Chapter 1
High school is kind of the worst, and that’s a dangerous thought coming from a girl who could literally shake it down around her ears if she wanted to. Not that she does—only… sometimes. Sometimes it feels like a really good idea, like when she has to pretend to fall when someone trips her, or to move slowly to pick up the books someone knocks out of her hands.
No, that’s not true. She never really wants to. There are far, far more lovely people here than there are cruel, and she just has to remember that when they’re hissing taunts into her ears that she can’t forget, when they whisper behind her back and her ears pick up the comments though she doesn’t want to.
Kara sighs heavily and reaches out for her last book. Before she can, someone else scoops it up and Kara’s shoulders slump. Super. They’re going to play keep-away with it now or something. She wonders if she should bother standing up or if she should just,
“Are you okay?”
The voice is soft, a little confused, and Kara blinks up at a girl who she thinks might be the girl angels are imagined from. She has the eyes, the hair, the perfect mouth.
Kara nods and hops up to her feet, holds her hand out for her book. The girl tilts her head and waits. When Kara just keeps her hand out, she gets a little laugh and then her book is handed to her and the girl walks away.
Kara doesn’t think she’ll see her again. Their highschool isn’t huge, but their classes have been settled for a month now and Kara thinks if she shared any classes with her she would have seen her before.
She knows she would have.
That’s not a girl that anyone can ignore. She knows, because boys and girls turn their heads to watch her walk by—no, saunter. No—stride, because that’s a girl who knows there is nothing in her way but if there were, she wouldn’t let it stop her. That’s a girl who plays, Kara thinks carefully about the right phrase, chicken with challenges. That’s a girl who has never flinched.
Kara’s heart doesn’t stop pounding until well into the afternoon.
“This is so lowbrow,” the girl says to her when she finds Kara trying to dry out her backpack in the girls bathroom. “Honestly, who bullies people?” Kara shrugs and turns away. She keeps an eye on her in the mirror and the girl notices. Kara knows she does because her red lips curve into a smile and she doesn’t let Kara’s silence get to her. She comes closer instead and leans against the sink right next to her, stares at her profile for a while before she speaks again. “Why do they do this to you?”
Kara frowns down at her bag, then glares at the girl, who shakes her head.
“That’s not what I meant. I mean, obviously you don’t deserve it, no one does.” She shrugs. “I didn’t mean anything, I guess.”
Kara snorts. This girls doesn’t say things she doesn’t mean—Kara is sure of that too. She tries to tell the girl she knows this about her with a small sideways glance, and for the first time with someone other than Alex, she thinks the girl understands, because her lips press flat tight and then she’s smiling, then grinning. And then, oh Rao. Then she’s laughing.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, you’re right, I need to know things. It’s a terrible habit, darling, very invasive.” She twists her hand expertly, like she’s swatting away a fly. Coupled with a roll of her eyes and a slightly affected drawl, Kara knows she’s mimicking someone. And someone she doesn’t like all that much.
She licks her lips.
The girl catches the movement, eyes darting down to her lips lightning fast. She twists so she’s facing Kara front on and lifts her eyebrows with an encouraging nod.
No, she can’t do it. Kara shrugs and presses the button for the dryer again. The rush of hot air is loud, the dryers are old. She still catches the girls sigh.
“Did a lot of your stuff get wet?” She’s still trying. Kara doesn’t understand why. “What’s thi—” She reaches for the notebook Kara has opened to dry on the bench and, very quickly, Kara catches her hand.
She lets her go just as fast, ducks her head.
“I'm sorry,” she hears her say quietly. “I shouldn’t pry. Like I said, bad habit.”
Kara shrugs.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?”
It takes a second to register, but the uplilt in the last word means a question, Kara remembers. She lifts her eyes and the girl is still standing there, waiting, so Kara nods. It earns her another smile, and for the second time in two weeks, Kara goes home, lays on her bed, and she draws someone of earth.
