Chapter Text
Katie's phone rings again.
It vibrates on the bed next to her. It must be at least Nom’s twentieth failed attempt at contacting his sister.
It cuts of abruptly; some upbeat pop song she had chosen as her ringtone back in secondary school ending jarringly mid sentence.
She gets barely a second of repose before that cheerful high voice is back, singing a song Katie has long forgotten the words to, and nothing like her current music taste.
She should change it. She has been thinking it since she was fifteen, so perhaps that won’t happen any time soon.
This call is from 4C, thankfully, but for all Katie knows it could still be Nom, ringing her from their best friend's phone with the hopes that Katie will pick up 4C’s calls instead of his own.
She turns her phone to silent. That stupid song cuts off. Good riddance.
She's staying at Bek's house currently. Bek is nice enough, and they’re good enough friends that she didn’t feel too bad for asking to stay over for a couple of nights. Weeks, maybe. They work at the same café, too (fuck, she's going to need a new job now, unless she wants Nom showing up and trying to wheedle her into coming back, “Surely, it’s not that bad Katie? I miss you. Please come home.” While she makes coffee for some student hunched over a laptop and looking a little out of it. Fuck. She had liked her boss.) and minus her on and off girlfriend, Eloise, her flat is pretty quiet.
She doesn't want to stay in her hair too long though. Doesn't want to overstay her welcome.
One of her neighbours in one of the flats down the hall is moving out soon. Hopefully, she can move in after. Maybe.
The doorbell rings.
Katie knows, she just knows that it's Nom, or Graecie, or 4C, or one of his other friends. Shit.
She knows what they’ll say too. Katie can’t remember the amount of times she’s left Nom. Just up and went. Usually, she comes back after a couple of hours, and a few missed calls from Nom. The longest she had ever left for was three days, and it would have been longer, had she not felt that the person she was crashing with, didn’t really enjoy having an upset college student sleeping on their couch. It was trivial things that drove her away too, which made her whole situation infinitely worse.
But it was difficult. Nom was everything. He was mature, and friendly, and smart, and strong. He won scholarships and got top marks, and it always felt like so much. Of course, Katie, little old Katie, wouldn’t get top marks in her GCSE’s, of course she wouldn’t get into university on a scholarship, of course she would struggle to befriend people, of course she was too much and too little, and too stupid and too smart, and too oblivious and too sensitive.
And so, she runs. Always runs.
Hm, she had heard a song that went like that on the radio yesterday. Perhaps that could be her new ringtone.
Regardless, she remains exactly where she is, sitting primly on Bek's spare bed. The bell rings again. This time it's accompanied by the faintest of meows.
This gives Katie a start. She does like cats. But it could also be a trick. A trap.
Well.
Quite a silly trap. Going to all that bother, just to lure Katie out of her friend’s apartment like she was some sort of wild animal. Unlikely. Well, if it was a trap, she was about to walk right into it, because she had every intention of investigating this strange cat.
She leaves Bek's spare room and approaches the door. The doorbell rings again.
“Coming, I'm coming.” She calls. Well, if it is a trap, they know it’s her. Smart, Katie. Very smart.
She cracks open the door, just a sliver, enough to peer out with narrowed eyes, and when she sees no sign of Nom, or 4C, pulls it open fully.
At first glance, there’s nobody there. All Katie sees is the shiny, gold 57 on the door across from her.
Looking down however, her eyes land upon an incredibly disgruntled looking cat.
It’s small enough, almost ginger in colour, although its coat is too brown to be considered orange, and it is glaring up at Katie with disdain in its eyes, fur on end and slightly damp, and back arched.
“Ah.” She nods at the cat sagely. She has no idea what is going on. Did it jump up to the doorbell itself? Or did someone else ring it and run away? There had been no footsteps when Katie had opened the door. And there isn’t really anywhere to hide in the hallway.
“Right.” She kneels down to inspect the cat closer. Why is she speaking to a cat? It’s not like the poor thing car understand her.
“Well.” She pauses. The cat clearly wants something. Why else is it on the doorstep?
“Do you, y’know. Want anything? Like, uhm. Food? Or a bath?”
Katie doesn’t know if cats can sniff, but if they can, then that is definitely what this one just did. Well, of course they can, but this bedraggled orange brown cat sniffs with such haughtiness, Katie can’t help but feel slightly offended.
It brushes past her, hitting her in the face with its still damp tail, getting hair in Katie’s mouth and nose. She gags, splutters, and sneezes violently. The cat, apparently, does not care.
Following it into Bek’s apartment, she finds, as she enters the kitchen, a person who must be the cat, because Katie hadn’t let any other scowling visitors in, with a tin of tuna and a thick slab of bread in their hands. They’re scooping chunks of tuna out of the tin, alternating between eating it by the handful, and spreading it across the nice sourdough bread Bek had picked up that morning.
“Um.”
The cat-person didn’t look up from their food. “What?” (At least that’s what Katie assumes they say. It’s difficult to make out their words over the mouthful of tuna and bread.)
