She sat back down, but didn’t really notice the chair beneath her. Her entire body was numb, and she looked around as if she’d forgotten where she was. “Why are you saying these things?” she asked. She gripped her purse now, digging her fingers into the black imitation leather.
“What have I said?” he shrugged, pouting his bottom lip out momentarily. “What do you think about when I say these things, Cathy?”
Still in shock, Cathy looked back and forth across Dr. Phillips’s desk, answering the questions absent-mindedly. “Frozen yogurt,” she said truthfully, only meeting his eye for a fraction of a second.
Now it was his turn to be totally confused. “What?”
“I think about how much I like frozen yogurt -- in cones, not dishes -- and how I used to like to eat it with Sara. But Sara won’t ever get to eat frozen yogurt ever again. Or have coffee, or go out by the door and have a smoke. She won’t get to do anything anymore,” she sobbed, tears finally streaming down her hot, pink cheeks. “And nobody will tell me why,” she whispered, so softly that Phillips had to struggle to hear her.
“And what about Mr. Grendel?” he asked, still holding both fists against his mouth with his thumbs riding the waddle of his neck. “What do you think about when I say his name?”
She buried her head deep into her hands, gazing down at the floor from between her knees. She sucked back the mucus that was in danger of streaming out of her nose and tried hard to control her mouth, stop it from quivering. But it didn’t stop; it spread until she felt as though her entire body were shaking. Until she couldn’t feel her legs. “I wasn’t worth it,” she said softly, holding her shoulders with her hands.
“What does that mean?” he asked, his voice taking on a little more compassion now.
She swallowed hard. “He took me up into his bedroom...” Her eyes were burning a hole into some point on the far wall and it was hard to understand her, with her mouth refusing to work and her sinuses wet with tears trying to force their way out of her body. “... and he forced me down onto the floor. He got on top and started... started...” She sobbed uncontrollably.
“I know,” he soothed, reaching out and touching her hair softly. His touch calmed her slightly. “Believe me, I know.”
“He stopped,” Cathy sobbed, her chest feeling as though it were going to collapse in on itself. “He didn’t finish.”
“He said you weren’t good enough,” Phillips nodded, pursing his lips and fighting the urge to curse. “Cathy, what do you think of when you hear things like... like what happened to poor Julie Peterson?”
Cathy stopped sobbing a little then, slowly raising her head to look into his eyes. “I don’t care,” she said, with the same lapse of emotion he had employed only moments ago. “I’m sorry, but I -- can’t think that it’s happening to other people. I’ll--”
“It’s okay,” he assured her, and she started to cry again.
Outside the door, Mike watched the girl he loved break down crying again. He raised his hand, wishing that he could reach out and touch her. Wished that he could tell her everything was all right. That he wasn’t going to let it happen again, that he wouldn’t let it happen to anyone again. Slowly, that hand clenched into a fist as he stared down at the address in his opposite hand. Then again, why tell you when I can show you? he asked her mentally, then turned and walked toward the exit, careful to keep a lookout for Shnieder’s hall-monitors.
It was three o’clock by the time Mike arrived at the address on the sheet of paper he still clutched in his hands, and that gave him a sense of relief. Now he was actually supposed to be off school, as opposed to simply not being there for no reason. It also meant that Xander would be walking Cathy home, so he didn’t have to worry about where either of them were. Besides, there were plenty of other things for him to worry about. Like if he had any sweet clue what he was doing, like if she was as mean as all the kids at school said she was, like what he was going to do with the knowledge he was after should he get it... plenty of things to keep his mind active.
So why was it that I keep thinking about Cathy and Xander? he grumbled softly, wiping a layer of sweat from his freckled cheeks as the warm sun beat down on his face as it had the entire way here. The sidewalk was boiling now and every time he chanced a glance at it, his vision got wavy, making it hard to focus on anything. His hair was sticking to the top of his head, so he ruffled his hands through it to try and make it presentable as he looked up at the mammoth house that jutted up from the soil before him.
It was a two-story house that was pretty much shaped like a square. The main entrance was on the second floor -- not the ground level -- so there was a veranda and a winding set of stairs leading from it down to the driveway, where there was a small yellow Beetle parked. The siding was painted white, with a navy trim on it that gave it an almost royal air. Those colours inspired a sense of awe, except here that wasn’t a good thing. Mike had been hoping for some quiet little condo with lawn-ornaments depicting cats scattered across the lawn, maybe even a large wooden sign hanging from the mail box that read ‘welcome.’
He took one last look up at