They don’t see each other the next day. Or, Kara doesn’t see her so she’s pretty sure that the girl doesn’t see her either.
Her name is Cat. Cat Grant. Everyone seems to be talking about her. Her mother is apparently a highly sought after editor, who rubs shoulders with the wealthy. Kara thinks that’s a strange activity, but she’s pretty sure she just doesn’t really understand.
“Eliza?” she asks at dinner that evening, and she focuses on her plate to make sure that she doesn’t overestimate the distance and break yet another plate. She wants desperately to advance to using the good plates, not the cheap plastic ones Eliza got in bulk at a warehouse out of town.
“Yes, Kara? Elbow off the table.”
“Sorry.” Kara smiles over at her, slips her elbow off the table. Alex puts her elbow on the table all the time, when it’s just them. But around Eliza, it’s not okay. With Jeremiah it was okay, but not when it was him and Eliza. There are a lot of rules, and exceptions, but this one she mostly gets right. Mostly. “What does… rubbing shoulders mean?” When Eliza tilts her head thoughtfully, Kara flushes. She must have got it wrong.
“What was the context? It could be sexual. What do you think, Alex?”
“I think please don’t ask me if things are sexual?” Alex shrugs. “I dunno.” Kara ducks her eyes back to her plate when Alex turns suddenly gleeful eyes on her. She waits until Eliza is eating again and then, under her breath, she whispers, “This is about this new girl, right?”
Kara glances to Eliza but she isn’t looking at them, she’s reading from some journal, so she nods.
“I’ll talk to you after dinner, if you want.”
Kara nods again.
They sneak away, unsuccessfully but Eliza lets them go because really they’re more trouble in the kitchen than she needs. Alex grabs Kara by the wrist and tugs her into their bedroom, jumps onto her bed.
“So, this rubbing shoulders thing. What was that about?”
“Her mother,” Kara tells her quietly. “She…rubs shoulders with the rich?”
“Oh. Yeah, that’s an expression. It means, did you want to get your notebook?” Alex suggests, and Kara ducks to pull it out from under her bed. “Cool. It’s like, hobnobbing. Do you remember that one?”
“Yes. So, she is of a lower social class but is accepted into the wealthy because of the nature of her job?”
Alex grins. “Yeah, basically. She’s an editor, right?” Kara nods. “Yeah. Rich folks love to think they know more than other people, think they’re more interesting and all that.” She shakes her head, snorts. “Can you imagine if they knew? My sister's an alien. That’s a pretty good name for a TV show, actually.”
Kara laughs at that. It’s funny, because if anyone really knew, they would all be in a lot of danger. So for Alex to suggest it is the joke. Alex is smiling at her in that soft kind of way she does when she knows Kara doesn’t fully understand something. She does that a lot.
She doesn’t recognise the way Alex’s face shifts again. She’s still smiling but it’s different somehow.
“You talk to her? Cat?” Alex comes over to sit next to her when Kara slowly shakes her head. She swings her feet for a minute before she holds out her hand. Kara gulps and then lays her hand over the top of it. When Alex nods, she curls her fingers gently. “Good.”
“Doesn’t hurt?”
“Not a bit. You can hold a bit tighter.” Kara does, and Alex nods. “Really good, Kara. You’re doing way better.”
“Thanks.”
“But like, you’re not talking to her?” Kara keeps her hand gentle. “Are you talking to anyone?”
Kara hunches her shoulders. Shakes her head no.
“You know you’ve got to. You know that, right?”
“They already think I’m weird. I talk weird and I don’t know the things other people know.”
“Hey, you’ll get there. But you’ve got to try.” She nudges Kara’s shoulder with hers. “Maybe you could try with Cat? She seems nice.”
“She…” Kara frowns down at her feet. Something stops her from telling Alex about her unflappable curiosity, The way Cat watches her like she knows she’s something different. “She is,” she tells Alex instead, because she’d picked up a book for Kara and she speaks to her kindly when no one else does. “What do I say?”
“How about you start with hello?”
