The date was supposed to consist of watching one of Cat’s favorite movies while eating ice cream and chatting in the chat box beside the movie. But Cat didn’t go to the 24-hour convenience store for her ice cream, and instead ran straight to her dorm room to turn on her laptop. She was twenty minutes late by the time she managed to log onto the web site, and PumpkinKing’s little green light beside his name sprinkled a fresh feeling of shame on the side stitch that appeared from her impromptu run in inappropriate clothes and shoes.
Hey, so sorry for being late! she typed the minute her internet browser let her interact with it.
Np. I just beat the computer at Chess three times in a row. Oh, God, she didn’t deserve someone as nice as him to be interested in her. Cat struggled to steady her heart.
Did you take it off of tutorial mode?
Isn’t it enough that I won? Every laugh he got from her just made her feel more guilty. How could she even begin to navigate what just happened?
It turned out that Cat’s favorite movie wasn’t on Netflix, but PumpkinKing had a nifty trick with some sort of VPN app. After a quick Google search to find out which countries had Finding Nemo in their Netflix libraries, PumpkinKing declared himself as visiting Norway and pulled the title right up. She kept typing, Never mind, it doesn’t matter. It’s not worth it anyway, but he insisted in putting in all of that effort for some stupid animated movie they’d both seen a dozen times.
Are you really that into the movie or are you a little distracted? PumpkinKing asked by the time Darla was introduced into the scene. Cat sighed at her computer. She kept taking too long replying to his jokes; she was so far in her head, she hardly registered that her favorite character was on-screen.
I’m a little distracted, she admitted.
Making plans for Spring Break? Oh yeah, that was coming up. But she only got to fully take advantage of half of it due to work, and with her next pre-calc midterm right beforehand, she wasn’t looking forward to it as much as everyone else. If only those were the only concerns floating around her brain right now.
It’ll be nice to visit my family, she typed absent-mindedly. Did she want to bring this up to him right now? On their date? She couldn’t determine whether she was obsessively thinking about how she nearly kissed Peter out of guilt or--well, it must have been guilt.
She was just caught in the moment, back at the tutoring center. It could have happened to anyone, with anyone, and it almost happened with Peter because he was there. It almost happened Halloween, when they were drunk and just got too close, and his shirt was slightly open, with his cuffs rolled up--Cat smacked her forehead with her hand, snapping the thoughts away.
This wasn’t working. When she was anywhere else, her mind couldn’t settle on anything that didn’t have to do with PumpkinKing. She thought of him constantly, his sarcasm, his weirdly specific knowledge about the human body and the physical world around them. But now when she finally had dedicated time to him, Peter’s stupid face kept interrupting her. It was frustrating. And Pumpkin could tell her fuse was short tonight.
Her date with PumpkinKing ended unremarkably. They hadn’t even set a time for a new one, just promised to connect later. Pumpkin wasn’t sure if he worked next week or not; apparently the upcoming Spring Break made everything really weird for his schedule, too. Or maybe he was bored with her and her weird answers and distant replies were grating to him and all the charm of a new fling dissolved, and she’d ruined everything, and--
“Hi, Kitty-Cat!” Hannah announced when she returned from hanging out with Kelsey. “How was your date?” Cat still sat at her desk, and let her laptop snap shut loudly, with finality. God, her stomach hurt. “Oh no….” Cat flinched.
“No, no--it wasn’t...it wasn’t bad. I’m just….” Cat hadn’t even turned around yet, just let her face rest in her hands as Hannah settled into their dorm.
“Self-sabotaging?” her roommate guessed in a sing-song voice. Hm. Maybe that was it. The way she couldn’t get Peter out of her head--maybe she was just distracting herself from Pumpkin because her feelings were growing for him, and the risk of meeting him was still too great. This had to be it: the butterflies in her stomach at the thought of him were scaring her.
