Work Text:
Katherine liked things that made her happy.
When she was still a teenager, she liked the smell of old books in her father’s library. She went there every afternoon and stayed in thgat room until dinner, it was her place. The place where she could be herself : books never told her that she had to act more like a lady and stay quiet. She could be what she wanted with books. They let her save lands, soar the seas, and discover new worlds as much as she wants. She could do anything, at least until someone came in the room for supper or another social event and took the book from her hands as well as the world she was in at the moment from her head. She always felt interrupted, never able to decide where, when or who she could be when she needed to be anywhere but here. She only had limited time for her unlimited imagination, pleased only in other worlds. That's why she started wandering away from conversations at dinner tables to invent new stories in her head. If they didn’t want her to read all the time they could always take away books but they could never stop her from imagining things so that’s what she would do.
Happy became the smell of ink when she started to write to avoid forgetting her stories, it became the sunrise shining through her curtains when she stayed the night awake because she had been struck by inspiration. When it was only in her head, unanswered questions didn’t matter in a story but on paper? Things had to make sense. And sometimes that blocked her from writing : she wanted perfection, nothing less. Days where she could write for hours without seeing time pass were becoming rare but the results of spending more time on her writing made her the proudest she had ever been of her work. She felt like she had a place, a voice when she wrote and that voice had to be used as well as possible. Things could be said in much better ways while writing than wen she was thinking off the top of her head. She was sometimes too quick to speak and her cutting remarks weren’t appreciated by everyone. On paper, wit could be controlled and become even more scathing hid between two words.
Happy took another sense with writing. She got a job in a big newspaper at 18, she was one of the first girls in this country to get an opportunity like this and she was gonna show them what she could do. Happy was filled with hope and pride. She had the future in front of her and she was gonna use that time to change things, even change the world if she could. Nobody could stop her when she had a typewriter in front of her, especially not her father. She was happy in her own world of writing and she was gonna be able to finally share this joy. She just had to show everyone that she could write articles on other subjects than flower shows and then they would understand. She just had to find a way to shine through and everything would go smoothly. Her future was almost only in her own hands if you forgot the few influential persons who still had control over her life and career and the fact that she felt out of place when she wasn’t behind her cherished typewriter.
A year later, happy wasn’t just inside of her anymore. Happy was the relief and joy she felt in and around her when Jack shouted “We won !”. Happy was a collective feeling shared with twenty other kids she managed to help. She showed everyone and herself what she could do. Before that, it was only dreams and hopes but now she is sure of her capacity in changing things. She matters in some way or another, you can't think anything else when you hear the screams of joy of hungered kids. She felt fulfilled in this moment : laughs and smiles that she helped create filling the room, all around her people knowing each other and letting her in their conversations, in their inside jokes, in their lives. Things started to really make sense, maybe Katherine found herself something she had been missing but never knew until she had it : friends and a second family, one she was choosing. Her father was taking less space in her life each day as she was building herself a new home in new people and new relationships with people he would have never spent a minute to know anything about. Things were only starting to get into place and it would be a long way until it was perfect but she could get there.
Things started to go faster after this. She met a person who made her feel too many things at the same time in a tiring and exasperating way. Katherine, the writer, didn’t know how to put her own feelings into words anymore and that infuriated her so much. When that one person entered the room, she started to lose her words and stutter, her who had always been reprimanded for talking too much now rendered incapable of aligning two sentences in a row. That would have made her parents satisfied even though they didn’t hear much from her these days. The first time she saw this individual, she stopped her rambling to David short because of the tornado of emotions overwhelming her. It threw her off so much she almost fell over. Thinking of it after it happened she couldn’t help but cringe and promise herself nothing like this would ever happen again. She had always been in control of herself and it wouldn't change now! She wasn't the kind of person who blushed with only a smile from a certain someone and who couldn’t do anything to change it. It wasn't like her. Embarrassing moments happened again to her dismay, not like it was in her control. Why couldn’t that person just stop being in the same room as her but also not go too far from her because she wanted to just understand why she became like this. She didn’t know what all of this was and she hated not knowing something. It had to change in any way and as fast as possible. If she had to talk to that person for it to change, she would do it, as dreading as it felt.
And it changed,not because of Katherine’s doing but it did change. Katherine’s definition of happy was also altered along the way. It was being able to know better that person, that girl. She decided tha Katherine was worth her attention in some way or another and decided to come talk to her. Katherine would have never been able to and although they were talking almost regularly she was still mesmerized by every little movements she made, every words she said. By the way everything she said made sense to her, the way she seemed to understand Katherine like nobody else. She would never admit it herself but Katherine was beginning to look forward their encounters who were less and less luck and more and more choice from both of them. Katherine always managed to be at the lodging house at the same time as Davey and she always managed to come with her brother and acted like he forced her to come. Sarah, a beautiful name for a beautiful girl if you could read Katherine’s mind as she would never ever admit it, always accused him but you could hear and see she was acting by her badly hidden giggle and her glistening eyes. Even if she was almost perfect in every way, acting wasn’t her strongest asset. But Katherine still acted like she didn’t notice anything and went to save her from her horrible brother who totally compelled her to come. Katherine really hoped she was a better actress than her for her own pride and safety. No one could know anything about the still conflicting feelings inside of her.
Happy became Sarah. It was kissing Sarah, it was knowing she liked her and that it was reciprocated. It was Sarah and her hands, and her lips, and her hair and everything about Sarah. Happy was Sarah, Sarah, Sarah and only Sarah. Katherine couldn’t stop playing her name in her head. It was so beautiful almost like a song, a promise of a tomorrow where they would be happy together. In her life there was only Sarah that mattered anymore after kissing her for the first time, or more accurately being kissed by her for the first time. Katherine lying awake on her bed just couldn’t stop smiling, touching her lips still tingling and trying to remember Sarah’s touch and smell ; her scent, as mysterious as the girl she was falling hard for. It wasn’t falling, it was flying, walking on air, being at ease and feeling invincible at the same time, something to an unimaginable level. It was leaping into the unknown and knowing that you wouldn't be in danger because that one person was with you. Sarah felt like summer, like smiles, she felt warm. She still made Katherine feel too many things at the same time but all these feelings went inside the box labelled ‘happy’ in Kathy's head and that was all that mattered to her anymore with Sarah, Sarah and Sarah again.
Katherine liked things that made her happy. After all these years, that word’s sense had changed a lot for Katherine. It was now being able to read as late as she wanted in her own apartment in her living room and on the couch. It was having an interesting job she liked and the family she created herself full of happy people who would help her through every hard times to come on her path. It was waking up to someone next to her in the bed with her already awake and smiling at her while offering her a cup of hot coffee. It was Sarah’s discreet perfumel of agrums that Katherine now recognized and loved because it reminded her of home, summer and most importantly Sarah. Sarah was happiness, love and home. Yes, times were sometimes hard and they couldn’t be act as they felt everywhere. But Katherine felt happy and safe wrapped in her arms in their bed at night and that was enough for both of them.
Katherine liked being happy.