There are patterns to everything, if one cares to look. Some of them are wild and beautiful—the new life that crops up in spring, the birds flying overhead, the waves that shiver their way higher up the beach in their tides. Some of them are so very human—the traffic lights, the clatter of businesses opening a minute before eight weekday mornings, the way Alex taps her spoon in the same rhythm, always the same rhythm, against her bowl.
After Johnny Branson goes to his father's every second weekend, he gets meaner. He tries his best to trip her and she has to fall every time because she hasn’t quite learned yet how to fake a stumble and she really doesn’t want to break his foot. One of his favourite things to do is throw her bag into the garbage. It only takes a second, but the smell of trash follows her around for the rest of the day and, if she’s particularly unlucky, the rest of the week if it lands in something really gross.
“Morning, Danvers.”
Kara tightens her hold on her backpack and lowers her eyes to the ground.
“Aren’t you gonna say good morning? That’s really rude.” He grabs at her bag and she rocks back on her feet. He stumbles—which she knows he doesn’t like and she resigns herself to him yanking at her bag more forcefully.
“What the fuck is going on here? Shove off, Branson.”
Cat is all of five foot but she shoves in between Kara and Johnny, stares up at him with sharp eyes and a sharp chin raised in challenge.
“Ah leave off, Cat. She’s just some little—”
“Don’t you finish that sentence! Don’t you dare.” His mouth clicks closed and he looks from Kara to Cat and back again before he shrugs, spreads his hands.
“Whatever. See you round, Danvers.”
Kara waves goodbye because that’s what you do when someone says goodbye—except when they’re being rude, she remembers, because Alex has told her that and she glares at her hand and shoves it into her pocket. Then someone—Cat—snorts and Kara darts a quick look her way.
“Did you…wave goodbye?”
Kara grins sheepishly at her shoes, nods.
“Were you being rude or polite? Because if it were me, I’d say rude and I would love it, but,” Cat narrows her eyes at Kara. “You’re sweet and cute so I’m guessing you’re just that polite.” Cat’s smile grows when Kara flushes right to the tips of her ears. “I knew it. That’s adorable.” She reaches out and hooks her arm around Kara’s, tugs her down the hall. Kara doesn’t shift at all and Cat blinks at her, surprised. When Kara lets her body melt to follow the girl, Cat looks even more intrigued but she doesn’t comment on it. “Where are you headed, Danvers?”
Kara holds out her first notebook, with math written in the top right corner.
“And where is that?”
Kara flips to the first page, with the time and the room number written on it, and Cat’s smile sticks but her eyes, they dance.
“You really are prepared for everything, aren’t you?” she asks her softly. The other students part around them. Kara doesn’t really notice—Cat Grant’s hand is on her arm and she’s looking at her like she’s… well, Kara doesn’t quite know. Interesting, maybe. “So you don’t have to speak?”
Kara nods.
“Why is that?”
Kara licks her lips. Cat definitely notices and they stop at the door of Kara’s classroom. Cat leans in, eagerly waiting her answer. The words stick in Kara’s throat—she hasn’t spoken at school in weeks, at least, and it feels strange—and before she can say anything, the bell starts to ring. She jumps, head darting down in vain to avoid the sound. She thinks she’ll never get used to it.
“Danvers! Take your seat,” her teacher calls, and Kara nods. Looks apologetically to Cat.
“Saved by the bell, Danvers,” she tells her, and Kara goes to hide her smile. But, then she lifts her chin—Cat had done it for her, to a bully twice her size—and she lets the way Cat makes her feel, a little scared, a little confused, but mostly heart-thumpingly happy, show on her face.
Cat’s eyes widen and there is nothing Kara can do to avoid hearing the way her heart trips into a faster pace.
“See you tomorrow, Danvers,” Cat says. Kara can still hear her heart thumping a little too fast so she’s impressed with how steady her voice is.
“Danvers. Take a seat,” her teacher insists, and Kara nods to him. When she turns back to Cat, the hall is empty.
