A/N: So this is going to be one of those fics I update whenever I have some free time, so bear with me- good things come to those who review. Love y'all.

[Cat's PoV]

This is what I need. A top up. A firm reminder.

The Party could be heard well before it could be seen, music obnoxiously loud even for a host of teenage boys bleeding out through the walls and into the evening air. Cat steeled herself. Smiled. Deep breath. Pushed the defeat from her eyes, and in she went.

There were people crammed into each and every corner and the whole house smelled of cheap alcohol and terrible food and hormones.

Mom'll be happy to know I went to a party with boys. Nice and normal, just like what she always wanted from me. That was true. Besides, Cat was always with a flock of boys and it had been too long since her last boyfriend. Tori had noticed at lunch. She wasn't supposed to have cracks like that showing. Her mom would find out and then she'd have nowhere to go. Exhausted with the weight of it all, Cat waded further into the party, wishing she was at home, or school, or anywhere but where she was.

A boy with blonde hair and a burgundy shirt suddenly latched onto her arm. "Heeyy!" He slurred. It was only just past eleven now, the party had started at ten, and he was already drunk out of his mind.

"Hi." Cat said simply. He would do, she supposed.

"Hey," He dragged her down by the arm onto the sofa. "Do you wanna go find a room you know, a room?"

Actually, maybe he's taken something, Cat reassessed. Her mom would be fine with that though. As long as there was a Y chromosome in there, Mrs Valentine was happy.

"Er, this is someone's house." She said, trying to avoid the subject.

"Do you live 'round here often?" He stumbled, smiling goofily and ignoring her previous comment.

"Do I- what?" Okay so maybe he wont do.

The boy laughed, tried to speak, and then laughed over himself some more whilst Cat decided if putting up with this shit was honestly worth the happy mother.

"I-" He snickered. "Is your dad in prison? 'Cause, 'cause if I was your dad I'd be in prison." He howled with laughter whilst his hand tried to slide from her knee to her inner thigh.

Was that a rape joke?

Suddenly Cat felt sick. She shoved the guy off of her and he was too off his face to even look offended, instead he just continued to laugh thickly and stumbled off to find someone else.

What the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this to myself? To hide from my mom?

She got up from the sofa too fast and had to put her hand over her eyes as tiny white pinpricks swirled at the edges of her vision and her ears rang dully.

When she re-opened her eyes again the room seemed to be swaying. Her breath was catching in her throat and her hands were shaking as she pushed numbly through the crowds back towards the door, each step feeling like slow motion.

The night air was cold but it felt good against her hot face as Cat gulped down as much oxygen as she could, as if some how breathing enough of it in would give her the strength to compose herself. Her head was spinning.

I can't do this anymore. Cat realised. This wasn't just tonight, wasn't just this party or that boy, it was her. She couldn't keep the pretence up any longer or she would break. The reality of that hit Cat like a punch in the stomach and she felt tears threaten, her windpipe like a pinhole. She did the only thing she knew.

"Jade?" She could hear Bon Iver playing in the background. Holocene. Cat closed her eyes tightly and listened intently, trying to calm herself down.

"Cat?" Concern lined Jade's voice. Even over the phone she could hear the distress in Cats tone.

"I- I need to come over." Cat wasn't usually so blunt but as she said the words she realised how true that statement was and her voice broke, along with her trust in it.

"Sure, are you okay? You need me to come get you?" Jade was a good friend beneath it all. Cat's heart twisted painfully as she thought about all the times she'd lied to her.

"No, I'm- I'm gonna walk." Jade's house was only a block away. Cat needed the head space.

"Kitty it's really late, are you sure? Where are you?" Jade must have caught a snippet of the music from the house behind.

"I'll be there soon." Cat managed. Jade sounded like she was going to try and convince her to stay where she was and allow the goth to pick her up but suddenly the call ended. Cat looked down at her dead phone. Now Jade was going to be worried. She sighed and forced herself to start walking as fast as she could, away from the party and all the boys inside. It grew quieter the further away she got, and Cat was left with just her thoughts.

This was it. She was going to Jade's and she was going to tell the truth and damn the consequences. If her mom didn't accept her then maybe Jade's mom would. Opposite to her daughter, Jade's mom was quiet, and perceptive and as far as Cat could tell, not the type to judge people. Maybe that was harsh. Jade had her days but she was perceptive and when it came down to it, she had always been there for Cat.

