Page 35 of Our Secret Moments

“It’s nothing,” she says, swallowing.

“I doubt it.”

She sighs, a little frustrated. “I just get these… moods.”

“Moods?” I repeat.

She nods slowly. “Sad moods. Like, very sad, dark, depressive moods.”

I wish I had more to offer her than, “Oh.”

She lets out a sharp laugh. “Yeah, oh.”

I rest my hand on her knee reassuringly, steading her. “That’s okay,” I finally say.

“Is it? It gets annoying and tiring, even for me,” she whispers. I don’t say anything and just wait for her voice to gain momentum again. “I don’t know… I just get stuck in my head sometimes and I don’t know how to come out of it. It’s happened a lot since my mom died. I just kinda stay there? It’s happeninga lot at parties recently which sucks because I want to have a good time. Then I realise I’ve been there for too long and I've probably had this boring, passive look on my face all night and I hate feeling like I'm not there when I am, but sometimes–”

I almost knock her completely out as I wrap my arms around her, holding her close to me. Her body doesn’t know how to respond at first as she stays in my arms before she slowly finds her hands around my back and nestles her head into the crook of my neck.

God, I just want to breathe her in. Stay here with her forever. Do anything she asked me. Listen to her talk for hours.

“Just breathe, Cat,” I murmur. She nods against my neck, and I watch her back rise and fall. “It’s okay to feel like that. And whoever has told you that it’s not, is fucking stupid.”

She holds on tighter to the words of encouragement and I let her mould into me. Nothing could have prepared me for what it feels like to finally have her in my arms. I’ve wished on nearly every star, prayed nearly every night for her to let me in like this and get me to see her. Now that I’ve got her, I’m afraid I won’t ever be able to let go.

Still, after we’ve been attached to each other for a few minutes, I try to ease up off her. She doesn’t budge. Instead, she pulls me closer.

“No,” she whispers. “Don’t let go yet.”

I can’t place how long Cat and I stayed there like that. She needed to be held as much as I needed it. I never realised or even thought about just how exhausting her life must be with a shitty dad and her almost biological need to be good at school.

After she collected herself, the party was still in full swing, and it only took another round of shots for Elle to completely lose it and was dancing against and possiblywithArcher before Cat dragged her away from him. Elle is one of the sweetest people I know, but she doesn’t go out much. When she does, it only takes a few drinks for her to get drunk, which is why I always take them back home after parties.

Nora disappeared at some point through the night and apparently Wes is with her. I know he’ll take care of her, and I know I’ll take care of them. Which is why I know to step out of Elle’s way when we get to their dorm, and she rushes in to go to the bathroom.

“You should probably go check on her,” I say to Catherine, nodding at the closed door of their dorm behind her. She glances back to the door and nods slowly before turning back to me. Her mouth twitches in a smile as a silent thank you for dropping her off, but when she’s about to turn, I clasp my hand over her arm, pulling her back into me.

I tower over her, pressing her into the door as those chestnut brown doe eyes blink up at me, her lips parting. “Uh, hi?”

“I just wanted to say thank you for telling me what you did earlier,” I whisper.

“You had to push me against the door to do that?” she teases, tilting her head to the side, that beautiful smile popping out. I shrug. “It’s not a big deal. I don’t know why I made it into a big thing.”

I sigh, shaking my head. I know that people can get into those dark moods sometimes. It happens to people around me all the time. But vocalising that and acknowledging it is a big deal.

“Look,” I start, scratching my neck nervously. “I don’t know what happened to make you feel like you don’t deserve to be cared for when you get like that, but you deserve someone who’s going to want to be with you all the time. In the dark when youdon’t have anything to do. In the silence when you don’t have the words to speak. In the sad moments where you can’t figure out what’s wrong. Not just when you’re happy.”

I watch carefully as her eyes light up a little, a golden swirl glimmering in the dull lighting of the hallway. “Thank you, Connie. That means a lot,” she replies, dropping her gaze to the ground. She nudges her foot into mine. “And you do too, you know.”

“What?”

Her eyes settle on mine again. “You deserve all that, too. Even though I’ve never seen you date anyone since high school. Why is that?”

She’s right. Since I started college, I’ve not gone out with anyone past the first date without thinking about the girl right in front of me. I tried to date people, but no one made my chest hurt like it does when I look at Catherine. No one made me laugh as hard as I did when I was with her. Nobody made me want to make them smile as much as I did when I saw her.

“No one has ever interested me,” I say, shrugging.

“That’s a lie,” she laughs. “Girls throw themselves at you like you’re the last tamale in the tray. You haveliteralcheerleaders for your team.”

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