Kara finds her in the park. She hesitates before making her way over, because it’s a Sunday and they aren’t at school and maybe it’s not appropriate to talk to her. But when she runs through the big rules Alex and Eliza have taught her, this doesn’t break any of them.
So, she looks both ways and then crosses the street at a slow jog. She waves to the bakery owners, who try to tempt her with the smell of fresh bread and she, achingly, has to shake her head no.
There is, for the first time ever, something more important than fresh warm bread.
Kara stands next to her quietly and waits for Cat to look up.
“Oh holy Jesus,” Cat gasps, when she finally does. “God, you walk like a ghost.” Kara smiles down at her and then crouches down next to her. “Yeah,” Cat nods when Kara gestures to her leg. “I rolled my ankle jogging. The stupid path is made of little pebbles. Who does that?”
Kara shrugs. She isn’t familiar with the city civil engineers. She could find out, but she thinks it might just be another expression.
“What are you doing up so early?” Cat continues. Kara jerks her thumb over her shoulder to the bakery and Cat nods. “Of course. Any good?” The enthusiastic nod she gets in response makes her laugh. She shifts a little and winces. Kara points down to her leg again and Cat shrugs. “I don’t know what you want. To touch it? Danvers, you gotta buy a girl dinner before you go touching her leg. You know that, right?” When Kara stares at her, Cat sighs. “Sure, go for it. I called my mom but she didn’t pick up so it’s not like I’m going anywhere for a while.”
Kara hums quietly, a sympathetic noise, and she moves down to kneel next to Cat’s ankle.
“You can speak, can’t you?” Cat muses. She winces a little when Kara very, very gently presses against her ankle. She knows she was being gentle, which means that Cat is actually hurt. Kara lets her glasses slide down her nose a short way and scans her ankle as fast as she can. Nothing looks fractured—and she’s poured over a lot of medical journals, so she’s, like…ninety seven per cent sure it’s not fractured. “Sometimes I see you murmuring stuff. Between classes. When you’re sitting under the tree?”
Kara looks up at her, wide eyed.
“Not that I’ve been staring at you,” Cat clarifies quickly, and her heart picks up again. Kara thinks maybe she’s lying and she can’t help but grin. “Hey, no, I’m serious, I’ve just been a bit curious because people are weirdly awful to you and you’re so nice and you don’t talk to anyone and I,” she blows her breath out, annoyed but not really annoyed by the silent laugh that shakes Kara’s shoulders. “I like stories. And I get the feeling that your story is something exceptional.”
Kara eases Cat’s foot back down onto the ground. She stands, holds out her hands, and helps Cat to her feet. Then, she sweeps her up into her arms and carries her—though she squawks her surprise first—back to Eliza’s car.
“Kara, did you get the paper? I’m—Oh. Good morning.”
“Morning, Mrs Danvers.” Kara lowers Cat so she can talk to Eliza through the car window. “I rolled my ankle. Kara, um,” Cat flushes a little and seems frankly amazed that Kara is holding her so easily. Even if Cat is small, Kara isn’t exactly big. “Carried me.”
“I can see that,” Eliza says in that tone that lets Kara know she’s made a mistake. Not a big one, but a mistake. “Why don’t you help Cat into the car, Kara? We can drive you home once we get the groceries. Do you need anything, dear?” she asks, and talks to distract Cat from the ease with which Kara sets Cat down and picks her up again, literally placing her in the car and buckling her up. She tests the seatbelt and Cat laughs.
“I can do that, Kara. Thanks.”
Kara darts a look to Eliza and flushes red, nodding.
“Why don’t you go get the groceries, Kara? I’ll talk with Cat.”
Kara knows it’s code for a very mild interrogation, to see how much they’ll need to cover for whatever kKara’s messed up this time. She hopes Eliza doesn’t stop her from seeing cat. She makes her feel… happy. And so many other things besides.