Cat's mind flitted back to her own mother. Sometimes her mom reminded her of president Snow from that Hunger Games movie Andre and Robbie had seen with her. The film had been too violent for her liking, but one scene had always stuck with her since she'd seen it, because it had hit so close to home it had engraved itself into her memory. It was almost a carbon copy of the conversation her mom had had with her about a year before. It had been so real to Cat at the time she'd had to excuse herself and leave the cinema for a couple of minutes to stand in the lobby pretending to send a text whilst she calmed down.

"What do you want me to do?"

"When you and Peeta are on tour, you need to smile. You need to be grateful. But above all, you must be madly prepared-to-end-it-all in love, do you think you can manage that?"

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"I'll convince them."

"No. Convince me."

Come to think of it, it must have been about a year since that by now. Two years of pretending and lying.

A couple of quiet minutes went by and Cat hugged her arms around herself to keep some warmth in. Her jacket was white denim and beneath that was just a red tank top, neither of which were helping to retain heat as Cat started to feel the extent of the night's cold. Her right knee was particularly chilly, as she'd split the knee earlier when she'd knelt down to pick up a dollar she found under her bed. Her mum was always telling her her jeans were too tight, but Cat's tiny frame meant that any bigger sizes were too long in the leg for her. Besides; she liked her skinny jeans. Jade had picked these for her, they were simple, black and had two sets of zipper pockets on each size, one on top of the other. Cat wore them a lot.

A figure was walking towards her down the sidewalk and Cat hoped it wasn't another drunken teenage boy. As they drew nearer Cat decided it was a woman.

Come to think of it, that looks awfully like…

"Jadey?" Cats voice was still wavering.

"Cat?" Jade's face lit up momentarily as she passed under a streetlight. Her arms were hugged around her middle for warmth in a similar fashion to Cats and her hair was up in a messy pony tail. Cat drew level with her and Jade saw the look on her face and frowned. "Hey Kitty, are you alright? Sounded kinda rough on the phone and then you disappeared on me."

Cat looked at Jade. The other girl looked exhausted, it was past midnight and now she was out in the cold and it was all Cat's fault because of her stupid messed up life. Cat burst into tears.

Jade looked slightly taken aback, she had never seen Cat cry, not really. She'd seen the old crocodile tears, sure, but never like this. She'd never seen Cat so raw.

"Oh, Cat…" Jade hugged her. She didn't usually do hugs but it was usually Cat who she made exceptions for for everything else, so she decided she may as well.

"Cat, what's happened?"

Cat didn't say anything, she wasn't sure if she could. She buried her face against Jade's neck and tried miserably to keep herself together.

Jade rubbed her back. "Come on, let's get back to mine before we freeze. We can talk when there's duvet."

That sounded good. "Okay." Cat sniffled.

Jade kept her arm around cat on the way back to hers. Cat was grateful for the warmth, and also for the comfort. Jade's mom was still up when they got back. She was on the sofa with a glass of red wine and a lot of paperwork spread out around her. A laptop was perched precariously on her knee.

"Uh, Cat's here." Jade said obviously, despite her mom looking right at them, not knowing enough to be able to proffer an explanation. "She's going to stay."

Jade's mom nodded and cordially and returned to her papers. She was always so still, Cat thought. So quiet. Compared to her own mother who was always running here to there wittering shrilly about things only she could get stressed over. It was a nice change of pace for Cat coming to Jades.

Jade led her upstairs to the third floor of the house, which was essentially one huge en suit bedroom. Holocene was still playing; Jade must have left in a rush, Cat assumed guiltily. If the room had had a kitchen, Cat thought, Jade would have been all but self-contained. The goth seemed to have had a similar train of thought, a little black glass-front mini fridge sat on her desk full of cans. The fridge lit up with blue LED's when you opened it, Cat noticed as Jade pulled the little door aside and passed her a nicely cool can of Pepsi. Cat preferred Pepsi to Coke- much to Andre's horror- because she liked the name better. Pepsi. She couldn't tell much difference in taste if she was honest, but she definitely preferred the word Pepsi. Jade had remembered ever since they were children, and it was traditional that Jade always had a Pepsi for Cat when she came over. Cat clutched the little can tightly and perched herself on the edge of the goth's bed. There were a couple of note pads in a messy stack by her pillows and a biro which had rolled onto the black duvet. Cat picked it up carefully in case it drew on the fabric and twirled it between her fingers nervously as Jade came to sit beside her with a sprite, pulling her legs up underneath her until she was comfortable.

