Remember Me

Remember
Me

Heather
Moore

Copyright © 2014
Heather Moore

KINDLE Edition

All
rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions
thereof in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,
downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored, in any form or
introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by
any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written
permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are
the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

PublishNation, London

www.publishnation.co.uk

For those who have
loved against the odds

or in spite of them.

Even
as she poured the whiskey, Catlin felt the effects of the first two decidedly
large glasses begin to hit her. She wasn’t used to drinking – in fact, she
despised it and nearly fifteen years had gone by since she last allowed a drop
of alcohol to pass her lips. It was a stupid thing for her to do. She knew too
well the destructive powers of drink. She had watched it claim and ultimately
kill her father, observed as the curse of his alcohol dependence wreaked havoc
with the lives of not only herself, but those of her mother and sister. So,
what had she done? After the latest in a seemingly endless line of horrendous
days she had gone into a shop and reached for the first bottle of booze she
laid her eyes on. June 21
^st
: the longest day of the year, in more
ways than one.

Catlin
began to lift the third serving to her lips, but between the recollections of
the past and the wave of nausea that swept over her at the smell of the
whiskey, she found it impossible to take so much as another sip. Dropping the
glass with a clatter onto the table, she sank heavily back into her sofa with
tears pricking the backs of her eyes. Part of her willed them on, wished for
them to fall but the greater side knew it would not happen. She had lost the
ability to cry some time ago, for her own situation at least. She had empathy
for other beings, be they human or animal. She could cry for the living and the
dead, but not one drop of pity could she shed for her own miserable state of
existence. Had she read her own personal history in a book she’d have marvelled
at the resilience of lead character for not having done more to erase their
tainted past. The tears retreated, as predicted. She
would not
cry. It
was weak and did nothing to alter the situation for the better and she
chastised herself inwardly for being so pathetic.

She
had thought the inability to feel any form of pity for her misfortunes to be
the direct cause of her heart being wounded too many times and though Catlin
had pieced it back every time it had been torn to shreds she believed it to be
numb to all feelings or sensations. Life had not been kind to her. Her
childhood was spent in fear of her drunken father and dodging the school
bullies who delighted in tormenting the outcast or seeing how well she had
perfected her landing technique by pushing her down the school staircases. Her
teenage years continued similarly. Having grown taller than her father and
adept at dealing with confrontations she was no longer as popular a target for
his abuse but went from looking out for own skin to keeping her mother and
sister safe from his explosive tempers. By her early twenties Catlin had grown
accustomed to physical pain, barely noticing when she picked up an injury, and
had learned how to mask emotional hurt so expertly to most it would have
appeared as if she felt nothing at all.

And
it didn’t end there. Life continued to hound Catlin with Fate seemingly having
decided to use her for its personal doormat and she too became convinced there
was no force left on any plain of existence which could hurt her. She had been
wrong and barely six months had passed since she had discovered her error
thanks to another cruel blow which had not so much dashed her remaining dreams
as smashed them to smithereens. She realised then from the pain she’d felt that
it was not her heart that was dead, so perhaps it was her soul? Something had
certainly died within her – she had felt it wither away, heard its piteous cry
as the mortal wound was dealt and with it went the ability to mourn for her
losses and misfortunes, which were not only plentiful but great.

Not
one person, not a single one, was aware of the living nightmares she’d endured
and battled her way through, without the help of anyone and nothing but her own
wilful nature to keep her going, but she preferred it that way. Growing up in
the house she had, Catlin learned quickly that to show any sign of weakness was
to give someone power over you and once they had it they could use it to
destroy you. She had come to rely on her brains and abilities to solve
problems, and besides, what right did she have to spread her woes around? Just
because she suffered did not mean it was okay for her to pass on that hurt to
others. There was enough pain in the world, in the lives of each person, for
them to contend with without her adding to it. That did not mean there were not
times when she wished there was someone she could turn to. Often she found
herself sat in her apartment just speaking aloud, imagining someone was there
listening without judging or offering up an unwanted opinion. Perhaps she was
mad. She was pretty sure sane people did not talk to their apartments. She had
heard of people talking to their pets, but their apartments? But there was
no-one else to confide in, even had she wanted to.

She
had no friends to speak of. There were acquaintances and contacts she had
through her work, but no friends. They had deserted her in the early days when
Catlin had started to get her work noticed but she was far from being a
success. They had, quite wrongly, got it into their heads that a bestselling
but self-published book equated to millions in the bank. She didn’t have that
kind of money now, but back then they had believed she had thousands stowed
away and when she failed to shower them with presents of great worth or huge
wads of cash did not get tossed their way they thought her tight. How could you
be a number one writer and not have money? The two things went together, didn’t
they? Well, no, but they could not see that and so they fell by the wayside.

And
as much as she loved her mother and sister they were both as unlike her as day
was to night. They never understood her work, her thoughts, anything about her.
It had taken some work to break away from them following her father’s death,
for the pair had become so reliant on Catlin for every little thing that had
she merely moved to another street in the same town they’d have panicked. So,
persuading them that her moving to another country did not signify the end of
the world was quite a task to say the least, and even then she had been forced
to arrange for cleaners and gardeners to come in and take over the work Catlin
had been doing for years.

It
had been tough, but not as tough as it might have been had they been aware of
the incident she had been involved in during the years she had been working in
Scotland as a young woman, what
they
did to her that night. Had that
piece of history been common knowledge Catlin would never have been allowed out
of the family home by herself again despite now being in her thirties. Worse
still would be that they would hold her responsible in some bizarre and twisted
way. She remembered how, when she had come home and told her family she was
being bullied by a second group of girls at school, her mother had said, ‘“What
do you do to them?’” See it was always her fault. Even now, when her mother
phoned and reported the cleaner had broken a cup or the gardener had pulled up
the wrong plants it was her fault for having gone away. It was all right for
her, the big success, swanning off without a care, but she wasn’t the one left
to clean up the mess. Oh, and while she was there, could she remind them how to
change the cartridge in the printer?

