Chapter 52 Katy's Terms
POV: Carly
She made it back to Degrassi Hall in ten minutes flat.
Head down. Pace steady. Pajamas and damp hair and last night's jacket and she did not make eye contact with a single person she passed which was easy because most of the campus was still mostly empty at this hour and she was very motivated.
She reached her floor. Corridor empty. Good.
She reached her door. She stood outside it for exactly three seconds composing herself.
Then she turned the handle and walked in as quietly as she could and closed the door behind her and turned around.
Katy was sitting on her bed with a coffee mug in both hands and a smirk on her face like she had been waiting for exactly this.
Carly yelped.
"Morning sunshine." Katy said pleasantly.
Carly pressed her hand to her chest. "What is wrong with you. You nearly gave me a heart attack."
"Maybe." Katy said. "Where have you been."
"None of your business." Carly said automatically.
"Mhmm." Katy took a sip from her mug. "Whitney was looking for you this morning. Your running thing. She was quite frantic about it actually."
Carly's stomach dropped.
Their morning run. She had completely forgotten about their morning run.
"What did you tell her." She said carefully.
Katy's eyebrow arched. "What did I tell her." She repeated thoughtfully. "Well. I told her you weren't feeling well and had taken some medicine and gone back to sleep early and asked me specifically not to wake you."
Carly stared at her.
"You covered for me." She said.
"I did." Katy said pleasantly.
Carly crossed her arms. "Why."
Katy set her mug down on the nightstand and folded her hands in her lap with the expression of someone who had been looking forward to this part.
"Because." She said. "I figured if I did, you'd feel somewhat obligated to tell me where you actually were."
There it was.
Carly leaned against the door. "That's blackmail."
"It's an exchange." Katy said. "More civilized."
"It really isn't." Carly said.
Katy shrugged one shoulder. "I'm a light sleeper. With excellent hearing. And I've been smelling a certain Monroeson on you for weeks." She tilted her head. "Last night was just the confirmation."
Carly stared at the ceiling briefly.
"You heard us." She said.
"Bits." Katy said. "Enough."
Carly pushed off the door and walked to her own bed and sat down on the edge of it and looked at her hands.
She thought about everything she was carrying. All of it. Weeks of it. Tommy and her coven and her mother and the rules she had been breaking one at a time and the feelings she had been trying to outrun and the boy she had woken up next to this morning who had looked at her like she was something worth rearranging his whole life for.
She was so tired of carrying it alone.
She looked up at Katy.
The brunette was watching her with that expression that looked like boredom but Carly had started to learn was actually something closer to attention. Real attention. The kind that did not announce itself.
She exhaled slowly.
"Fine." She said. "Yes. I was with Niko. I stayed with him all night. I just got back this morning." She held Katy's gaze. "Are you happy."
Katy's smirk widened.
"And what did you do." She said.
Carly felt the heat in her face. "That is not your business."
"Ooh." Katy said. "Touchy. It was that good huh."
"Katy."
"I told you." She said with deep satisfaction. "Vampires. Skillful hands. I told you this from the beginning."
"I'm not confirming or denying anything about skillful hands." Carly said.
Katy looked extremely pleased with herself.
Carly pointed at her. "I need you to keep this to yourself. That is the condition of me telling you anything."
"Obviously." Katy said.
"I mean it. Not a word. Not to anyone. Not even other vampires."
"Carly." Katy said. "Who am I going to tell. I have approximately two friends at this school and one of them is you, against both our better judgments."
Carly blinked. "I'm your friend?"
Katy picked her mug back up. "Don't make it weird."
Carly pressed her lips together.
She looked at her hands again. Then at the window. Then back at Katy who was watching her over the rim of her mug with those dark eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
She took a breath.
And then she said it.
All of it.
From the beginning. The project and the first dinner and the wall and the festival and the almost kiss and the church and the grass and the classroom and the argument and all the pushing away and the pulling back and last night and this morning and waking up next to him and the feeling of it that she had not been able to put down since she opened her eyes.