“I don’t—are you supposed to be here?” Katie has kept her cool until now, simple confusion a barrier for the usual anxiety that would set in immediately.
“No.” They replied, casual and blunt as anything.
“Oh! Uhm. Okay. Do you—I mean—would you mind, y’know, leaving?”
For the first time, this stranger looks up at Katie. “What about you?” They nod to Katie and tilt their head. “You are not supposed to be here. The owner of this house leaves at noon, and then she does not return until two. Sometime later. Depends on the day. And you are not her.”
“Bek’s a friend of mine.” Katie said steadily, jutting her chin out. “She’s letting me crash on her spare bed for a couple of days. She knows I’m here.”
The cat person scoffs. “Oh, well if you know her!”
Katie put her hand on her hips and scowled at this strange cat person that was making themselves at home in Katie’s friend’s apartment.
“Do you have a name?” The cat person asks suddenly. Katie blinks.
“Um, Katie?”
The cat person nods approvingly. “Mine is Kitty. They are quite similar.”
They lick the final scraps of tuna from their fingers.
“I mean I suppose.” Katie shuffled, suddenly awkward.
The cat person springs off the stool they had been perched on, and smiles at Katie.
“Well Katie.” They roll the syllables around in their mouth experimentally, testing the way they speak it, how they let the collection of vowels and consonants leave their mouth. “I am going now. Have a nice day!”
Katie watches the other step past her into the hallway, flicking her nose with a grin as they pass.
She doesn’t respond to the surprisingly cheerful goodbye. She instead blinks at Kitty’s receding figure and scrunches up her face in confusion. What on earth was that interaction about?
— — — — — —
When Katie tells Bek about Kitty later that day, she doesn’t seem surprised at all. She rolls her eyes and complains about how much tuna she has bought recently, and Katie is doubly confused, until Bek explains that she’s been feeding Kitty for the past few months.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you, must’ve forgotten.” She laughed, stirring the pot of tomato sauce. “Kitty thinks they’re really slick about it too.” She shrugs. “But I don’t mind it. Honestly don’t know where else they’d get food otherwise.”
Katie nodded slowly. “Gosh, I hope they’re okay.”
Bek scoffs. “Well, I hope they are. I’ve been buying fish for them for the past month, and what do I get in return, but comments about my “bird girlfriend”.”
Katie couldn’t help but laugh. She had never properly spoken to Eloise, but from her infrequent visits to the coffee shop they worked at, and Bek’s adoring comments, she knew that Eloise had a fondness for birds. Swans were her favourite, but according to Bek, given enough time, she could befriend anything from a raven to a robin.
Bek plated the pasta, and the two ate mostly in silence at the table.
“I’m so sorry about all this, by the way.” Katie poked at the rigatoni ruefully. “Hopefully, I’ll be out of your hair soon. Sorry.”
Bek shook her head, swallowing the pasta. “Nah, seriously, Katie. S’fine. Promise.” She smiles.
Katie smiles back at Bek, and for once, the nagging voice in the back of her head quiets for a moment.
— — — — — —
“Thank you!” A young mother, with two boys, a dog, and a baby in the pram beside her accepts her flat white, hot chocolates, cookies, and pup cup, with more energy than anyone in her situation has any right.
“You’re welcome.” Katie tells the woman’s back.
She doesn’t hear her. She’s already outside, wiping hot chocolate off her son’s crisp blue polo shirt. She’s a lot more upset than her son about this development. He doesn’t seem to care, still arguing with his brother.
She yawns. She hadn’t slept all that well the night before, and had woken up at five AM, hours before her shift started. Nerves and nausea had been plaguing her stomach since she left, and although she knows that she really should, she simply couldn’t stomach breakfast that morning.
She scratchs her cheek absentmindedly and sighs.
The bell dings and an overly cheerful voice (that Katie knows potentially better than her own) asks, “Can I buy you a coffee?”
Before she even opens her eyes, she sighs a: “4C, if you’re here to talk about Nom and I, I’ll have to ask you to leave please and thank you.”
The young man across from her sighs and drops into the stool beside the register. The overly excited blue slime fads away, replaced his tired, anxious twin.
“Okay.” He smiles up at her gently. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Just wanted to make sure you’re safe. You’re staying with someone?”
Katie nods stiffly as she taps her fingers against the counter. “Staying with a friend.” She grits out.
“That’s good, that’s good.” 4C nods.
There’s an awkward silence that Katie really wants to break with a stupid quip, but she sits through it, determined to make this conversation as uncomfortable as possible for her best friend.
Eventually 4C does relent, and with another sigh, says, “I’m really sorry, y’know. It sucks; I get it.”
“No, you don’t.” Katie chokes out, glaring out the window.
“I wish I could.” He says quietly. “Still, I’m sorry it’s gotten this bad.”
He sighs and steps away from the stool.
“Okay. I’m going to go now; I’ve got work. Stay safe, Katie! Love you!” He waves as he leaves, and Katie offers the tiniest of waves back.