33 Apocalypse Ave, Monday Morning

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When Kathy had woken up as herself on Sunday, there'd been a letter waiting for her--a letter she'd remembered writing the night before and six years younger.

Dear Kathy,

Thanks for letting me use my room during my stay. I don't think I'll have a chance to meet you, I'm leaving pretty early tomorrow to make it back home. But even if I didn't get to meet you, I still feel like I got to know you some this week. You sound really cool and smart and popular. Everyone was really nice to me and I think it's because I reminded them a little bit of you. I think that's cool, I wouldn't mind being like you when I grow up.

This might be weird, but do you think I could maybe email you sometimes for advice? Nothing major just--you have your whole life together and I'm a mess. It would be nice to have someone to talk to sometimes. But that's probably weird, sorry. You don't have to!

But if you do, you can email me at gymnastflower01@yahoo.com.

Thanks again,
Kathy Li

P.S. You really, really don't have to if you don't want to!

Kathy had read that letter a number of times over the last day, smiling at the old email address she'd used faithfully for years--hell, her original Tumblr handle had been GymnastFlower--and awash in nostalgia. On the one hand, no wonder Sparkle had nicknamed her Mouse; it felt like all she'd done as a kid was apologize to people and blush. On the other hand, it was interesting to see her life now through the eyes of herself then. She'd laugh herself silly if someone told her that she had her life together, but she could see where her younger self had gotten that idea.

If nothing else, it put some things into perspective, which was sometimes hard to come by these days.

[Open for visitors and calls, but with the caveat of 'after I wake up again!']

Comments

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"How could I?" Kathy asked. "Like I said, it wasn't hitting or anything you'd see on an after-school special. They were strict, because they had high standards. They made me feel bad, but it was my fault for disappointing them. And I was always quiet and respectful and polite, so whatever they were doing was clearly okay as far as my teachers and coaches went. It's not like I had any friends to tell me it was weird before Fandom."

Not everything had been okay. That arctic chill whenever her dad ignored her until she'd cried, desperate for acknowledgement had felt wrong. But the first thing she'd learned was to doubt herself. It was punishment, of course she wasn't supposed to like it, dummy.

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"Shoulda told someone they were doing that," Dante said. Then he sighed. "Not that you knew to, I guess."

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Kathy frowned. "It just feel so petty, complaining to you about this. My parents sucked and my life was sometimes sad. But yours..."

Well, he knew how fucked up his childhood had been.

"I know, that's not how things work, but..." She shrugged. "I feel like I'm feeling sorry for myself or something. Because, like, I'm okay. I didn't wake up in a welter of trauma or anything."

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"You're not feeling sorry for yourself," Dante said, poking her gently in the side. "I brought it up."

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Kathy caught his hand before he could move it away again and brought it up for a grateful kiss. "I just worry I go to far into The Tragedy of Kathy Li or something," she said. "Like, I make it sound all dreary and awful when it really wasn't."

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"You didn't think any of that shit was bad," Dante reminded her.

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"Well, true, but...there were also trips to Disney and Korea," she said, settling in with her head on his shoulder and arm around his waist. "Visits to Venice Beach when it was almost too hot to move. Dad helping me with my math homework in sixth grade and mom doing my makeup for my eighth grade grad. And Sarah, even at her pestiest."

Her voice fell a little, quiet and soft and contemplative. "Decorating the tree every year with a million decorations. One year we got a bunch of wooden ones that we got to paint ourselves and hang up, and we had a bunch that we brought home from Korea one year that had been in the family for years. And Sarah and I got a new ornament in our stockings every year that we'd hang up before we opened our presents...It's hard thinking of my childhood as bad when there are such good moments in them, too."

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"Good shit is how they get you swallowing the bad," Dante murmured. "'S how the demons fucked up with me."

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Kathy made an inquisitive noise in her throat, curious, but not wanting to push if he'd rather not get into it.

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"They played pretend with the kids some of the time," Dante said, after a pause. "Not with me, I could see 'em."

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"So you never got that kindness that would let you overlook the cruelty," Kathy murmured. "Or the hope that if you did everything right, that this time, the good would stay."

She kissed him, soft and caring, realizing that had she been one of the children at St. Lamia's, she probably would have been dead, too, believing that maybe the good was enough to make up for the bad.

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"So I got people trying to convince me I was crazy instead," Dante said, kissing her again. "Next best thing, right?"

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"Oh, absolutely," Kathy said, voice full of irony. "Because if they can't fool your senses, the next thing to do is to make you doubt them."

And suddenly a hundred conversations where she'd been called oversensitive, melodramatic, imagining things, making too much of stuff, and flat-out gaslit fell into place.

"...Oh."

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"...Oh?" Dante echoed.

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"That thing about making you doubt yourself," she admitted. "I, uhh, do that a lot. You might have noticed."

You know. Maybe.

"And I'm just realizing how much of my whole life I was taught to do that, to believe that I was an unreliable narrator for my own life."

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Dante nodded slowly. He pressed a kiss to her temple. "Yeah."

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It was a shitty thing to realize and unlike the rest of the conversation this morning, it hurt. But it was what it was and she'd been hurt before. She'd get over it and figure out how to slot this information into her understanding of the world.

"You'd never do that to me," she said, shoving her pain away. It was a statement, because she knew him and he would never. Dante was harsh and blunt and hated bullshit. That wasn't his way of fighting.

Maybe that was why she'd fallen for him.

It was a statement, yes, but far beneath it, maybe even too far for him to notice, it was a plea, too. Because she couldn't handle this realization twice. Not from him.

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"Fuck no," Dante said, more fiercely than he'd planned. "Not ever."

He knew what that did to you.

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"I won't either," Kathy promised. "Not ever."

It didn't matter that he probably already knew. It didn't matter that he'd probably never even worried about it. She still wanted to make that promise.

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"I know," Dante said.

But when he kissed her, it was soft.

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A year ago, Kathy would have only heard the abrupt 'I know' and worried. Now she felt the way he kissed her and understood what he'd left unsaid.

But still communicated, so long as she paid attention.

So she kissed him back, just as softly, but clung his hands like she'd never let them go.

He wasn't the only one who could (sometimes) speak without words.

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Dante smiled into the kiss eventually, and ran his fingers through her hair.

Anders had a habit of making him feel safe where nobody else could. Kathy made him feel like he was a safe place... and that was nice, too.

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"At least tiny-me thinks I'm cool," Kathy said when the kiss finally broke. She sat back, reaching for the note she'd written to herself. She handed it over to him. "Probably because you broke her brain with the thing about two boyfriends. Either way, thank you for not breaking the illusion."

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Dante smiled a little. "She definitely seemed to look up to big you," he said, as he took the note.

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"Which is weird to think about on several levels," Kathy noted. "I wish there was a way I could write advice to my younger self. I'd be able to avoid so many stupid mistakes."

Which then would run of the risk of not being here, though.