Chapter 28 Not a Dinosaur Cara #4
“Do I get one?” She chuckles, unsure. “I mean, I finally completed my GED, which is cool. And I managed to get a job at the library. It’s only part-time, but I’m saving everything I can. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a little two-bedroom apartment soon, but everything is so expensive.”
There’s a niggling thought in the back of my mind when she says soon, a reminder that this time with Abel is temporary, that I have no idea how long he’ll be with us, or when we’ll have to say goodbye.
It hurts the way I knew it would, but in this moment, it’s the shame that eats at me.
We’re here to be his home and his safe place until Catharine gets on her feet.
I want her to get on her feet; she deserves that and a million other things. And yet I don’t want to say goodbye.
I still the slight tremor in my hands and bat my tears away, smiling. “That’s great, Catharine. What are you doing at the library?”
“Just stocking shelves. Nothing fancy, but it means I get to be around books all day.”
“You’re a big reader?”
“Huge. Spent most of my spare time at the library before Abel. My parents didn’t let me read things like romance and fantasy, so I’d spend full weekends there, finding a quiet spot to get lost in them.
I needed that escape, I think. It gave me hope for something more, something better.
But poetry is where I really found myself.
I even… um…” She trails off, cheeks flushed ruby red as she waves her words away.
“Ah, forget it. It’s stupid. Just a dream. ”
“Hey, nothing is stupid. Except maybe your parents. And your friend. And most of my friends’ exes. But your dreams? Never.”
She giggles softly. “I always dreamed of writing a book. When I wasn’t at the library, I’d spend hours on my bed journaling, and journaling eventually turned to silly poems. I stopped when I was fourteen, after my mom found my notebook.
She said it was a sin to covet a life that wasn’t yours, and threw my poems in the trash. ”
“Jesus, your mom really knows how to crush a girl’s spirit, doesn’t she?”
“Her specialty, I think. Anyway, I started writing again when I was pregnant with Abel. The words just… they just came to me. I don’t know how to explain it.
I couldn’t stop, but after he was born… I just lost it.
All of it. The motivation, the creativity.
I had Abel, and I knew I loved him, I could feel it so deeply, and yet I felt…
dead inside. Like I couldn’t breathe, no matter how hard I tried. ”
“It sounds like you might’ve had postpartum depression,” I suggest gently.
“Oh, definitely. I know that now after researching about it, but when I suggested it back then, my mom said that I was just being lazy, that I needed to get over it and keep going like every other mom.”
My mouth opens before I can stop myself, but I manage to contain the rage-filled words that want to pour out, instead running the pads of my thumb and forefinger over my lips.
“Mhmm,” I manage to hum, nodding. “For sure. Yeah. That makes total sense. Hey, listen.” I twist toward her, propping my elbow up on the back of the bench so she can feel the full force of my words.
“I don’t need much,” I whisper, brows raised as I give her a knowing look.
“Just an address. I’ve never done it before, but honestly, I think I could get away with it. Nobody would ever know.”
Catharine laughs, loud and unexpected, that single dimple shining as she throws her head back. “See? Why couldn’t I have had a mom like you? That’s what every kid deserves: someone willing to fight for them.”
I giggle quietly, an all-too-familiar ache stretching between my shoulder blades.
“Anyway, I started writing again after I finished my GED. Without Abel, and without school, the words just built up inside me. I sat in the library one day during a thunderstorm, and the words just… came. They came out of nowhere, and they didn’t stop.
I sat there for hours, lost in the mounds of scrap paper I’d taken from the craft table in the kids’ section, until the librarian told me the library was closing.
She started gathering up the papers before I could stop her, and I was so embarrassed, I took off.
She stopped me at the door, holding one of my poems, and she was…
she was crying. She asked me if I needed a job, and I started two days later.
Now I stock books all day and make my boss cry with whatever I manage to write in between.
” She bites back her smile, equal parts shy and proud.
“It makes me feel good knowing someone likes it, but really it just… it just makes me feel good, period. And it’s been so long since anything’s made me feel good.
” The slightest lift of her shoulder. “Feels good to have a dream again too.”
“Have you thought about college? UBC has an amazing creative writing program.”
She barks out a laugh. “Are you suggesting I apply? I could never. Plus, wasn’t the deadline to apply in, like, January? It’s nearly April.”
“Pffft.” I wave her off. “A lot of schools still take late admissions.”
“But won’t most of the spots be filled? I’ll never get in.”
“It’s worth a shot.”
“And even if, by some miracle, I got in, I could never afford it.” She shakes her head, adamant, but I see the war waging in those eyes. “No. I can’t.”
“Catharine.” I touch her shoulder, bringing her gaze to mine. “It’s worth a shot. Chasing your dreams always is. If there’s one person you should never, ever give up on, it’s yourself.”
“I guess I’m not really sure how to root for myself when nobody else has ever shown me how,” she admits.
“For what it’s worth, I’m rooting for you. And I think you’re off to a fabulous start. You finished high school and got a job. You’re feeding your soul by doing something that makes you happy. Those are huge steps, even if they don’t seem like it.”
Even if she hadn’t told me as much, I’d be able to tell by the furrow in her brow and the slump in her shoulders that she’s lived a life where something was always expected of her, where what she was doing was never enough.
She clasps her hands together, staring at them in her lap.
“How come I couldn’t do those things before? When I still had Abel?”
“I think you’re making it a personal failure, when what it really boils down to is not having the right support system in place.
It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we have the right people by our side, the ones that remind us how capable we are, how loved, even when we fail.
The ones who step in and help us carry our load so that we can prioritize ourselves.
Because that’s what you deserve, Catharine.
You deserve to be able to prioritize yourself, and you deserve to have someone on your team who helps make that possible. It’s not your fault that you didn’t.”
I look out across the park at the man I’m so blessed to have built this life with, the little boy who’s currently the center of our world.
And I know I worked my ass off to get here.
That I deserve all the good, because I’ve poured myself into chasing it.
Chasing better. It got easier when I found Emmett, yes, because the way he cheered me on rivaled the roar of a hometown Vipers crowd on game seven in the final round of the playoffs.
But before him, I had me. And I had to be enough for myself.
My gaze coasts back to Catharine, still a child in so many ways, and I know that the most important thing for her will be believing she’s enough, that she’s capable. That she can conquer all of this and be who she wants to be, the person she’d given up so long ago.
“If Abel deserves a better shot at life, so do you. Love yourself enough to chase it. Love yourself enough to know that the only person who determines your worth is you. Love yourself enough, value yourself so much, that giving up? It’s no longer an option.
Sometimes the only voice cheering you on is your own, so it should always be the loudest.”