“Maybe,” Cat answered after a while. But even if that’s what these thoughts were, the repetitive images of Peter’s soft lips, or the scent of his laundry detergent and chlorine--it didn’t account for his behavior. This rubber-banding between aggression and this tender edge to his voice when he said her name…. Cat ignored whatever Hannah’s question was and whirled around to face her, her lips pursed.
“You’re a detective,” she said before she could talk herself out of asking for help. Hannah’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.
“I’m on it! What’s his screen name, what’s his major?” Immediately, Hannah started to dig into her bag for her phone, but Cat stopped her.
“No, not--not about this guy.” Cat pointed back to her laptop, her thoughts already miles away.
“Wait, what?”
“I--I’m trying to….” Now that she looked at her roommate’s face, her resolve wavered. Hannah’s eyebrow arched.
“Pick at your fingers any harder and you’ll ruin your manicure,” Hannah noted, gesturing. Cat flinched and looked down to her hands before she carefully maneuvered her hands to sit still under her legs.
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“I need help figuring out Peter,” she blurted before her stomach could solidify into ice. Her roommate made a choking sound. “He’s--”
“What did you guys fight about this time?” Her voice was taut with annoyance, but Cat didn’t reply. “Or you didn’t? And that’s confusing you?” God, what words to use….
“I--he--I’m just trying to figure out if he….” If he what? If he was obsessing over every little movement she made like she was, him? If he was sitting in his dorm, punishing himself for having stupid, invasive thoughts?
“What, he’s acting weird or something?” Weird. Heh.
“Well--”
“What was the last thing you did?” Uh, nothing she was willing to tell her loud-mouthed roommate, that was for sure! “Before he started acting weird?”
A slow sigh escaped her lips. Maybe that’s all this was. Maybe this was just a reaction to…. “I told Thomas so he would rescind his Tribunal request for Peter.”
"Oh.”
“But--” Cat interrupted her own thoughts, shaking her head, “this--this started before that.”
“What’s--what is ‘this’, exactly?” The tight breaths, the voice inflections, the way his gaze softened. Cat ran a hand down her face.
“Um--”
“Cat?”
“Uhhh--”
"What?”
“He’s just been--” Cat’s voice came out muffled through her hand. “He’s just looking at me differently, is all.” Though she couldn’t even convince herself of that. That’s all, hah.
“Hm,” came Hannah’s curt reply. “So you want me to, like, pay attention to him more or something?”
“I, um…. I just want to see if it’s in my head or not.” That wasn’t really it. But Hannah was a detective at heart, so she would notice anything and everything if she just wanted to look at all. Maybe that was enough.
“Okay.” Hannah shrugged, as if it was nothing. And hopefully it wasn’t.
----------------------------------------
Lunch the next day was the first time everyone was reunited in over a week. Cam returned to his usual, joyous self, exuberant, complete now that he was able to swim again. Kelsey, too, was in a good mood, so it was hard not to smile at all the stupid jokes she and Cam kept making. Hannah’s only indication that she was going to do what Cat asked was a single wink before they’d all sat down together.
At first, she couldn’t get her shoulders to relax. She sat with Cam between her and Peter, and Kelsey on her other side, just as a buffer. Peter was a little tense, but otherwise the same as every other time. He kept looking at his phone--more than usual--though.
Until he finally got up to answer it in a very similar fashion to how he did all the time last semester. The group frowned at one another.
“How much worse could it get for him?” Kelsey asked after a moment of silence. Cat hardly gestured for her to elaborate. “Kicked out, disowned, not allowed to see his brother--what other bad news could he possibly get?”
“Don’t jinx him,” Cam muttered when Peter returned. He lowered himself with a dejected sigh, but wasn’t immune to the curiosity the group looked to him with.
“Last-ditch effort from my lawyer to let me talk to Oscar,” he explained with a flat tone. “Didn’t work.”
“How can your step-dad stop you from talking to your own brother?” Hannah’s voice had sympathy laced in his skepticism. “That sounds illegal.”
