No matter how much she wanted to work on what paid her bills, she couldn’t get her brain to cooperate. Instead, it simply remained locked on this, on things that came to her as she slept.
She recalled her father’s cruel laugh when she’d shown him the first piece of art she’d made money from, a painting entered into a contest when she was a freshman in high school. He’d told her there was no future in such things, that she needed to wake up and act like an adult.
Kat rubbed her chest when the ache there reminded her that she hadn’t called her parents since the attack.
Not that she thought they’d care much, beyond telling her her own actions had probably led to the whole thing. Instead, it was a passage of time, a reminder that she normally tried to call every other week to help alleviate her of any guilt and yet had let nearly a month pass in silence.
After putting the final stroke to her painting, she set the brush into the water and reached for her phone.
Her mother answered on the fourth ring, just as Kat had started to think she might just get away with leaving a voicemail.
Leave it to her parents to give her hope, then dash it all. It was pretty on-brand for them.
“Hello?” Her mother, Elizabeth, answered with the cultured accent of a woman who spent most of her childhood traveling through Europe.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Katherine.” The name burned the way it always did, a relic of the woman her parents had wanted her to become.
“It’s Kat,” she said despite the fact she’d told them that time and time again.
“Kat is the sort of name homeless trash uses. I gave you the name Katherine and that is what I intend to use.” Her mother gave no room for argument or discussion on the topic—she never did. There were no discussions to be had with Kat’s parents. They gave orders and expected them to be followed.
Which was exactly why Kat had always been the odd man out in a family of overachievers.
“How is everyone?”
“Fine.”
Kat nibbled at her bottom lip as she wondered yet again why she even bothered with the call.
Because they’ll be gone eventually and you’ll feel guilty if you don’t reach out.
And, even though Kat never wanted to admit it, she craved some connection with them. No matter how pointless it was, no matter if it would just hurt her in the end, Kat still wanted the people she loved to love her back.
Pathetic.
“Is Dad home?”
“No. He’s at a conference in New York this week.” And there it was, another barb, another piece of proof of how wonderfully successful their family was—at least until Kat.
Every one of her siblings had become the heads in their fields. Her father ran a large company that oversaw numerous newspapers, her mother an author, her older sister a physicist and her younger brother headed the department of sociology for a prestigious university.
Then there was Kat, the fuck-up who sold cute cartoons on the internet.
She let out a sigh at the knowledge that she would never fit in no matter how hard she tried.
“The reunion is next month. Do you know the date?”
“Yes,” her mother said, her tone curt. “The plan is to hold it the last Sunday of the month.”
There was no invitation, no time. Again, Kat could have let it go.
Instead, as much as she hated herself for it, she asked in a small voice, “What time?”
“We will sit down to eat at three.”
“Can I bring anything?”