Inches Away - Chapter Ten

“…But I don't care what they say
I'm in love with you
They try to pull me away
But they don't know the truth
My heart's crippled by the vein
That I keep on closing
You cut me open and I…”

Cathryn’s radio/clock, which Blake had recently gotten for her since he noticed that she didn’t have one, turned on from the set up alarmed. Dazed she sat up and looked over at the clock, wondering why she was waking up so dang early, “Crap! School starts today!” Cathryn jumped out of bed and was about to walk out to take a shower but froze. She walked backwards and peered over at the digital clock, hoping that she was mistaken. “CRAP! School starts in an hour!” Perfect way to start off the new school year huh? Cathryn has been rushing all morning long, trying to keep up with Bliss, who has already finished off his waffles and cup of milk, while she still has to make her breakfast. Cathryn ran in and out of rooms, trying to keep up as he started to walk out the door.

“Wait up will you?” Cathryn muffled voice cried out from behind Bliss.

He swung his backpack from shoulder to the other, turning around to see her with a poptart in her mouth, her hair in a messy bun, and with her light jacket half on.
“And where is your backpack?” Bliss raised his eyebrows as Cathryn’s eyes widened with a curse word flying out of her mouth. She ran back into the house, and came back with her messenger bag.

“First day of school and you’re already going to make us late, new record,” Bliss commented as they stroll pass Matty’s house, who is probably waiting by their lockers while staring at her watch.
“Shut up, I forgot to set my alarm clock earlier than usual,” Cathryn swallowed down her poptart as they continued to fast walk.

The two soon started running as Bliss’ watch beeped, indicating that they only had ten minutes until school was going to start. Out of randomness, a faint sound appeared. Cathryn carefully listened for it until she realized that it was getting louder. A radio. Then there was a honk, and a expensive new-looking silver Ford mustang convertible stopped right by us (http://www.snuffledopple.com/images/3060.jpg).
“Oh no,” Cathryn muttered.
“Oh yes,” the blonde spoiled driver said.
“Ha…that’s what she said,” Bliss whispered.
“Wow you loser!” Cathryn smacked his arm and laughed.
“Hey, don’t touch my man!” Becca sat up from her seat with a finger pointing at Cathryn.
“You’re man?” Cathryn and Bliss asked at the same time.
“And since when did I get an unknown girlfriend?” Bliss asked.
“Since now I guess…” Cathryn answered, “Pointing is rude you know.”
Becca huffed and puffed….and sat back down onto her leather seat.
“Come on Bliss, you can get in the car with us,” Rebecca said from the passenger seat.
“Uh no that’s okay,”
“Go on Bliss, the least I can do is get you to be there on time…for once,” Cathryn whispered.
“I rather be late than be with them though,” Bliss shivered.
“Come on Bliss, school is about to start,” Lisa urged him.
“That’s all right, I’ll walk with Cathryn,” Bliss spoke before we continued to run once more, but Becca kept pace with us with a simple step on the pedal.

For a short time, they urged to only have Bliss get in the car with them to school. But every time they asked, he declined. Cathryn couldn’t tolerate it any longer.
“Look! He doesn’t ride with you guys all right?! So why don’t you piece of plastics drive along?” Cathryn yelled.
“Hey! You can’t talk to us like that,” Taryn said.
“I can and did,” Cathryn folded her arms since they were at a complete stop, and about half a block away from the school, “come on Bliss.”

The two started walking before Becca’s car kept in pace with us once more.
“You can’t call us piece of plastics either! Do you know who you’re dealing with?” Lisa yelled.
“Uh…” Cathryn paused and leaned towards Bliss, “hey is she Dopey or Grumpy? I totally forgot.”
“We can hear you, you know,” Rebecca spoke.
“Ah Rebecca is definitely Grumpy,” Cathryn smiled.
“Hey! You can’t call us those dwarfs,”
“Apparently I already did, and you know what I got no time for this. Let’s go Bliss,” Cathryn grabbed his wrist and they started to run the rest of the block towards the school.

There was a long honking noise behind them. Cathryn looked behind her and saw Becca driving next to them once more.
“I thought I told you to not touch my man!” Becca said with venom, too bad for her that looks can’t kill.
“Oh my gosh you’re right! Wait…which man were you talking about? Just how many do you have?” Cathryn put her index finger on her chin, as she looked up at the sky, “ooh right, you have so many I lost count. Whatever then I suppose you don’t like this either?”

