Kiss Me Slowly

Twelve: Why Not?

Katia dragged her feet through her house’s front door and slammed it behind her in defeat. She’d failed Kory. Without the feeling of support and help he would never come out. The only thing she could be proud of was the fact that she’d talked to him, and nothing else because she hadn’t even succeeded in that.

Her boots slid off her feet and she walked upstairs to her room. The bed greeted her as she fell and she let out a sigh. No matter how hard she tried she just couldn’t shake away the sight of Kory’s face when he said: “I can’t do it.”

The ringing phone made her jump. Couldn’t the world just leave her alone? She buried her head in her pillow to block out the noise.

“Kitty?” a voice came from downstairs.

“What?” Katia responded angrily.

“Somebody’s on the phone for you. And don’t use that tone on me.”

Katia groaned and peeled herself from the covers, reaching across to her bedside table and picking up the receiver. The purple stickers plastered on the white plastic dug into her hand.

“I got it Mom,” she said into the phone.

A ruffling sound came from the other end of the line as her mother set her phone down. When she was sure that her mother wasn’t listening in, Katia felt it was safe to talk.

“Hello?” she said.

“Katia? What’re you doing home? It’s two-thirty already!”

Daniel’s voice surprised her at first. What did he mean what was she doing home? It was Saturday after all… Suddenly she was reminded of his earlier texts. She jumped from her bed, taking the phone with her.

“I have a perfectly good reason for being home right now.”

“You forgot, didn’t you?”

“Pssh,” Katia said making a crackling sound into the phone. “Of course I didn’t forget you.”

She quickly slid on her boots and her brown suede jacket while digging through her mind for possible excuses as to why she wasn’t at his house right now. She ended up doing the thing that teenagers did best: lying. “You see, I had to look after my brother’s hamster who’d run off and then a cat came and we thought he’d eaten him so we had to go to the vet—”

“You don’t have a brother,” Daniel said, cutting her off. She felt a rush of blood rise to her cheeks and let out a small laugh.

“I’ll be right there.”

Punching the red phone button, she then threw the phone on the table without waiting for his answer and quickly raced into the kitchen.

“Mom?”

“Over here!”

Katia turned to the living room and burst in to find her mother watching Deal or No Deal. On her ironing board was Katia’s uniform and a cup of tea sat by the iron. Katia winced at her mother’s recklessness.

“Please don’t spill that tea on my white blouse,” she said, urgently. In response, her mother smiled sweetly at her and took a sip.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.” Katia let out a breath in relief. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah, actually, could I borrow your car? I would take the bus but I’m already late,” Katia said.

Her mother squinted her eyes in doubt.