver turned his attention back to the road. She knew what he thought of her, what they all thought of her. She was an ice cold bitch who got three times the allowance that the rest of the student body did. Maybe there had always been truth to it.
No sooner than an hour’s passing since Catra’s arrival back home, did she find her doorbell ringing. It was too early for it to be her mom, and it was a little while past the hour the school day ended. She opened the door.
“Hey, Adora.”
Adora blinked the sun out of her eyes as she stood at the porch of Catra’s spacious manor-style home.
“Catra. I… is Mara in?”
“You know she is,” Catra replied, turning away from the door to give Adora the room to enter.
“Adora? Dearie, is that you?” Mara’s voice called from the kitchen.
Adora immediately perked up and moved past Catra in the direction of Mara’s voice, as Catra followed.
The two girls made their way to the kitchen to a smiling Mara, scrubbing at the last few smudges on the stovetop. Adora went over to her and dropped a kiss on her head.
Catra was immediately flooded with the sense that she was interrupting a tender moment between a mother and a daughter that she herself did not altogether feel welcome to witness. She began to pull back, but before she could, Mara beckoned towards her to come closer. Adora glanced furtively back at her, still facing her mother.
“Adora, Catra tells me you’ve received some of your midterm results back and you’ve done quite well for yourself. Both of you, that is.”
The two girls nodded shyly, passing glances along between the three not knowing where to stop.
Catra is the first to hold Adora’s gaze as she replies, “Yes. we did. I think Adora could use a little bit of a challenge or else she’d get too cocky.”
Mara laughed at that.
“I’d have to agree with that sentiment, wouldn’t want your head swelling too big now would we, dearie?” bantered Mara, affectionately reaching for her daughter’s head as she ducked out of the way.
Catra felt a burning inside her, and she hated herself for it. She hated herself for her envy so desperately at that moment.
“I’ll let you both get home now. Thank you, Mara. See you in school, Adora.”
If Mara noticed a change in Catra’s demeanour she didn’t show it. She simply glanced at the wall clock and sighed in agreement.
Catra let the mother and daughter out of the house in a flurry, barely registering the actions until they were done with and the two were already packed into their car and rattling down the road leading up to the house. Catra slumped against the door, she hated this expanse until nightfall. She felt too much freedom, she preferred the restriction that she was accustomed to within the four walls of her home.
Night came, and so did her mother. Mrs. Weaver stood tall yet defeated as she rummaged in the refrigerator for the dinner Mara had made. Catra had already helped herself to a plate and boarded herself into her bedroom.