Driving Miss Catherine

Cat awoke to the sound of Seb snoring. Annoyed, she covered her head with her pillow and tried to get back to sleep. She was hung over, and every sound made her want to scream, and the morning sunlight pouring through her window only made it worse. ‘I need some coffee,’ she thought.

And then it hit her. Seb was snoring loudly because he was in her room, in her bed, right next to her. She sat up too quickly and sent her head spinning; not looking at him, she swung her legs over the side of the bed so her toes touched the cold wood floor. She took a deep breath and tried to recall the events that had led to these circumstances…

There was alcohol, and lots of it. There was that kiss, and then Cat climbing over the table, pushing her engineering homework aside. There was more kissing (a lot more), and Seb mumbling something romantic in German that Cat didn’t understand, yet still found shockingly alluring. And then there was…

‘Wow,’ she laughed to herself. ‘I’ve slept with the chauffeur.’ She hopped out of bed and found her robe and slippers, without glancing back at Seb, and made her way out to the kitchen to make some coffee. She ignored the trail of clothes left behind from the night before and headed straight for the medicine cabinet to find something for her pounding headache.

‘God, I’ve really slept with the chauffeur. I’m like Sybil from Downton Abbey!’ Cat stopped opening the bottle of aspirin and laughed to herself before she continued getting a glass of water

“What’s the quietest way to make coffee?” she said to herself out loud and looked around the kitchen.

“I would suggest the French press, although you still have to grind the coffee first.” Cat froze when she heard Seb’s voice and slowly turned around.

“French press?” She asked. Cat had only made coffee using a Keurig, so she didn’t know how to make coffee, let alone use a coffee grinder.

“Let me do it,” Seb smiled tiredly and set about making them some coffee, so Cat sat at the table with her head resting in her hands. She couldn’t think straight, and really didn’t want to talk about it with Seb, not yet at least. She tried to remember what exactly had happened the night before, but there were blank spots. Seb sat down across from her and slid her a mug of coffee. She didn’t look up until most of her coffee was gone and the caffeine was starting to work. The first thing she noticed, once her eyes focused, was how guilty Seb looked. Or perhaps it wasn’t guilt, but he was upset about something; it was not the face of a man who’d just gotten laid, that’s for sure.

“We don’t have to talk, if you don’t want,” Cat mumbled and avoided eye contact, resting her head back on the table. “You obviously feel guilty about it, or regret it, or something, so…”

“It’s not that, it’s…” he looked at her, and realized she didn’t know. He almost considered not telling her. “Do you not remember saying Heikki’s name in the midst of everything? Actually, you kind of screamed it and then fell over and passed out.”

It was worse than cat imagined; she thought he felt bad about sleeping with her, and she might have been okay with that. But yelling another guys name, a creepy ex boyfriend at that, was beyond embarrassing. She started laughing quietly, but Seb thought she was crying, so he put his arm around her.

“It’s okay, I don’t hold it against you. He was really hot, I’m sure I’d scream his name too if I were into guys,” he was trying to make her feel better, but ended up sounding oddly homoerotic. He closed his eyes and tried to think of a way to come back from that, but Cat sat up suddenly.

“You know, it’s weird. I hadn’t thought about him for three days (which was my new record), until we went to see Kimi. I wondered if he knew him, isn’t that crazy? Why would Kimi know Heikki? Just because they’re Finnish doesn’t mean they know each other.” Cat leaned back in her chair and laughed, eventually Seb started laughing too. She realized now nice his eyes looked when he smiled. “At first I thought of calling him, or even texting him, just to see if he was okay. But lately I haven’t thought about him.”

It was quiet for a moment, and Cat was starting to think Seb resented her for screaming another man’s name during sex. Maybe that was a huge insult in his culture? Cat distracted herself thinking about how and why Germans might find that to be incredibly revolting, and she didn’t even notice Seb had started laughing.

“Miss Catherine, I swear, you never stop amusing me.” He got up from the table and, still laughing to himself, left the kitchen, leaving Cat alone with her coffee. ‘Yup, he definitely hates me,’ she thought to herself. Reluctantly, she got up and gathered her things for school. She opted to walk to class today, even though it was a bit far and she still wasn’t feeling that great.

Sadly, the next week continued like this. Cat avoided Seb at all costs, which meant she had to drive herself sometimes, now that the weather was getting cold. Seb visited Kimi quite often, which Cat thought was just an excuse not to get away her. He always seemed to just be leaving when she was returning from school, and that couldn’t be a coincidence. She tried to throw herself into her studies to distract from Seb’s absence. While that did lead to her getting good grades, it did not make her forget her feelings for Seb.

