KAT

"THIS IS DELICIOUS, MRS. WHEELER," Lucas said, looking up from his egg salad.

"Thank you, Lucas!" Karen beamed. "But Kat made the salad,"

"It's pretty good," Lucas looked at them both, impressed.

Kat gave him a sarcastic look, knowing that he was mostly trying to flatter her mother.

"I'm gonna go over to Jane's tonight," Mike said. "Is that okay?"

"Sure," Karen shrugged. "I'll drive you,"

"No, it's fine. I'll bike," Mike said quickly, looking to Kat for backup. Kat rolled her eyes before silently agreeing.

"Yeah, Mom, it's way easier to bike where Jane lives," she said.

"Yeah," Lucas chimed in.

"O-Okay," Karen said, a bit surprised at how passionate they all were, and Kat almost regretted the thought of potentially overdoing it.

Ever since a couple more talks with her mother about responsibility, Karen had finally begun to follow through. Yet, Kat knew that ultimately, Karen would never fully understand her. Karen only could ever think of her requests as a kid asking to do less homework, not an adult drowning in pressure. It was a hard pill to swallow, but she could only change herself and not her mother. However, she was still trying to make her understand even if Karen wouldn't listen, and Kat was indeed processing her anger in a better way.

"Kat, you're going to work soon?" Nancy asked, taking a sip of her orange juice.

"Yeah," Kat sighed.

"Can't wait till Michael starts working," Ted said from his steak. "Never known peace with all you kids in our hair,"

They laughed a little at the unfunny joke, Mike mumbling about he'd never work.

"I'd wanna work at Orange Julius when I'm older," Lucas said.

"You wanna make Fanta slushies for five hours straight?" Kat joked.

"On second thought," Lucas frowned.

"Honestly, I don't get how you can work in a place like Starcourt," Nancy sighed. "It's so loud, how can you concentrate?"

"Says the person working in a tiny office building with totally-not soundproof walls," Kat retorted. "I just suffer,"

"At least you don't work at the movies," Mike said.

"I guess. That'd probably be horrible," Kat agreed. For after she'd been to the new movie theater a couple times, she'd made the difficult ruling that working at Jazzercise was slightly better than working at Starcourt Cinemas. "Anyways, I gotta pack,"

She set her plate and fork in the sink, heading upstairs as she brushed her hands together to get rid of any crumbs. She felt the leather of her fingerless glove brush against the bare flesh of her other palm, squishing down the unease she felt as her fading scar came into contact with anything other than black fabric.

She'd recieved her Purdue acceptance letter back in April, a few days after her birthday, and classes started the 19th of August. Now, it was almost July, so there was a stack of cardboard boxes outside Kat's door. She made her way inside her room, two more boxes lying down on her carpet. An empty mug sat on her dresser, something she'd forgotten to take downstairs after Max slept over two nights ago. Nowadays Kat saw Max almost once a week, and she knew tension with her brother and stepfather was increasing by the second. 

Kat took a section of blankets and spare throw pillows out of her closet, shoving them at the bottom of her boxes. She picked up a few spare toothpaste cans, combs, and toothbrushes and scattered them at the bottom. She'd also bought a ton of stationery at a dollar store last weekend, so she laid the notebooks, packets of pencils, and ballpoint pens on as well. It was pretty easy to pack, since she still had a ton of stuff she needed to use. Besides, she wasn't completely moving out; she'd still visit every two weekends. She had family to see, and friends, and crushes. 

