Soulmates: Chapter XV
She had stayed at the park some long time past ten, just standing there, thinking and not thinking, until a ranger had appeared, uniform and khakis, somewhat concerned.
As it turned out, Southview Hill Park was a suicide hot spot.
Cat had laughed when he said that. She laughed, so hard, so violently, that it took her right back to her early twenties. The park ranger clearly thought this was strange, but satisfied she wasn’t a risk to herself, he let her on her way back down the path towards the turn that would lead to a footbridge, then a stroll to the gates that went back out towards city streets.
For all the things Cat knew in this world, this fact was fond and sacred and morbid in the second-most charming way possible, learned at the precise moment she needed to learn it, perhaps if only because the universe felt some semblance of debt it needed to square away.
She now knew why it was Southview Hill Park was the second most-charming view in the city.
And, sooner rather than later, she would take it to the grave, but there was no need to dwell or hurry things along—she had spent nearly fifty years living slow, idle, in her own distinctly Cat Grant way.
Why change now?
She took a car to her townhouse in the west district. The late-night visitor huddled near her doorstep was half expected, but Cat felt no fondness or romanticism for the display. She got out of the car, rolling her eyes, shoving her purse in Kara’s arms so she could open the front door.
“One hour.” Cat hummed. “You can ask whatever questions you want, but then you need to figure out a way home, and never ask me prying questions again, because that is still very much my area of expertise that I spent thirty years building a conglomerate upon...”
“When were you going to tell me?” Kara’s voice broke her heart.
“Never.” Cat remained firm. “Next question—”
“You don’t get to do that!”
“Why?” Cat snatched and turned around, rearing up close beneath the little girl’s nose. “Why do you feel so entitled to my life? For what reason, exactly? Because bippity-boppity boo—a tattoo showed up on your ass cheek one day?” She balked.
Kara’s chin wobbled and her tears refused to fall. “When did you know?”
“I didn’t,” Cat told the truth. “I didn’t until I did. I burned my birthmark off a long time ago, kiddo, you would be surprised how quickly you forget things with some determination and years behind you.”
“So I am…” Kara nodded and fiddled with her hands. “And you are…”
“Kara. Can I level with you a second?”
“Jesus, I would love it if you did.” There was a loathing, hateful fire in her gentle blue eyes.
It made Cat feel a little warm inside.
Almost resistant to the mere idea, Cat forced it away, told it to go fuck itself, shovelled and buried it dead until a certain sense of wherewithal found her again.
“You are so bright, so hungry for life and in love with the world, so let me ask you this and please—enough with the romantic bullshit—just think about your answer.” Cat swallowed hard. “How many happily ever afters do you really know? How many have you really seen with your own two eyes, enough to trust the biggest decision of your life to something as cruel and arbitrary as the universe?”
“Everyone, Cat. Literally, you fucking narcissist, everybody on the fucking planet except you and Lena Luthor get a happily-ever-after.” Kara grew red faced, shaking, too angry to contain any of it. “Here I am, caught in the shittiest love triangle in the history of the world, the literal worst fucking romance story in the duration of forever!” Kara pointed accusingly. “I was happy! I met Lena, and you knew, Cat, you knew what was happening and you let me fall in love with her anyway—”
“Your parents.” Cat felt her eyebrows knit with accusation. “What’s their marriage like?”
“Like…” Kara twisted and thought about it. “Like a marriage? They're quiet, content, happy.”
“Your grandparents?”
“The same.”
“And that's what you want?” Cat scoffed. “The same old safe bet? You don't want to be twenty, and thirty, and forty, falling in love in different ways every day, hating in little unimportant new ways every day?” Cat narrowed in disbelief. “It's cowardly. Beyond that, I am Catherine Grant, and I am nobody's safe bet.”
Kara stood there like a fool. Largely because she was a fool, and Cat never forgot it, but in some moments it felt more distinct and poignant than others. The youth. The age difference. The levels of life experience so vastly different between them that they were playing entirely different games.
It wasn't Kara's fault, Cat understood that, but it did nothing to alleviate her disappointment.
She didn't love Kara.
But for all of her mercurial ways, Cat wanted so much better for her.
“Soulmates aren't safe bets.” Kara's lips trembled in a different way, something other than anger stuck in her throat this time. “Love isn't...quiet or content! It is hopeless, peaceful, madly in love, blissful! It's not cowardly. You, Cat. You are the coward!”
“Alright.” Cat laughed at that. “Your friends? Do they seem… hopelessly, head over heels, madly in love, blissful in their little fairy-tale lives?”
