Kata ran to get in the car and was immediately greeted with her mother's harsh voice, which spiked in volume as soon as she closed the door. Kata wasn't even really listening to her at this point, she was too busy thinking about Alex. She had mastered the skill of turning her mother's lectures into white noise. Though this tactic made her mother's "talks" a lot easier to get through, there were some words and phrases that she couldn't tune out no matter how hard she tried.

"...incredibly selfish to leave me waiting...you're lucky I even come to pick you up...I could pull you out of theatre..."

Kata flinched as those last words left her mouth. She could deal with the insults. She had learned how. They hurt, but not as much as they used to. However, she couldn't be pulled out of theatre. It was one of the two only things that really brought her joy. Kata quickly mumbled an excuse about Mr. Benj calling her back inside to help him with something which shut her mother up for a little while.

Kata clutched her phone tightly in her hand and drummed her fingers on the window of the car, to which her mother promptly told her to stop and sit up straight.

Kata had Alex's contact pulled up in her phone. After she had found Carson, she asked him if he had Alex's number. She had seen the two together recently and he seemed to be one of the only friends Alex had.

Alex needed someone to talk to, or at least to know that someone was there if she needed to talk. Kata knew that she didn't know Alex that well, but something was clearly going on with her, and Kata's guess was that Alex didn't really want other people knowing about what had happened, so she opted not to tell anyone and reach out to Alex herself.

Kata's mother must have said something while Kata was zoning out because she was jolted out of her trance-like state by her mother's booming voice telling her to pay attention. She then went off on a tangent about listening to which Kata, of course, didn't really listen to. She remembered when she would listen to every last one of her mother's lectures and cry herself to sleep because of them. By the time she was ten, however, she had learned to block out all except a few. Those few she seemed to take to heart.

By the time they reached the house, Kata's mother seemed to still be upset about something. She stormed inside the house with Kata shuffling along behind her. She just wanted to go to her room so she could "start on her homework" when in reality she would be seeing if Alex was alright. However, as soon as she reached the stairs her mother gave Kata what she liked to call "the finger of death." Basically, it was where her mother would point her finger at someone, straight as a stick, then point to where she wanted them to go. It was terrifying and effective.

This time her mother pointed for Kata to go into the kitchen where her dad was sitting, typing away at his computer, still in his scrubs from the hospital.

"Oliver, talk to your daughter."

Kata's father looked up from the screen at the sound of his wife's voice. He looked bewildered and gave Kata a questioning look, which Kata returned because she had no clue why her mother was so mad.

Once her mother left, Kata sat down at one of the bar stools around the island in the kitchen. Her dad turned to face her.

"So...what did you do?"

"Beats me," Kata answered truthfully.

"So we don't actually have anything to talk about right? Like always?" Her dad smirked slightly.

"Not to my knowledge, no," Kata said, returning a smile. She really didn't feel like smiling at the moment, but her dad always managed to make her feel better just by being himself.

Though she spent half her time pissed at him.

"I think Mother's in a bad mood today. Something's probably bothering her, I got two lectures in the car today." Kata said, pouring herself a glass of milk from the fridge.

"Youch." said her dad, making a genuine hurt face on Kata's behalf. Kata just shrugged.

The two continued to talk for a little bit until Kata's dad decided to go change out of his scrubs and told Kata to go start her homework. He was most likely going to yell at Kata's mother though. It seemed to Kata like the two were constantly arguing, and she had no clue why they didn't just get a divorce. Sure, it would be hard, but in the end, it would be better for everyone.

Plus her dad knew what her mother did to her and Lana and yet he didn't stop it.

Still, Kata couldn't help but giggle as her dad ruffled her hair. She felt like she could just be a child around him most of the time, and not have to worry about things that she normally worried about.

Kata loved spending time with her dad, but she barely got to since he was at the hospital working most of the time. However, when he was home he tried to spend as much time with Kata and Lana as possible. He would often let them do things that their mother wouldn't and then take the blame for it. This would shield the girls from most punishment. It would also make Kata's mother extremely mad, and her dad would then act completely innocent to get on her nerves.

There were times, however, where the girls would receive some punishment, even when their father took the blame. Such as the first day of school when Kata had gotten her hair dyed and Lana had gotten piercings.

Kata's dad was on her side for most arguments that happened concerning her mother, he just won very few of them. Kata's mother wasn't only extremely harsh on her kids, but also her husband. One argument he had won though, was letting Kata wear what she wanted to school. Her mother very much disapproved of Kata's wardrobe and would prefer that Kata dressed more nicely each day like Lana. Kata hated dresses and blouses though. They felt uncomfortable and hugged her body in all the wrong ways. She especially hated things that were too form-fitting, which she found to be most feminine clothing. Her body was her own and she didn't want to show it to the world.

Kata used to try to tell herself that her mother wasn't all bad. The reality was, she only got two or three lectures a day usually, and on good days one to none insults thrown at her. The other reality was that none of that should be happening in the first place. Kata had done research on emotional abuse, and every last article she found described her mother. Once she knew that making your child cry on a daily basis wasn't a normal thing, it was hard to ever look at her mother the same way. She told herself that she shouldn't let it get to her, at least the things that she knew weren't true, but it's really hard to listen to someone who's supposed to support and love you no matter what, tell you that you're a disappointment. Kata still had good memories with her mother, and she desperately wanted to only remember those and block out any others, but that was almost impossible to do considering the fact that whenever she thought about her mother she immediately felt worse about herself.

Kata hurried up the stairs to her room and then quickly cleaned out the contents of her backpack and organized them neatly on her desk. She wasn't exactly a neat freak, but she was extremely organized. It made her life feel just a little less cluttered. She supposed that's part of what made her a good stage manager.

Once she had her homework assignments laid out so that she could quickly start working on them if anyone came to check on her, she opened her phone and pulled up Alex's contact. Kata tapped her foot as she thought about what to say. What would she want to hear if she were in Alex's position?

After about a minute of thinking, Kata quickly typed out a text and then read it over once before hitting the send button. She then set her phone to the side and started on her homework, waiting to see if Alex would respond.

***

A/N: Thank you so much for reading, if you liked this chapter please consider voting or commenting on it!!!

Y'all I have a song stuck in my head and it's so annoying it just keeps playing over and over again. And it's just one line of the song on repeat. So annoying!

Anyway, I hope you're enjoying the story!!!

Love,
Sunny <3