And just when she thought things couldn’t get worse, she got a letter. It was forwarded to her Switzerland address from New York, originally postmarked Finland. She felt her blood turn to ice in her veins, her heart ceased to beat, as she read her name hand printed on the envelope in handwriting she was too familiar with. Short love letters, notes slipped into her pocket when she wasn’t looking, poems attached to bouquets of flowers…yes there was no mistaking Heikki’s handwriting. She dropped the rest of the mail on the kitchen counter before continuing to her bedroom with the letter clutched tightly in her hand.

Cat stared at it for several minutes before throwing it across the room. She cried, so angry that she couldn’t get rid of him, but crawled over to where it lay on the floor. She slowly tore at the edge of the envelope until it was open, and it felt like she was peeling back to layers of bandage over an old wound. There was a single page of Finnish Navy stationary folded crisply in thirds. Reluctantly, she opened it and braced herself for whatever it said.

‘Cat,
I have tried to contact you many times over the past few weeks without success; I hope this letter finds you in time. I cannot begin to apologize for my actions, or to explain what led me to treat you so poorly, but please listen. You have every right to be mad at me, to hate me, but please listen to what I have to say.
I meant every word I said to you. I know this does not mean much given my actions, but please know that I truly did, and still do, have feelings for you. I was put in a difficult place by my mother who seemed to think she could arrange a marriage between us in order to access your father’s money. And when that wasn’t going fast enough for her, she forced me to do something unforgiveable to you. Please understand that I did not want to switch your birth control medicine and I fought her on the subject, even on our last morning together. It was a terrible and unspeakable crime, for which I will accept any consequences.
I cannot explain why I went through with my mother’s plan, except that I owe her a considerable debt and she could put me in a very dishonorable position. Given the opportunity to do it again I would have acted differently, but that does not change the past. I know this is a lot to ask, but please get in contact with me soon. I need to know if you are okay, and most importantly, if you are pregnant. I understand if you did not go through with it, but if you have I hope we can come to some kind of agreement. I promise you, this is not another attack on your money, this is just a father wanting to be a part of his child’s life.’

Cat’s eyes filled with tears again and blurred the last few words of his letter, though she could easily recognize his signature. She leaned against the wall and slowly fell to the floor sobbing. A few minutes later she heard Seb come home. She sat up and wiped off her face and tried to calm down. He called out for her and she replied that she was in her room. She was still sitting on the floor with the letter in her hands when he came in.

“Miss Catherine you have been crying,” he kneeled next to her and put his arm around her, instinctively she leaned into him. “What’s wrong?”

She burst into tears again and shoved the letter into his hands. Seb read the letter carefully before angrily crumpling it up and throwing it on the floor.

“Cat, what does he mean he switched it?” He looked at her carefully, anger and worry mixed in his eyes.

“I-I don’t know, does it say?” She picked up the letter and smoothed it out again. “No, there’s nothing. What did he switch it with? It looked the same; I didn’t even realize it might be different. He must have been planning this for a long time if he had a replica made. And what the hell is wrong with his mother?” A new round of tears streamed from her eyes and Seb handed her a tissue. He seemed tense, like trying to hold himself together was taking all of his will power.

“Do you have any left? We could get it tested and see what it is.”

Cat sat up and crawled over to her nightstand where she kept her medicine. “There’s one left. You don’t think he was poisoning me, do you?”

Seb shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

“Then what is this?” she examined the remaining pill in its clear packaging.

“I’m not really an expert in this subject, but it’s possible it was some kind of placebo, a completely ineffective pill. Or, if he’s as sadistic and manipulative as I think he is, it might have even been something to help you get pregnant, some kind of fertility supplement.” Seb’s mouth twisted in disgust and he muttered something in German Cat didn’t quite catch.

“But it wasn’t him, it was his mother!” She protested, and it startled Seb.

“What could she possibly have on him to make him go through with this wicked plan? She’s his mother, she’s not supposed to force him into situations like this. No, if he actually loved you like he said he did, he would not have committed this heinous crime”

Cat was quiet for a moment as she though over Seb’s words. “He never said he loved me,” she added quietly.

“We need to get you to a doctor. I should have done this when you first told me about it weeks ago,” he sighed and stood up, pulling her up after him. “I’m sorry Cat, I have failed you.”

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” she followed him to the car and they drove silently to the doctor’s. He sat in the waiting room for her and tried to distract himself as the minutes ticked by. When she finally appeared she did not look any happier than he felt.

“We just have to wait for the results of the blood test,” she said as she rolled down the sleeve of her shirt over her bandage. She sat down next to him and stared blankly at the painting on the wall, the kind you only see in waiting rooms, and tried not to worry too much. Worrying won’t help, and it won’t change the results.

“Then we’ll wait together,” Seb put his hand on hers, and the two waited for the results of her blood test, each trying to block out the thoughts that swarmed their minds like angry bees. Whatever the result, if he was next to her, Cat knew she could handle it.