"So... What's up?" Jade asked, popping her can open with a quite hiss.

Cat's mind went blank. What was up? Where the hell did she begin? She suddenly felt very self-conscious. Jade would still be her friend if she told her, right? Her fingers fumbled over the smooth course the biro had been swirling between the fingers and she drew a dark blue-black trail up the side of her thumb.

"I don't know where to begin." The red-head said truthfully.

Jade frowned thoughtfully. "Okay, well, if you were a character and you had to explain your situation to an audience so that they could follow what was about to happen in a scene with you in, what would you say to them?"

That's an interesting approach. Cat thought. She tried to picture it.

"I would say..." What would she say? "I'd say that my character had great friends and a great school where she was happy... And she was really grateful for it but... She was sad... And her friends didn't know 'cause she didn't know what to tell them... And one day she tried to tell her mom instead but her mom got angry with her and now her mom doesn't like her anymore and she has to keep pretending she's okay so her mom won't get angry again... And now she can't pretend anymore and she doesn't know what to do..."

Jade's expression had become increasingly concerned as Cat had gone on, and now Cat had trailed off she wasn't sure what to say.

"Why was her mum angry?" The goth said finally.

Cat studied her thumb as she tried to wipe away the line of ink as thoroughly as possible, as if this would somehow let Jade know telepathically. "Because... Of who she liked."

Jade wasn't sure what that meant. "Like, as in friends?"

Cat shook her head.

"Boyfriends?"

"No her mom loved those." Cat said bitterly, taking Jade by surprise.

"And... You didn't?" The goth guessed, breaking the facade.

Cat shook her head again. Jade wasn't sure if she was missing something.

"So... You're sad because you had boyfriends which your mum liked but you didn't?"

Cat smiled softly. "That's an excessively round-about way of putting it but, yeah."

Jade opened her mouth to say she still didn't understand and suddenly it hit her. She had never felt so slow.

"Oh." The goth said simply. When she looked back at Cat, the red-head had teared up again and Jade realised this was the bit when she assured her that everything was fine.

"Hey-" She said, pulling her arms around Cat as best she could without throwing lemonade over her. "Don't be upset kitty, there's nothing wrong with liking girls- wait, you mom got angry with you?"

Cat nodded into Jades shoulder. "She said that one freak of a kid was enough and that if she didn't see me with a boyfriend by the end of the month she'd throw me out…"

Jade was outraged. "What the hell? How could she call your brother a freak, he's autistic not a freak! And how could she think liking girls would make you a freak? What the hell that's so messed up, Cat, I'm really sorry. Don't force yourself to go out with guys if you don't want to. If she flips then you can stay here, probably for the best anyway."

Cat didn't realise how much weight she had been carrying around until it suddenly lifted. "Thanks, Jade." She opened her pepsi and sipped at it.

"So, how long has your mom had a gun to your head over all this?" Jade couldn't believe she had never noticed. Cat always seemed to like her mother.

"About two years." Cat sighed sadly. Jade nearly spat out her sprite.

"What?! Two years, geez I thought you were going to say a couple of months, not years. Though I suppose it's been longer than two months that you've always had boyfriends, so figures. Why today?"

Cat was feeling much better than she had been twenty minutes ago. "Why did I tell you? I just… Tori noticed at lunch that I hadn't had a boyfriend in a while, as a joke, you know? And it made me think, 'that's true' and so I went to this party in the hopes of finding some passable guy like usual and I… I just couldn't do it. He made a rape joke at me. And I left. And called you."

"A guy made a rape joke at you? What?" Jade could get really protective of Cat.

"Something about was my dad in prison 'cause if he was my dad he'd be in prison."

"That's disgusting."

"Not as disgusting as how hard he was trying to wedge his hand between my legs." Cat said honestly. She could talk as herself around Jade, without the air-head persona that seemed to descend upon her when she was in large groups.

Jade looked mortified. Cat almost found it funny, it was the type of look she would expect to get from someone she was going out with if they'd heard the same thing, but then, Jade always had looked after her like a little sister.