A
success? God, if this was success she’d hate to have been a failure. Catlin
could not deny that technically she
was
a success. She had, after ten
years of hard work and virtual oblivion, made a name for herself as a writer
and with two stories turned into highly rated television adaptations, her
newest series of books had been taken up and were in line for a movie make-over.
For some unearthly reason she could not comprehend, her input had been wanted
in this process. She was too old to dismiss such an opportunity, especially
when Guy offered to do all he could to get her noticed (which, he naturally got
a commission for!) and so that was how, with a bit of persuasion from her agent
and publisher, she came to be living in a foreign country, in a city she both
loved and abhorred, being a ‘success’. She was surrounded by the rich and
famous, had the money to anything she wanted to when she wanted to do it, was
living a life people envied but these things did not alter the fact that she
was still alone.

Sure,
she could have picked up the phone and moved her family over to join her
(providing she could have convinced them to board the plane) or gone to one of
the innumerable parties her fellow movie making pals were holding, but it was
not that sort of loneliness. She had always felt isolated from the rest of the
world, separate, as if some invisible barrier were between her and it, that she
did not belong there in any way, shape or form. That was why she loved writing
- it was her way of making the world fit her rather than her trying to fit into
the world. In the pages of her stories, books and poems she could be anything
she wanted, could go on fantastic adventures, be part of the excitement, fall
in love and find her happy ever after, the things reality could not give her, but
best of all, she could be herself.

In
the real world, Catlin no longer recognised the person she had become. She had
worn a mask of fake contentment for so long it had taken over her features.
There was this double who looked like Catlin, spoke like her, sounded the same
as she did but was not remotely like the girl she truly was, the Catlin who
popped up in one form or another in all her works. She had hoped that moving
away from everything and everyone she knew would set her free from this doppelganger,
but she had forgotten where she was moving to and the business she was getting
involved in and that being yourself was not necessarily a choice. That was one
of the things she hated about the city and though Catlin had always felt like
she belonged to another world or an age long passed, there it was all the more
noticeable to her how little she fitted in. No, there was no-one she could have
spoken to and as mad as it seemed to talk to a building at least the rooms she
lived in kept her whisperings to themselves. They were far more trustworthy
than human beings.

A
soft, evening breeze shivered its way in through the open window opposite where
Catlin was sat, stirring her hair and cooling her skin, bringing with it the
scent of warm summer flowers down from the hills which were a short drive away.
She liked living on the edge of the city, in the less affluent area of town, close
to the wild country which lay like an oasis of calm beyond the towering
skyscrapers and miles of perfectly straight tarmacked roads. Out in those hills
she could wander freely, not having to maintain her façade of fame, for few of
those she knew walked there. She was best suited to the trees, hills and
mountains with their meandering trails and natural, unforced beauty.

She
had been urged by many to move to one of the more high status residential
areas, but Catlin was not interested in such an upgrade, being as happy as she
could be among the poorer but genuine locals who, unaware of her identity, left
her be and for this as much as any other reason, she kept her cheaper, one
bedroomed apartment to the surprise and exasperation of all. It may have been
small, but being on the top floor it came with the additional benefit of a roof
terrace, allowing her unspoilt views of the distant, wild dreamscape she adored
so very much. How she wished life could be as simple as it appeared when she
strolled there, but it was not. Life was hard, cruel and often callous.

Crossing
over to the window which had summoned her, Catlin peered out into the darkness.
It was quiet, very few cars drove by below and with the street lights too few
in number to be obtrusive the night was allowed to fall there without
resistance, but off in the distance the glaring obscenity that was the
heartland of the ridiculous industry she was part of fought violently against
it. Okay, it wasn’t as absurd, garish or excessive as she held it to be, but to
someone who could have been content to live in a tent had it been in a place
she loved and offered her the life she sought to find, it seemed that way at
times. Mind you, she had thought the same about the hotel she had worked in as
a cleaner too, in the days before the money came in.

Catlin
wondered if
he
would be there, strutting arrogantly through centre of
the excitement. Why Fate had chosen to send him her way that day, she could not
tell but she cursed the stroke of bad luck wholeheartedly. In the months since
Danny had less than ceremoniously kicked her to the kerb, Catlin had pieced
together the remnants of her shattered heart and broken dreams and found a way
to move on from both losses. She had loved Danny in a way she had loved no man
before. If he didn’t fully understand her, he got her more than anyone else
ever had, and she had been foolishly daring enough to put her trust in him.
What a bloody idiot she was. He was great until she became ill. It wasn’t too
bad until the doctors offered up the possibility of it being cancer. She could,
and indeed did, have forgiven him for not being able to cope particularly well
while she underwent all the tests, no-one could handle that with a carefree
grace.

It
wasn’t cancer, but rather another condition which, though not life threatening,
was certainly life changing. Catlin was told she’d never be able to have
children. It was like a knife to her heart, for she had wanted to have a family
for as long as she could recall, but as she did her best to adapt, Danny proved
to be incapable of handling the news, and it was this Catlin could not forgive
him for. The one time she had dared to let someone in, allowed someone to get
close her and at the very time she needed him the most, he abandoned her.
‘“There wasn’t much else you had to offer,”’ he told her while leaving the
apartment. ‘“If you can’t even have kids, there’s no point in planning any
future with you because there isn’t one.”’ In the long and bloody months since
that night Catlin had come to think she was over both hurts, but then he’d been
thrown her way along with his newly pregnant girlfriend. A double kick in the
teeth.