Leaving
Feedback: Please send all feedback to
beegle_25@yahoo.com. This is a work in progress, so feedback IS needed to spark my
creative process.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I didn’t create Katie or Jessie.
Rating: PG-13ish
Author’s note: If you’ve read anything else I’ve written,
this story comes before Awake and after Kiss and Tell. I’ll call it a prequel to
Awake.
PART 1
Katie wiped the tears out of her eyes. Recently, it seemed to her as though she was always crying. Her car was headed west on interstate 55. It had been three years since Jessie walked out of her life and two months since Jessie knocked on her door. The steering wheel her punching bag, Katie banged out he drum beats of Tegan and Sara’s "Time Running" and tried to forget.
**********
"You don’t understand. You never understand." Katie’s voice remained calm as she watched the tears flow down her mother’s face.
"How am I supposed to understand you when you don’t tell me anything?"
Katie’s breathing became irregular. She faced her mother. "You never let me tell you anything." She raised her voice and continued, "You never listen."
"That’s not true. I need to know why you hate me."
"I don’t hate you." Katie headed toward the door. "It’s not about you. Not everything is about you." She left and got into her car. An hour later she reached her apartment, but she drove by and took a left heading to the north side of town. Her car slowly passed Jessie’s house.
**********
Katie could hear Jessie’s laughter on the other side of the door. She knocked four times. The laughter ceased for a second and the door opened. Katie had her hands on the door frame and leaned in toward Jessie seeking a kiss, but Jessie quickly moved back into the room. Katie awkwardly entered the room and looked at the three people sprawled out on Jessie’s bed.
"Katie, this is Brian and Alison and Kendra."
During Katie’s freshman year at Northwestern, she and Jessie had lived two separate lives that rarely intertwined. The past summer they had spent so much time together Katie was sure they would become as close as they had been her last two years of high school. The first half the semester had proven Katie wrong. College had allowed Jessie to crawl out of her shell and interact with people who were more like her than the immature kids she was forced to tolerate in high school. Katie had gotten an apartment off campus to have a place where she could be alone with Jessie, but Jessie had rarely left campus choosing to mingle with the other students in her dorm.
"Hey," Katie said to the strangers in the room. She turned to Jessie, and lowering her voice seductively she repeated, "hey."
Jessie avoided her gaze and looked at her friends. "We were getting ready to go to a chem review."
"Oh." Katie didn’t bother to hide her disappointment. She watched as Jessie gathered her books and exited the room with the others following.
"Hey, Jess."
Jessie turned around. "I really need to go."
"Okay." Katie looked at the broken tile at her feet.
"I’ll call you later."
Katie watched Jessie go.