A spare backpack and another blanket later, Kat seated half her weight on the box as she tried to find the end of the masking tape that came loose. She held the tape roll up to the sunlight, but she couldn't find the end. Biting her lip in frustration, she ran her nails down the roll, looking for a bump that indicated to a break in the plasticky stickiness. Finally, she found it, and taped the box together three times. A beep-beep-beep startled her from her panting, as she grabbed her now-upgraded Tom and Jerry watch.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" She muttered frantically, as she quickly changed out of her sundress and into sheer blue tights with darker blue polka-dots. She wriggled into a pale violet bodysuit, the whole outfit looking atrocious, but whatever. She double-checked her eyeshadow and her hair, the dark brown hair chopped curled into a bouncy perm. All the Wheeler women had gotten their hair done the past month together, in an appointment that had taken over five hours. Yet, Nancy and Mrs. Wheeler's perm looked way better than Kat's, due to the fact that Kat was busy as hell and didn't have time to properly blowdry and style hers as much. 

"Mom, I'm leaving!" Kat called as she raced down the stairs. 

"Bye, sweetie!" Karen called back.

"I still can't believe that's what you have to wear every day," Lucas said as she walked past the dining room. Kat flipped him the bird in response, prompting an angry 'Kathryn!' from her mother.

But she paid the woman no mind as she patted her AMC Hornet before stepping inside. The undusted white leather of the dash stood out plainly, a work of her hard efforts in maintaining it. However, with gas prices increasing and Kat wanting to rely less on the money of her parents, she either took the bus or hitched a ride with Steve two of her working days.

With a quick breath in, she opened her eyes, painted with blue-green eyeshadow like an ocean under rainclouds, and took off.

"Afternoon, ladies," Pawel flexed the muscles in his biceps, grabbing a yoga mat from the corner cabinet. 

They were in their one-o'clock appointment at the Jazzercise, a group of twelve older women standing in front of them. Pawel was Kat's coworker, a blond Polish college student that was surprisingly only two years older than her. When they'd first met, Kat had thought he was at least thirty, but no.

"We've got some new faces, so let's go through some introductions," Pawel rubbed his hands against each other. Kat cringed from his side, though she knew he was only faking it for a fat paycheck. That, Kat could respect.

"Ladies first, as always; to my left, the dazzling Kathryn. She'll be your demonstrator for this afternoon," Pawel said, his voice in seduce-mode. Kat knew that because his actual voice sounded actually normal. 

Kat smiled brightly, trying to appear as dazzling as Pawel described. This was pretty typical- Kat not saying anything during these sessions since all the participants were women and wanted Pawel.

"And on to myself; my name's Pawel, but you all may call me Paul," he said, saying his actual name with a Polish accent (something that turned on every one of the women) and his whitewashed one with an American accent.

The women giggled, paying Kat not a single ounce of attention as she got up to flick the speaker on. "Hammer to Fall" by Queen played loudly through the dance room, but Pawel talked louder.

"All right! Let's get some movement here, loosen up the hips," he began twisting his hips around in a circular motion, enciting a few giggles among the crowd as Kat reluctantly but willing followed. "Shake out the arms, loosen up the shoulders- perfect, yeah!"

God, this would take a while.

"How was the Post?" Kat asked Nancy as the latter approached her sink, the night sky shining through the bathroom skylight.

"Same as always," she huffed. "Tom and Bruce were horrible, but obviously I can't do anything about it,"

"You never know, you can, I dunno, go work at The Inspector instead,"

"Sure. With Virginia Parks and Mrs. Parks?" she shook her head, a few curls falling out of place. "I'd rather die,"

"Woah, okay," Kat replied, scrubbing the color off of her eyelids.

"How was Jazzercise? And Steve?" Nancy asked suggestively.

"Good," Kat shot her a glare. "Spinnet's coming to pop in soon, so I cleaned up the studio a bit,"

"See- I don't get how you dance for an hour and make more money than me, and get an actually nice male coworker,"

"I guess. I'm pretty sure Pawel's into guys, though," she tossed the wet tissue into the trash in a basketball throw, missing by two feet. 

"Oh. Nevermind, then," Nancy said, beginning to take off her own eyeshadow.

"Y'know, in a few months, you'll have both sinks to yourself," Kat said, wiggling her brows at her sister.