“I don’t get what you’re trying to say…” Kara knew exactly what was being said.
“I’m saying that it’s bullshit, Kara!” Cat emphasised with boisterous, exploding laughter. It was disbelief, not humour, because it felt as though for all of her life she had been the only person in on this absurd joke. “It’s your Instagram page. It’s make-believe. It’s shiny, pretty little exaggerations because everybody is so fucking consumed with this idea of instantaneous and perfect love that when it dawns on them how empty and lacking it all feels…well!” Cat scoffed. “They must feel like they’re the only people in the world who feel such a thing—who have ever felt such a thing—because everybody else is so happy, shiny, and too terribly frightened to admit it either.”
“So, the entire world is fake other than you?” Kara stuck her hands on her hips. “Love isn’t real. It’s all a lie. You don't have a Kara-shaped birthmark somewhere on your body, and this is...what exactly?”
Kara turned and slightly adjusted the waist of her jeans.
There it was on her hip.
Funny.
Cat forgot, for just the briefest moment, what it was they were fighting about.
“Do you believe in free will?” Cat fixed her most formidable, mercurial, serious of stares and stepped forward to the optimist.
Kara scoffed.
“What does that have to do—”
“Do you, or don't you?”
“Sure. Yes, of course I believe in free will. I'm not...” Kara glanced around. “I'm here on my own conviction not because I think the universe is trying to spite you!”
Hesitant, Cat remembered herself, but she nodded at Kara's assessment of things.
“Do you think the woman you are is the same woman you would be if your life had been different, Kara?” Cat reasoned. “Your whole thing is your shitty little boring rural life back home, right? How it made you—defines you in these big crucial ways you need to process your life through and compare back to—do you think you would be the person you are today if you had different influences, or if you had made different choices?” Cat suggested with a slight cock of her head. “I made a decision thirty years ago that cannot be undone, Kara, because it led me to a lifetime of decisions that I wouldn't have gotten the chance to make had I prioritised something as stupid as a soulmate. Whoever that woman is on your hip...” Cat shook her head in repulsion where none was felt. “She isn't me, kiddo, not this version of me.”
“I think you’re right, Cat, because you are being a giant cunt, and I hate saying that to you, firstly because you are sick, and secondly because you are my soul—”
“If you say that word you’re going to find out the hard way why Anne Wintour tripled her security from late 2014 onwards.” Cat folded her arms. “I’m not sick, Kara, I’m just not yours. Thirty years ago? Maybe. I see that, sure, but I’m not some googly-eyed twenty something doing my first lap around the block.” Cat felt her eyes sting and she wished, prayed, hoped to god they would not reveal her.
“It’s not too late,” Kara whispered with reticence.
She was saying it because she was young, stupid, and life had taught her that it was her line in the script. Cat just shook her head, frustrated, ignoring the thump-thumping of her chest and the strange grief that came with a natural love she felt no desire or claim to.
“Kara, I’m sorry, I was nineteen and I made a choice. It was you or it was me, and I chose me.” Cat unbuttoned the bottom of her blouse and pulled it up to her ribs, tilting to the side, so Kara could see where it had one been. “I chose me, Kara, because it’s my life too.”
There was a puckered, silvered little scar that looked like an old burn. It was where Kara’s name had, indeed, once been—some long time before she had even been born.
The scar had healed, and over it, a new name had been tattooed.
Catherine.
“You deserve to be alone,” Kara cried, heartbroken, furious and without words for the things she was feeling.
“I know, kid.” Cat pushed a small smile. “But you? That does not have to be your choice for your life.”
“Good. That's good, because Lena Luthor is twice the woman you could ever dream of being even if you had batted a thousand instead of wasting your life justifying the nasty, callous way you treat people!” Kara seemed as though she was convincing herself more than anyone else.
It was a good thing, in Cat’s books, meant this whole ordeal would be just a little easier on the crybaby when it got to where it was all going.
Kara wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, adjusted her glasses and seemed to itch for a great escape through the front door she was stepping backwards for.
“Oh no, you're going.” Cat deadpanned, expressionless behind the eyes as she extended her palm. “But wait, I was just about to recite sonnets—”
“Fuck you, Cat. I’m going to Lena’s place, to a woman who loves me, and thinks I have inherent value and worth! You want to die alone, lonely, and without love? You go right ahead but don’t think you’re dismantling my self-esteem on your way into the grave!”
“Well fuck.” Cat reached for the bourbon decanter on the table, rolling her eyes, fond despite the temper steaming out her ears. “You know for what it’s worth I think you and I really might have loved each other to death. Sorry you were thirty years late to the party, kiddo.”