She said I like him and meant it and heard herself mean it and felt it settle into the room between them as something real that could not be taken back.
Katy did not interrupt.
Did not smirk. Did not wiggle her eyebrow or make a comment. Just sat there and listened with her mug in her hands and let Carly get through all of it without once making her feel like she was being ridiculous.
When it was done Carly sat on the edge of her bed feeling about twenty pounds lighter and slightly terrified at how much she had just said out loud to a person she had wanted to remove from her room two months ago.
Katy was quiet for a moment.
"That was some speech." She said finally.
Carly laughed. Short and slightly broken. "I know."
"You really like him." Katy said. Not teasing. Just saying it.
Carly nodded slowly. "Yeah." She said. "I really do."
Katy looked at her for a moment.
"And you haven't told him. In those exact words."
"Not yet." Carly said.
"Hm." Katy turned her mug between her hands thoughtfully. "Interesting."
Carly looked at her. "What."
"Nothing." Katy said. "Just. You kept something that big to yourself for that long and the first person you actually said it to is me." She paused. "Of all people."
"I know." Carly said.
"You need better options." Katy said.
"I know that too." Carly said.
They sat in the quiet of the room for a moment. The morning light was coming through properly now and Whitney's bed was empty and made and somewhere down the corridor someone was playing music too loud for eight in the morning.
"You know what you need to do." Katy said. Not a question.
"I know." Carly said. "Tommy first."
"Today." Katy said.
Carly nodded. "Today."
Katy looked at her steadily. "And you're sure. About all of it."
Carly thought about the morning light coming through the blinds. About his arm around her. About the way he had said I meant what I said about waiting like it was the simplest thing in the world.
"Yeah." She said. "I'm sure."
Katy nodded once. Decisively. Like that settled it.
"Okay." She said. "Get dressed. I'm buying you breakfast and you're going to tell me everything in a lot more detail than you just did."
Carly stared at her. "I just told you everything."
"You gave me an overview." Katy said. "I want the unabridged version with commentary."
"Absolutely not." Carly said.
"The finger blasting." Katy said. "Start there."
"I am not." Carly said.
"You literally just said vampires have skillful hands."
"I said I was not confirming or denying that."
"Which is a confirmation." Katy said, already getting up to find her towel.
"This friendship is already a nightmare." Carly said.
Katy grinned over her shoulder. "Twenty minutes. Chop chop."
Carly shook her head and stood up and looked at herself in the mirror above the dresser. Pajamas. Wild hair. Eyes that looked tired and alive at the same time.
She looked like someone whose life had just quietly become completely unrecognizable.
She thought that was probably accurate.
She grabbed her shower things and headed for the door.
POV: Katy
She heard the shower start down the hall and sat back down on her bed and let the smirk go.
She did not need Carly to see the full version of what she was actually thinking.
She turned her mug between her hands and thought about what she had just heard. The whole story. The actual whole story from the beginning and not just the fragments she had been piecing together from scent and sounds and the specific energy that came off the blonde witch every time she walked back through that door at odd hours smelling like cigarettes and cold air and someone who was not her boyfriend.
She had expected to find it entertaining.
She did find it entertaining.
She had not expected to find it something else as well.
There was something about the way Carly had said I like him that had made Katy go slightly still inside. Not the words. The sound of them. Like someone saying a true thing out loud for the first time after a very long time of not saying it.
Katy had heard that sound before.
She knew what it cost.
She set her mug down.
She thought about Niko Monroeson. Faction leader. Complicated family. Sketchbook always in hand. The specific way he occupied space like he was always slightly apart from whatever was happening around him.
She thought about the text she had accidentally seen on the group board outside the headmistress' office two days ago. Something about a faction review. Something about concerns being raised. She had not thought much of it then.
She was thinking about it now.
She was going to keep her eyes open.
Not because she owed Carly anything. They were barely whatever they were.
But she had been the first person Carly told and that meant something even if neither of them was going to say that out loud for a very long time.
She picked up her mug again.
Twenty minutes.
She could be patient for twenty minutes.