“He controls the phones and Internet. He’s got access to everything Oscar has, every online profile, email, all that. Every time I try to get a message to him, I get a notification I’ve been blocked.” Peter let his hand drop down onto the table, thudding loudly. “Short of showing up to the house and getting arrested for trespassing, I don’t know what to do. I’m blocked everywhere.”
“Then don’t be you,” Cat said flatly. Why was he being such an idiot? Though he didn’t have someone like PumpkinKing, teaching him the ways of pretending to be someone else, making fake emails and using a VPN to fake being in Norway.
“What?” Peter’s patience was thin, she could tell from his voice. They hadn’t actually looked at each other at all since lunch started, but this time, she glanced up to him. His confusion made her roll her eyes.
“Make a fake Facebook profile and pretend to be someone else.” The table fell silent.
“Are you suggesting I catfish my brother?” She expected him to reject the idea immediately, but his tone had an edge to it, like he was considering it.
Cam let out an obnoxious laugh. “Go get a stock photo of an underwear model and disappoint him when he learns it’s you!” The girls laughed, but Cat shrugged.
“I mean, if he’s that gullible, there’s your in.” She stabbed her unusually flat Caesar salad.
Peter’s energy shifted. “He’s not….” She could almost hear a but coming.
“Oh! Use one of our profiles!” Hannah bubbled up in her seat, eyes lit with ideas. “I can give you my password!”
“But we’re Facebook friends. I don’t think that would fly.”
“You’re not friends with everyone,” said Hannah. Cat didn’t have to look up from her salad to know that everyone was staring at her now.
She shook her head. “I’m not giving you my Facebook password.” She hardly used it, anyway. And give Peter access to all her logged conversations with her exes and her family? No, thank you.
“Okay, fake profile,” Hannah continued. “Just use Cat’s face.”
“Hah!” Cameron burst. ”Cat-fishing! With Cat!” While Kelsey and Peter laughed at the pun, Cat looked up to her roommate, frowning.
“Why would a seventeen-year-old boy accept a random friend request from some random college chi--” Cat stopped talking before she could sound any stupider, and sighed. “Why me? Use Hannah.”
“Hannah is all over my Facebook page,” Peter said. She could feel his gaze on her, but she didn’t look at him. “Kelsey, too.”
“I’ve got it,” Hannah announced with a higher tone than usual. “We’ll use some of your pictures, friend some of Oscar’s Facebook friends, build a fake profile, and bam!” Cat scowled.
“Just not my name or anything,” she muttered. Even if she said no to this stupid idea, they could just steal her pictures.
“Catrina!” Hannah announced. “Catrina Rose!”
“That’s a porn name. You’re not using my picture with a porn name.”
“Catrina Rose...F...ere...day? Catrina Rose Fereday. And a picture of you with a little bit of cleavage? Come on.” Cat shrunk in on herself.
“Oh! That black and red dress that you have!” Kelsey piped up, raising a finger. “That’s such a cute look.” Wait, what?
Cameron gasped. “Oh, say you’re into soccer, too! Then he’ll definitely want to talk to you!”
Cat stared at him, eyes wide. ”I’m not catfishing Oscar. Peter is.” Even though she pointed to him, Hannah and Kelsey started to talk over each other with other ideas:
“And I can get my little sister to get her friends to friend you, too, so that the profile looks super legit--”
“Omigod, we could do, like, a little photoshoot, to make it look like the page has been up longer than just now!”
“We can go to that little park over by the beach--”
Cat tried to interrupt the growing lists of ideas, waving her hands to try and quiet her friends. “Do I get any say in this?”
Hannah started to slap the table in the same way she did whenever she got too stuck on a stupid idea of hers.
“Are you going to keep the two brothers separate?” She was positively glowing, antsy. Cat sighed.
“I--no…. But why do we need a whole photoshoot--?”
“Because it’s fun! Come on!” But when Cat looked to Hannah, there was an extra glint in her eye. Mischievous.
Good lord.