Since visiting the first time several years prior, Cat had desperately wanted to live in Paris. Paris, after all, had become the new love of her life.
So when she walked the five blocks at five a.m. from the condo belonging to the former love of her life and back to her own, Cat made the decision to leave New York.
She had learned, long ago and not so far away, the easiest way to move was to simply get rid of everything you owned. Cat had no emotional attachment to any of her belongings, so she had Rebecca organize an auction, and two weeks later almost to the day, Cat had raised a large chunk of change for homeless outreach programs in New York.
She then made her way over the big blue ocean and into her palatial six bedroom, four bathroom, forty-five hundred square foot, Louis XVI styled townhouse on the Champs Elysees. It was a beautiful house. Quite comfortable, even though it felt quite empty. And she should have been happy with it. But Cat wasn’t happy about anything, because Cat was just sad.
Immediately upon arrival, Cat had the theater room converted into a music studio. It only took a month to complete, and she began churning out song after song after song. She had experienced so much emotional turmoil the night of the film premiere she probably had enough song material to extend her career for another two decades.
The walk home that night had been a sad one. Part of her didn't want to leave him. Part of her just wanted to let them start over.
But she couldn't.
Because the biggest part of her had been completely traumatized.
Reading the suicide note, while periodically glancing up at him through tear-filled eyes, was too much as she imagined it would have been if she hadn't decided to permanently leave on the day he wrote it. If she'd merely decided to give him some space, gone to class, and never called Richie, she knew she could have realistically been reading that same note next to not a sleeping Alec, but a dead Alec. An Alec who would have been lying in a pool of his own blood, rather than the comforts of what used to be their bed. He had been correct; one gut instinct reaction from Cat had saved his life.
While that wasn't the way things had turned out, the potential for it to have happened existed in a real way, and that was the one thing that finally broke Cat.
Not the muggings, not the near rape, not the cold nights on the streets, not even the loneliness or her initially shattered heart.
It was the fact he had almost been permanently erased, just like her brother, just like her parents, and it was the fact he'd tried to do it to himself.
And for all the time she spent trying to forget him or hate him, she honestly shouldn't have given a shit he’d almost died. Especially after what he had done to her.
But she did, and she knew why, and it was never going to change, and she just didn't want to deal with it.
So for the second time in her life, Cat ran away as far as her money and imagination could carry her, and she started over again, without a friend in the world.
At least, not one she was willing to talk to.
Cat did, of course, have Rebecca, André, and the other people she worked with, so she wasn't entirely alone this time. But she never managed to shake the feeling that something in her life was simply lacking.
So to fill the void, she became a workaholic obsessed with earning as much money as she possibly could, to not only funnel a bunch of it into the world of aiding people who were living like she used to, but also as a safety net for herself so it would never happen to her again.
In addition to several multi-platinum albums, she took on roles in Parisian film projects, wrote music for theater and movies and other singers, and she slowly established a reputation in the industry as something much more respected than just a pop diva.
The old saying, it's lonely at the top, was Cat's entire existence, and she found that to be terribly annoying. It seemed completely asinine to be constantly surrounded by people and at the top of her game and still be as silently disgruntled as she was when she'd started out on the path to stardom.
She had honestly believed it was because she needed to forgive and let go of how she'd been so horribly wronged. But she'd gotten the opportunity to do exactly that and she still didn't feel any better.
In fact, she felt worse than she ever had, and she seemed to feel worse with every passing day. Her life became an unrecognizable haze similar to the months between Anthony’s death and the day she decided to move away from Seattle.
She went through long stretches of time where she either wouldn’t sleep or would sleep for seemingly days on end.
She felt like she was nearing the end of her rope and it became pretty clear what was causing her to feel so despondent. And by Cat's thirtieth birthday, she had grown tired, not only of Paris but also of feeling this way, and she just wanted to go back home.
And home, her real home, was back in New York.
* * * *
André and Rebecca decided to give Cat hell on her birthday, and they dragged her out of bed at an ungodly hour, down the Champs Elysees, while she was still in her pajamas and bathrobe, to a kitschy little American themed restaurant geared toward tourists. But fortunately, there were mimosas and coffee, so she let the sweetly obnoxious gesture slide.
"Are you going to sing to yourself, dearest?" André snickered as he held his hands over Cat's eyes.
"No, love, you know I never sing to myself," Cat teased. "I don't think I could afford me."
"Well then I guess you get to be serenaded by the garçon," André chortled.
Approaching from the corner of the restaurant, Cat heard the man singing Bon Anniversaire, and eventually felt the warmth of way too many candles on her surprise cake.
After the song concluded, André whipped his hands away to reveal a massive stack of pancakes covered in candles.
And Cat burst into tears.
"Oh no," André squealed as he gripped her shoulders from behind. "Don't be sad, baby girl. Thirty is nothing to fear!" And he planted his lips on Cat's wet cheek.
"What's the matter, dear?" Rebecca asked soothingly and rubbed the back of one of Cat's hands.
"Nothing," Cat lied. "You guys are just so…sweet. I just—I just…I can't believe my twenties are over!" She covered her face with her hands and cried even harder.
It was a convenient enough and thoroughly believable excuse.
"You're precious," Rebecca smiled. "Thirty is when life begins. And you are starting from an amazing place."
Cat nodded as she gained control of herself, smiled, and then hugged both of them.
"Well, honey, go on and make a wish…and then…blow." André cackled at his own brilliant dirty joke.
Cat rolled her eyes a bit and giggled at him. Then she took a deep breath and wished silently to herself.
There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home…
And who needs ruby slippers when you have red bottoms and a fat bank account?
So Cat decided she'd make her own wish come true, and not quite two months later, she was back in Manhattan.