The girls in the mustang gasped as they saw Cathryn walk behind Bliss and jump onto his back while wrapping her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, and placing her head beside his. Their cheeks were touching, and Bliss’ backpack was now barely hanging onto his one shoulder since she caught him totally off guard.
Although, as Cathryn was messing with Becca, she could have sworn that she felt Bliss’ face get hot. Her head scooted away a bit and looked at him with a confused look.
“Bliss? Are you okay? You feel a bit hot. You don’t have a fever do you?” Cathryn took one of her hands and placed it on her forehead, then on his.
“No no I don’t I uh, I’m err ack…fine! I’m fine, c-come on,” Bliss set Cathryn back onto the ground and grabbed her wrist as they rushed the rest of their way to school.

From a distance they could hear some colorful words and a few honks from behind. Just as the two reached their lockers the first bell rung. Matty’s was in between their lockers, so they saw her standing there with some textbooks in her hands.
“Where the hell have you two been?! The first bell already rung,” Matty complained.
“Someone woke up late,” Bliss said as he rushed through his locker to grab everything he needed.
“Well someone’s ‘girlfriend’ kept us even longer,” Cathryn spoke as she turned the lock, but discovered that it wouldn’t open, “stupid flippin’ lock!”
“Wow! You got a girlfriend now?! Why didn’t you tell me?” Matty turned towards Bliss.
“I don’t have one! It’s Becca, she’s pretending to be my girlfriend…again,” Bliss closed his locker just when Cathryn opened hers.
“Hey you two go ahead of me, I’ll meet you in class,” Cathryn said as she piled everything into her locker.
“All right then. See you in a bit,” Bliss and Matty blended with the crowd of students.

Cathryn’s locker was filled with pictures of the group of three, and a few had them with pictures of Blake as well. She grabbed everything she needed for the first few classes and slammed her locker shut, only to find Blake on the other side of the locker door. Cathryn screamed before she dropped her textbooks and notebooks.
“Um…ow? Well hi to you too,” Blake rubbed his ears as he helped Cathryn gather her books.
“Well sorry but you’re the one who just popped out of nowhere,” Cathryn said.
“Point there, so where’s Matty…and Bliss?”
“Oh, I told them to go ahead without me. My lock was being stupid,”
“Ah I see, well just wanted to say hi. I’ll see you next period,” Blake handed her a notebook before waving goodbye as he walked the opposite direction of her.

Cathryn hurried to her first class, and when she did the late bell rung. Just in the nick of time. She spotted Becca with her bright colored clothes in the middle of the classroom. However she saw a redhead girl waving her arms over to come to the back of the room. Cathryn saw Matty, and next to her was Bliss. There was just one empty seat next to him, and that’s where Cathryn took her place. The three of them had always sat in the back of the classroom regardless what class it was.

Cathryn spotted the message on the white board. She smirked before seeing a bald head behind the computer screen, paying no attention to what is going around the room. Cathryn turned her position in her seat towards Matty and Bliss.
“So what do you guys want to do?” Cathryn asked.
“No idea…first day of school and I think I’m already going to start doodling in my notebook,” Matty sighed.
“I don’t get why we always have to go through the introductions. I mean, we already all know each other from our previous years,” Bliss complained.
“Yeah but some teachers are new, and besides…this just means we wont have homework for the first few days,” Cathryn sighed.

For the first hour and a half in the first class on the first day of school, the three of them talked like it was just like any other summer day. Although she kept on feeling like there was someone watching her. She looked at her friends and saw that they were already talking to one another. Cathryn looked around the classroom as she toned out Matty’s voice. She spotted blue and green eyes burning holes into her skin. Becca. Her menacing eyes were penetrating right through Cathryn it seemed. You could tell that Cathryn started on the wrong foot once more with Becca. Sure at first she wanted to fix things between the two. After sophomore year, Cathryn gave up and created a natural enemy to the high school world. As Becca continued to stare her down with evil eyes, Cathryn stuck her tongue out at her like a little kid and turned around to face her two friends.
“And then BAM! Mike dropped it and blamed it all on me. Gosh that irritating little—” Matty stopped as a shadow appeared behind her.
Blake and Cathryn looked up to see the teacher with his arms folded. He cleared his throat and Matty slowly turned around in her seat.
“wonderfully behaved little angel…” Matty faked a smile as the bald teacher walked away to scan other groups, “annoying piece of crap of a brother!”

