Nothing's Fair in Love and War

Chapter Seven - 'I wouldn't change any part of me, just to make you stay'

“She left,” Kath said, her voice an echo of tears. “Just like that.”

Vanessa sighed, and patted her friends arm reassuringly. “I don't understand, Kath.”

“Try to!” Kath splurged, her voice wobbling as she turned, eyes milky blue.

“I am,” Vanessa rolled her eyes, somewhat unsympathetic. “But you need to tell me the whole story, right from the beginning.”

“I- I don't want to,” Kath moaned, burying her head in her hands.

Vanessa shook her head. The girls were sitting outside in the cold, spending their break huddled up awkwardly. Vanessa was getting tired of endlessly prying into Kath's life – plucking information from her was near impossible at the best of times. “Please Kath,” she begged, “I care you for. Please.”

“Fine,” Kath said, overwhelmed. After pausing a moment to gather her thoughts, she began. “I wanted my mum to come home. So I told her small white lie, and voila! - she's back. I actually thought it would last.” Kath shook herself angrily, “but the moment she found out I told a tiny, little tale, she was off, back to her smelly old job.”

“Her job isn't smelly,” Vanessa replied, looking awkwardly about. “But anyway. What was this 'small white lie'?”

“Nothing big,” Kath flashed her friend a smile.

“Kathryn.” Vanessa stared at her, unmoved.

“I... er.... told her... I-I was pregnant,” Kath stammered, giving a shifty smile as she tried to laugh it off. “Like, not totally serious.”

“Not serious?” Vanessa asked doubtfully.

“I used stuffed pillows. Ness, really, it was just a little thing,” Kath insisted.

“Yet you went out of your way to buy pillows for the disguise?” Vanessa asked, her face dangling open in shock.

“I wanted it to be slightly convincing,” Kath snapped defensively.

“Seriously?” Vanessa questioned, her features all over the place.

“Yes!” Kath cried, looked at her watch pointedly. “I'll be serious if you want. But you weren't there for me, and to be honest there was nobody else. So-”

“What about dog-boy?” Vanessa asked with a sly grin.

“This isn't a joke!” Kath protested, scowling at the ground. “He wasn't willing to listen either. I just needed my mum. You wouldn't understand.”

“I try to,” Vanessa replied, turning sensible as she pushed her wavy hair out of her face.

“Well, okay, I just needed her. But she got mad at the lie, and just like that – she left,” Kath said bluntly. In truth, she could scarcely remember the hours her mum had packed, so painful they had been that she'd ebbed out of the way, into the very corner of her mind.

Vanessa gave a tight sigh. “Kathryn, I just want you to know that I am here for you. Honestly, I care about you so very much-”

But Vanessa was cut off by tears, streaming down Kath's face as she buried her head in her best friend's arms, admitting defeat at long last. The two girls sat, huddled together whilst time swam around them, completely irrelevant. They were pulled out of their trance suddenly by the shrill sound of the bell, as it lured them back to reality.

“I've got art next,” Kath said, wiping her teary eyes. “With Danielle and the rest of them.”

“You'll be fine,” Vanessa assured her, smiling encouragingly.