Understanding Katrina

“Mmm, fuck me Gerard,” was the only thing to have escaped her lips the entire time. ‘Fuck me Gerard’? I didn’t know what to think of that, to be honest. On one hand, I was obviously doing a damn good job at it but on the other, I was doing so in a completely different world. I turned to ask her about it but alas, she’d already passed out. With me being as drunk as I was, it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea anyway. And so I fell asleep on her chest listening to her breathe, relaxing as I realised that she was only human, too.

We’d been good friends for a couple years now, Katrina and I. We tended to go to the same parties and now that we were out of school, to the same bars. I’d liked her since the first time I’d met her by the shore at that lame beach party in school – I forget whose it was, exactly. She’d just been swimming in her clothes, and I thought she seemed pretty interesting. It had nothing to do with her shirt being a little see-through from the water, I swear, or with the way she clung to me for warmth the entire night. I just liked her. Now, I loved her. I knew I’d come to love her. She was just my type, I guess. We’d been friends all this time and been through a lot together but as she woke, you’d think we were complete strangers.

“I uhh, gotta go Gerard. Catch ya.” She got up, completely naked as was her style, and started looking for her clothes. This had been the third time we’d well… you know, and it seemed she still didn’t know what to think of it. A part of me was hoping that it was due to her actually feeling something for me in return and not knowing what to do about it, but I had my doubts. She left the room without even a second glance and I really, really had my doubts.

That night, I called her. She didn’t pick up, but her mother did.

“Ohh, Gerard? Did… something happen?”

“N–” I coughed. “Uhh, no. Why?”

“Well it’s just that… she doesn’t wish to speak with you. I’m sorry, honey.” Katrina’s mother always did like me, and seemed to have a soft spot for me whenever something went wrong.

“Okay. Well, thanks anyway.” I hung up, and that was that.

It was months before we spoke again, months of painstakingly slow torture on my part. I was out and so was she, in the same place, no doubt.

“Katrina?” She turned around, though her smile quickly faded.

“What are you doing here?” I took a moment to calm down. What was I doing there? What was I–

“I’ve missed you, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” There was a long pause and not just in our conversation, but in what seemed the entire room.

“Want to hang?”

“Gerard…” Her tone was so degrading, looking back. She couldn’t have cared less about me in that moment, and I was too blind to see it.

“C’mon. We’ve not been pissed together in so long, Kat.”

“Well I’m not interested.”

“If this is about the last couple times where we’ve…” My hand found the back of my neck and squeezed as I thought of the right wording for it.

“Fucked?”

“I guess so,” I replied sadly. “Actually you know what? Forget it.” I turned and walked back out the room, half expecting her to follow behind. After all that we’d been through over the years and with all the fun we’d had together, the least she could’ve done would have been that. I felt the tears prick my eyes as I repeated her words in my head once more. ‘Fuck me, Gerard,’ because I was just a fuck to her. There was no emotion. There was no… love. I knew this already, though I guess it just took another encounter for it to register. She didn’t love me, and she never would.

My head found the bathroom tiles more frequently that month and the next, and the hospital bed as a result of that. They asked why I was drinking myself to death, and I had no acceptable answer. They told me they’d be keeping me in to supervise me for a couple of days, and I didn’t care. They wheeled someone else into the cubicle beside mine, and I didn’t notice.

I heard them crying that night, and that’s when I noticed. I couldn’t help but to notice, as I knew that voice quite well. My fingers gripped the curtains between us and pulled them aside, and I was faced with her once more. Gosh, she looked terrible. That’s pretty much all I could think.

“Gerard?”

“Katrina.” She started crying again and now that I knew who it was, I wanted to be of comfort. “What did you do?”

“I had a little accident with my medication.” The smirk playing on her lips told me otherwise. “But anyway. It obviously didn’t go as planned.”

“You tried to–”

“Please. Don’t say it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I was upset? I’m tired, Gerard. I’m tired of being alive, you know?” I knew.

“Don’t say shit like that, Kat. I fucking love you. People love you and you’re just that ready to leave them all behind!?” I’d told her I loved her, finally, though wished it’d been under different circumstances. I imagined little candles out by the jetty where I’d first met her, and the stars shining so bright that they offered the shortest of distractions away from her radiating beauty. She was wearing that red dress I adored on her and those scuffed up black boots of hers, with a pretty silver necklace around her neck.

“Well I don’t love them.” And that was it. Those last bitter words of hers would be the last I’d hear from her lips in the longest of times.

I was still sat at the table in the bar with Katrina as I thought about it all, with her going on about something to do with polar bears. I wasn’t sure, really. Definitely something arctic. It didn’t hurt that she didn’t care, and I’d never hold it against her. It was who she was, you see, and probably who she still is. I was determined to help the girl who seemed to constantly be wishing people away, and me in particular. I figured by her actions that well, she must then need me the most of them all.