Blake and Cathryn laughed it off and continued their chat. But instead, Cathryn decided to keep on zoning out while pretending to listen. Her head was searching through her summer memories. If you’re curious about what happened with the second round of the competition, then don’t worry any longer.

*Flashback*
When Monday finally rolled around the corner, Cathryn was more prepared this time. She arrived at the very same building she was at last week. Entering the elevator, she clicked the button ‘5.’ Her head bobbed up and down as she continued listening and rehearsing her song with the earpieces that was connected to the iPod in her messenger bag.
Soon enough, she was in the hallway and found room 307. Cathryn scanned the room to find about 100 other girls who had also passed the first round. Willow Ruken, Jim Patterson and Austin Gwaush all came out of a set of double doors. Everyone stopped what they were doing and all faced them.
“Thank you all for coming, and congratulations on making to the second round ladies,” Austin Gwaush spoke.
“It’s finally 10:30 and we will begin the second round. You will be called in by last name, alphabetically,” Willow Ruken said.

Jim Patterson just stood there, scanning the room as the other judges explained how the second round would go. When his eyes landed on Cathryn, he made his first emotional expression. A smile was there. He gave her a nod before the three went back into the room.
After about 45minutes of waiting, the judges finally reached last names starting with J. Her head moved up as she heard her name called by Mr. Gwaush. She scanned the room, seeing about half the room empty, before entering the room.
“Hello Ms. Johnson, please state what song you will be singing,” Willow said.
“You may begin whenever you are ready,” Jim crossed his arms and leaned back into his rolly chair.
“Thanks again for letting me into the second round. Okay…I’ll be singing Five Minutes to Midnight by Boys like Girls,” Cathryn spoke as she breathed in and out deeply to calm her nerves.

“Brown eyes and lungs are filled up with smoke
Fast lives are stuck in the undertow
But you know the places I wanna go….”

The three judges listened to Cathryn intently. For the words, the pitch, the timing, and her performance overall. Cathryn kept her mind clear, and only for the lyrics run through her head. She made sure she hit those pitches just right.

“Turn it up
It's five minutes to midnight
You're coming home with me tonight
I can't get enough
Shakin' me up
Turn it up
Alright, at five minutes to midnight
You see our name in city lights
We'll make the clock stop
Make your heart drop and come alive…”

Oh no, she was starting to rush a bit. Cathryn needed to calm down. Halfway through the song she slowed her pace slightly to match how the song would truly be when actually sung. In the end of the song, she slowly let her voice die out. She looked upon the three judges as they sat at their rolly chairs, taking notes of her audition just now.
“You truly have a gift there Ms. Johnson,” Austin was the first to speak as he looked up from his papers.
“Agreed, I say we let her enter the third round,” Willow spoke with a smile, causing some wrinkles around her mouth to slightly disappear.
“Well since you already got two out of three of us to say yes, there’s no point if I say no,” Jim crossed his arms and leaned back into his chair once more, “but it wasn’t like I intended on saying ‘no’ in the first place.”
*End of Flasback*

It was like that episode in American Idol, where there were two groups in different rooms. One room was going home, and the other made it through. At first Cathryn was freaked out, regardless what the judges had told her during her audition, when the judges told them about the two rooms. But of course, she was in the group that made it to the next round. A celebration was held that night at home with a confused Matty, even more puzzled Bliss, along with a suspicious Blake who asked her in private if this had anything to do with the time she saw her at that building.

Cathryn came back to reality as the first bell had rung. Yes, one class down…and more to come…ah poop. In each class her mind switched from the fact that she had made it to the third round in the competition, and the night at Matty’s from spin the bottle. Still, Cathryn hadn’t told Matty about the “sparks” she had with Blake and Bliss. She felt like this is something that no one can know about. But deep down, she knew that if she didn’t do something about this, it would get out of hand. Her conscious just hoped it wouldn’t be any time soon.