"Yeah, it'll be amazing," Nancy rolled her eyes, squeezing a bit of toothpaste on her toothbrush. "And something else that'll be amazing will be having minus-one scream around the house,"

"Hey, I don't yell," Kat defended. "It's all Mike and Holly now,"

"And Dad," Nancy added, making them both laugh.

"I'm done now," Kat said, smoothing down her pajama dress. "Night,"

"G'night," Nancy said through a mouthful of toothpaste, as Kat walked back to her room, closing the bathroom door behind her.

Kat checked herself in the body-length mirror stuck on her wall. Her nightgown was pale violet, soft lace at the collar. Moving closer, she saw her lips smeared with a thick layer of the lip balm she always used at night, and her face absent of makeup. She'd been wearing cosmetics so often now- it was a harsh reality check when she was getting ready to go to sleep. And also due to the excessive use, several reddish pimples had appeared along her hairline and below her eyes. 

Kat had lots of acne when she went through puberty, and some of it had never gone away. And her twelve-year-old self had popped a lot of it, so round pink scars were laid out from eye to eye, and across the bridge of her nose. It looked like a sunburn from one angle, but from most it just looked like acne. There was more along her eyebrows, mostly hidden beneath the brown hairs, yet visible. She also had a small scratch over her right eyebrow, from when she'd hit it against the corner of a table when she was nine. Both her eyelids were hooded, but one had a significantly higher crease, and the lazy eye made it so that it always looked smaller in photos.

She'd read enough self-confidence pamphlets to not poke at her insecurities too much, but her emotions twinged with sadness at her imperfections nonetheless, smiling sadly before turning away. She readied her pillow to go to bed again, before nearly jumping out of her skin at the shadow in her window. "You have got to stop doing that,"

"Sorry, I don't really have an alternative," Max shrugged as she ambled through the window. 

"I could've shit my underpants," Kat mumbled, faking annoyance as she shut the window behind Max, indicating at the bed the latter usually took. 

"That would've been funny," she grinned, bouncing onto Kat's guest bed with a flump.

"So, how's it going?" Kat asked, climbing into bed alongside her, the both of them making sure they were being quiet.

"Hmm. If you're asking me about Lucas, I'd say it's going swimmingly. But if you're asking me about life, it's going horribly," Max said, placing her head on top of her fist.

"I've got an open ear," Kat said, leaning back on her lavender pillows.

"Okay," Max leaned forwards as if trying to explain a secret. "Lucas and I went to the new skate park yesterday afternoon. It was pretty fun, and I tried to teach him how to skateboard. He didn't get it, obviously. But it was super funny watching him fall onto his ass. We went to get milkshakes again after, that was alright too, but it was a bit weird without you there,"

"Yeah," Kat waved one hand around in indication. "I've got tons of stuff happening around here. But last week won't be our last, y'know, milkshakes shenanigan,"

"I hope so. You make it less annoying to be around him," Max rolled her clear blue eyes, though she smiled.

"That's a cool way to talk about your boyfriend," Kat tsked. "All of you are getting too old, too fast,"

"Geez, you're like a mom talking about her kids," Max rolled onto her back, scrunching her freckled features.

"Whatever," Kat turned her head away, a small smile playing on her cheeks.

"Well, anyways, about the life part of 'how's it going'. Billy's actually not around home as much now he's outta school. I mean, lifeguarding only goes until, like, six o'clock, but he's coming home at midnight every day. I'm not complaining, though. Neil is....Neil, I guess," Max shifted uncomfortably. "And Mom's still manifesting solutions to all her problems through alcohol. Actually, I think Billy's doing the same thing,"

Kat grimaced. "Well, if you ever need anything-"

"-Got it. Wanna go to bed now?" Max asked, shuffling around the sheets until she was comfortable.

"Sure," Kat smiled gently, before flicking the light switch, the two girls slowly dipping into slumber.

━━author's note ━━

a mostly expositional first chapter for s3, but necessary for context!