Take It With Me
Fawn
“Come on, Kitty. Get up, you dolt.”
Kitty was sitting on the floor still, staring at her toes.
They needed repainting.
But that wasn’t the point.
“Stay focused. What you need to do is get out of this hotel room. And quit talking to yourself in the third person,” she mumbled, pulling herself to her feet.
She couldn’t let something like this get her down. It was just a birthday. She would have another one next year. Hopefully with her family. Or her friends.
Or… someone.
“Stop it!” she chided herself. No. What she needed to do was get out, go down to the diner, talk to the woman about the job.
And stop thinking about Tom. The hotel room just made it worse. Everywhere she looked, something reminded her of him. The lampshade that was crooked from lying on the floor. The dirty towels piled in the corner of the bathroom. The full ashtray.
Even her pillows smelled like him, all musky and smoky.
She put her head in her hands and whimpered, wanting nothing more in the world than to be home in her bed with her big silly dog laying on her feet and Ella Enchanted playing on her little white television set. She wanted to climb out of bed and walk into her big, airy, lovely kitchen and waltz around the hardwood floor with her father and eat her mother’s wonderful food and then go snuggle up with her youngest brother and watch Phineus and Ferb on the Disney channel. She wanted to get ready, to put on her own makeup and wiggle into her own dress and then go out with Joe. Her Joe.
And if she couldn’t have any of that, all she wanted was Tom.
“You are not this kind of girl, Kitty. Letting a man get you all down. What would Anna and Kristalynn say?” she whispered.
Her two best friends wouldn’t let her get away with acting like this, that’s for sure. Neither would her sisters.
A Chi Omega gal didn’t get down over a man.
“Live constantly above snobbery of word or deed… character above appearances. Be democratic rather than exclusive. Work earnestly, speak kindly, act sincerely,” Kitty recited, remembering bits and pieces of the pledge she took the year before.
She couldn’t let herself or her sisters down. Bracing herself and putting her chin up, Kitty grabbed the keys and four twenty dollar bills and walked out the door to go introduce herself to her new employer.
It didn’t matter how the day had started. She was going to end it good.
Kitty was sitting on the floor still, staring at her toes.
They needed repainting.
But that wasn’t the point.
“Stay focused. What you need to do is get out of this hotel room. And quit talking to yourself in the third person,” she mumbled, pulling herself to her feet.
She couldn’t let something like this get her down. It was just a birthday. She would have another one next year. Hopefully with her family. Or her friends.
Or… someone.
“Stop it!” she chided herself. No. What she needed to do was get out, go down to the diner, talk to the woman about the job.
And stop thinking about Tom. The hotel room just made it worse. Everywhere she looked, something reminded her of him. The lampshade that was crooked from lying on the floor. The dirty towels piled in the corner of the bathroom. The full ashtray.
Even her pillows smelled like him, all musky and smoky.
She put her head in her hands and whimpered, wanting nothing more in the world than to be home in her bed with her big silly dog laying on her feet and Ella Enchanted playing on her little white television set. She wanted to climb out of bed and walk into her big, airy, lovely kitchen and waltz around the hardwood floor with her father and eat her mother’s wonderful food and then go snuggle up with her youngest brother and watch Phineus and Ferb on the Disney channel. She wanted to get ready, to put on her own makeup and wiggle into her own dress and then go out with Joe. Her Joe.
And if she couldn’t have any of that, all she wanted was Tom.
“You are not this kind of girl, Kitty. Letting a man get you all down. What would Anna and Kristalynn say?” she whispered.
Her two best friends wouldn’t let her get away with acting like this, that’s for sure. Neither would her sisters.
A Chi Omega gal didn’t get down over a man.
“Live constantly above snobbery of word or deed… character above appearances. Be democratic rather than exclusive. Work earnestly, speak kindly, act sincerely,” Kitty recited, remembering bits and pieces of the pledge she took the year before.
She couldn’t let herself or her sisters down. Bracing herself and putting her chin up, Kitty grabbed the keys and four twenty dollar bills and walked out the door to go introduce herself to her new employer.
It didn’t matter how the day had started. She was going to end it good.
♠ ♠ ♠
The words that Kitty recites in this chapter are a loose adaptation of the real Chi Omega symphony, which is available in it's entirety on the Chi Omega website. I repeat, I did not write the original pledge. XD