Cat sat sulking and alone in West Athens Backyard 4. It seemed to her that she’d spent far too much time sulking alone either in this place or her Jobe apartment or her Old Athen’s apartment cum dance studio. She was tired of it. Tired of sulking. Tired of being alone. She missed her friends. She missed the easy laughter. She missed dancing and flirting and teasing and debating with her friends and the patrons at Reets. She missed the cozy feel of a man’s arms circling her body in that sweet moment just before sleep and again just as she awoke.
While she sat, she thought back to her last conversation with her cousin before she departed on the shuttle back to Earth. “There is an old adage,” her cousin told her that gloomy morning, “that there are none so blind as those who will not see.” They’d been discussing the bitter break-up that had sent Cat tumbling into this dark sulk. Cat thought then that her cousin was right. He was blind and stubborn and stupid for not seeing what was right in front of him. How could he not see how perfect she was for him? Thus she’d begun her crusade to win him back. She’d tried everything she could think of, even when her better sense told her that she’d gone way overboard. But it was like a challenge, her own personal war waged to win his heart.
Looking back now she tried to retrace her steps and find when things had started to go wrong. Though she could not know what he was thinking when he broke-up with her in the first place, she did know what happened after. All he wanted at that point, all he’d asked for was to be left alone. The reason she was still alone and sulking was not because she hadn’t tried hard enough to win him back but because she had tried far too hard. Not that they would’ve gotten back together if she’d left him alone, but she would’ve been able to move on much faster if she’d just let him go when he asked her too. It was then, upon really seeing that clearly that she flashed back one more time to her cousin’s parting words.
“I was the blind one,” she said aloud to the empty backyard. With a sudden realization she knew that her cousin was not calling him blind, but her. She was the one who would not see that she was not perfect for him and that all she really needed to do was to let him alone. As her eyes began to fill she wasn’t sure if the tears were for the time wasted or for the friendship she destroyed by trying to save the romance or for the opportunities lost or for her own blind, stubborn stupidity. But as suddenly as the tears came, she cut them off.
“No,” she again said for anyone to hear. She had cried enough bitter tears over this. It was good now that she finally got it. It was good that she finally could see. And as another old adage said, seeing is believing. She nodded and smiled to herself while she picked herself up and brushed herself off. For the first time in a very long time she began to plan ahead for the future. For the first time in a very long time she wanted to be around people, really be around them. She wanted to be happy and laugh and dance and sing and flirt and all the things she used to do. She wanted to share in the joy of others instead of resenting them for it. And she wasn’t going to worry about whether she had a man in her life or not.
Watch out Rubika. she thought to herself as she sorted through her wardrobe packs. Vallikat is back for real this time and she’s about to knock your socks off.