“So, your mom is a bit intense,” Cat says when Kara carries her up to her bedroom with strict instructions from Eliza to get ice from the freezer and a water bottle and make a sandwich for Cat so she won’t have to move around much on her sore ankle. Kara takes each instruction with a nod, and lifts Cat with such ease. She barely even notices when Cat gasps and clings to her shoulders. Eliza does, though, and she shakes her head, grins down at her phone.
She’s not deaf, or blind. She knows her daughters have been talking a lot about this new girl. Especially her youngest daughter.
Kara nudges the front door open, and then closed.
“I can get up the stairs myself, I think,” Cat mutters, but she doesn’t sound too sure so Kara shrugs and carries her up the steps. Cat lets out a little “Huh” and then just points to her bedroom. Kara eases her down onto her large bed and steps away.
Cat looks a little dazed and she takes a moment to adjust herself, wincing when she jostles her foot.
“You know, I really don’t need any of that stuff,” Cat tells her when she’s settled. "The ice or the sandwich. Any of that. I’m fine.”
Kara shrugs. It’s her house, but Eliza is the boss. And she’s also a doctor and Cat is a teenager, so Eliza knows best. She tries to convey that with a firm shake of her head and turns to jog downstairs to prep everything.
“Great,” she hears Cat mutter up to her roof. “She’s going to come back with two sandwiches, isn’t she. She’s so nice,” Cat groans, and Kara can’t help but laugh.
She unpacks the bag of groceries Eliza said she could get for Cat and she’s glad, because the fridge is basically empty. She remembers what Cat said about her mother not answering when she called and she has to let go of the fridge door quickly before it dents under her hand.
It’s short work to put together a little platter. Two sandwiches, to make Cat laugh, and some nice fruit. A few biscuits and a peach, because they’re sweet and she thinks Cat will like it. A cool bottle of water. She finds a fly protector in a drawer when she sweeps the kitchen with her eyes, not wanting to bang and rattle through every drawer and cupboard, and she hurries to carry it all up to Cat, who has made herself more comfortable on her bed. Kara notes with approval the pillow propped under Cat's ankle and nods.
She slides the tray onto the bedside table, glances down at it and raises her eyebrows at Cat, who smiles.
“It’s great, thank you.”
She looks tired, and her face is a bit tight with pain. The ice, Kara remembers, and she holds up one finger before darting out Cat’s bedroom door. There are no ice cubes, so she fills up a tray and, with a guilty look toward the front door where Eliza is waiting outside, she freezes a few trays with her breath and tips them into a small plastic bag, which she runs back up to Cat.
That’s all she needs to do, and Cat looks like she just wants to rest, but Kara feels like something is missing.
And okay, she knows what it is but it’s hard to just come out and do it.
Cat starts to look at her oddly when Kara has been standing next to her for a full minute, maybe more.
“I really don’t need anymore help,” she tells Kara. “I’m fine.”
Kara nods. That’s a dismissal, she knows it. Last chance.
Be brave.
“I will see you tomorrow, Cat?”
She knows people find her voice strange—she knows she sounds too careful, that her voice doesn’t sound quite like everyone else. She knows her accent is strange, that the words never sound exactly as they should. But Cat, Cat feels like someone she can trust. Someone like Alex, who will be patient with her. Someone new and different entirely, who will find her strange, perhaps, but not think it a bad thing.
Cat just stares at her for a long minute and, with a sinking heart, Kara is sure that she was wrong.
She turns away.
“You know my name,” Cat says. “I didn’t think you knew my name.”
Kara turns back. “You…” she hesitates, feeling a little nervous admitting it but Cat had so, “weren’t the only one to pay attention.” She hadn’t noticed Cat at lunch, she usually takes the time to listen to people’s conversations and try to understand them, but she had noticed her at other times. “I find you exceptional as well.”
Cat leans back against her pillows slowly, smile growing. “Well. Alright then,” she says softly. “I'll see you at school then, Danvers.”
“Until then, Cat,” she says back and she has to remind her feet to touch the floor as she makes her way out of Cat’s home.