Apart from new year's eve. The voice in her head retorted. That's not usually the sort of thing a girl gets up to with her 'sister'. Cat felt herself blush.

"Cat, you've gone redder than your hair, you okay?"

Cat gave Jade a sideways glance. She made the split decision to be brave. "Do you… do you remember new year's eve?"

It had been right after Jade and Beck had broken up, two weeks perhaps, no more, and between them, Cat and Jade had consumed enough alcohol to get the entire club drunk, if distributed right. They weren't supposed to be in the club full stop, they'd used the fake ID's that Jade had 'persuaded' Sinjin to get them to get in. When Cat had woken up in the morning at Jade's house she barely remembered anything that had happened the night before, and hadn't thought much of it until later on in the day when she'd gone to take a shower after spilling soda all over herself, and was suddenly confronted with the memory of pushing Jade up against a similar looking bathroom wall to the one she was then staring at. She could remember going back downstairs after her shower, her hair tied up in a bun whilst it dried, and staring awkwardly at Jade trying to work out if the goth remembered it too. If she did, she hadn't ever mentioned it and Cat had never been brave enough to bring it up since.

"Of course I remember new year's eve."

Cat's heart fluttered. For some reason, she hadn't been expecting Jade to say that. "Sorry about that." Cat mumbled meekly.

"Hey, don't be sorry- you're a great kisser-" Jade teased, nudging her playfully. "I just always assumed you never remembered the next day so I never said about it."

Cat blushed scarlet. "I didn't to begin with, then I went to take a shower after the whole soda incident and, well, the black tile thing you have going on in your bathroom is similar to the black marble in that club and it kinda… jogged my memory."

Jade smirked. "Is that why you were staring at me so weirdly whilst I was making lunch? I thought you were just so hung over that you were spacing out."

Cat laughed. "I was trying to decide if you remembered too or if it was just me."

Jade finished her sprite and threw the can across the room. It landed perfectly in the bin with a muffled clang.

"Shot." She said proudly, hopping off the bed. "Well, it's like 1am and we have school tomorrow even if it is Friday, so we should probably get some sleep." She said, stretching.

Cat cursed as she caught sight of Jade's alarm clock. "Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to keep you up with my pantomime of a personal life." She said dejectedly.

"Cat your life's not a pantomime, your mother is." Jade said bluntly, clearing the note pads off of her bed and turning her iPod off from where it sat cradled in its dock.

Cat couldn't disagree. "Yeah…" She caught the hugely oversized red dress top that Jade threw at her. They had brought it for Cat to wear when she slept over as a joke, since it was so massive on her tiny frame that it came down to her knees. It was cotton though, and Cat had found that it was actually quite comfortable to sleep in. Jade had one too, and though hers was black with white checkers on it, it was equally too big for her.

They got changed quickly as they had done many times before, and Jade disappeared into her bathroom to brush her teeth. When she returned, Jade had taken her hair down from its ponytail and brushed through it, and Cat secretly wished that her hair was naturally straight instead of having to straighten it every day. Jade loved Cat's hair when it was in it's tight little waves, her and Tori always said it looked really nice on her.

Funny, Cat thought, It's a defect in the universe's humour that we always want what we can't damned well have.

After brushing her own teeth- she stayed with Jades often enough to have her own toothbrush- a thought struck her. "Hey Jade, do you want me to go down to the spare room?" She asked dropping her now empty Pepsi can into the bin along with Jade's Sprite can and setting the biro down on the desk beside it. She had forgotten she was holding the pen until now.

Jade made a face. "Since when have I made you sleep down there?"

Cat just looked at her awkwardly.

"Cat, do you really think I'd make you sleep in another room just because you like girls? I don't have so much of a high opinion of myself that I assume you have designs on me purely because I'm the right gender. I mean, so is half the planet, doesn't mean you like all of them, same as boys. And hey, even if you did have designs on me, I'm game." She added sleepily as she flopped down onto her side of the bed.

Cat tried not to read too deeply into that or she would be up all night trying to figure out what it meant. "Just checking." She defended mildly. Deep down, she was relieved.

she buried herself under Jade's black duvet and wondered if her mom would somehow telepathically know what Cat had told Jade when she got home.

No that's stupid. She chided. You just have to act like normal. You go to an acting school for god's sake. Act. Despite her inner reassurances, she made a note to ask Jade the next day if she could stay for the weekend.