These Paths We Tread (Autobot x OC)

XVI. Don't Look Back In Anger

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Catherine had Sideswipe pull up on the opposite side of the street, one house down from hers. He didn’t question her; mostly because her face had lost any traces of the laughter than had been there only minutes before, replaced by hard coldness and determination. She didn’t leave right away, though. She sat in his driver’s seat just staring at the dark, wooden front door of the brick structure, with her hands clenched tight in her lap. His scanners told him her heart was racing, pumping adrenaline through her veins, but they couldn’t tell him it was from the odd mixture of fear and fury coarsing through her. Just when he thought to say something to maybe encourage her, she let out a deep breath of air and stepped out.

She paused to breathe again at his door, and then closed it for him. Teletraan chirped up at her with concern, a question mark on his screen, and she reassured him with a smile before nudging him back into her pocket. From there she slowly, but surely, took the first step forward and then the next. It really shouldn’t have been so hard. Her parents weren’t even home yet, and probably wouldn’t for maybe twenty minutes or so. Still, each step felt as if she had the weight of the entire world on her back. It only became worse as she approached the porch and, shuffling under the welcome mat, found the spare key to unlock the door.

Her dogs met her at once, whining and licking at her, and she let them out for a quick break. It was the least she could do for the only beings that had treated her lovingly her whole life here in the house. Once they were inside, though, they were forgotten as she headed up to her room. It was as she left it; the bed messy from a habit of never making it solely because she’d ruin it later, her workout clothes drying in the bathroom, and various organized piles of her things. She spared them only a few moments before going to her closest and procuring a large duffle bag that was carelessly tossed onto the bed. Clothes soon joined it in one large pile that was increased with a few more personal things. She put as much as it could handle, and then used a backpack to gather up the extra bits like her drawings and electronics, although she did pause to wonder if she would even get to use them. In the end, she let her first choice win and took them. Besides, Teletraan might want some friends.

She remembered to grab her things from her bathroom, too, before returning back downstairs where she set her baggage by the front door, and then took up sitting at the counter, waiting. It didn’t long before she pulled Teletraan out from her pocket and let him entertain her by playing Scrabble and showing silly smiling faces that did a good job of temporarily making her forget why she was waiting. She took some relief realizing the cage wasn’t around her. It was just another house that she was free to enter and leave. It couldn’t keep her here anymore; she was no longer a little bird.

She hated how the doubt would creep into her thoughts, though. She knew this was what she needed and wanted to do, but was it right for her to do? Did her parents really deserve her spite? Wouldn’t it be better for them to just think she had run away or whatever Lennox had planned for her excuse or something? Then they would feel the sadness of loss rather than what she wanted them to experience. After all, it wasn’t all their fault was it? Conflicts generally came from both ends, and the more she thought on it, the more she came to understand her faults that had collided with theirs. But still—her disgust and hate for them was stronger, and, in the end, when the sound of a car pulling up came from outside, she decided to continue on her path.

She ushered Teletraan back into her pocket as she turned to the backdoor and waited. She breathed in deeply many times, preparing herself, but none of it seemed enough. It was going to have to be, though, as the dogs began to huddle around the door, meaning they were coming. And then the door opened.

Shock came first, then worry, and then anger.

“Catherine! What are you—where have you been? Why did you leave like that without telling us!” her father, whom had entered first, hollered as they came near her, dropping their things at the door. She stood to meet them, moving out into the pathway, and let them stare down at her, though she refused to waver as she returned the gaze.