Chapter Text
The blinking cursor pulsed at the end of the sentence. Patient. Judgmental.
I sat in the cheap swivel chair in front of my desk while the low afternoon light seeped through the dusty blinds in thin bars of gold, cutting across the floorboards like prison bars.
My stomach cramped. Lunch had come and gone without me noticing. Or maybe I'd noticed and just hadn't cared enough to eat. The thought of chewing—of swallowing, of forcing fuel into a body that felt less like a home and more like an abandoned building—made my throat turn to sand.
Beside my laptop, sitting sphinx-like atop an ungodly pile of unpaid bills, was the orange cat.
He purred. Loudly. A low, vibrating engine that sounded suspiciously like smug criticism. Every time I hit backspace, one hazel eye cracked open just enough to watch me, as if my inability to finish a paragraph were personally offensive.
Shut up. You don't even pay taxes.
I squeezed my eyes shut, forced my aching fingers back to the keyboard, and fought through the thick, gray fog in my brain. I typed out the lines before the fragile spark of momentum died completely:
Rowan unfolded the yellowed envelope like he was handling fragile glass. The paper smelled faintly of lavender and old dust, a soft, quiet scent that had no business surviving in a room full of stale coffee and damp coats. Pressed into the center was a single, direct sentence written in dark ink: "Find me before spring arrives."
Before I can even start the next paragraph, heavy, hurried knocks echo against my front door.
I froze. Great. Excellent. I swear, if this was Lara coming back to throw another emotional grenade at me—
BANG.
The front door bursts inward, slamming against the wall hard enough to rattle every picture frame in the apartment.
Yep. Manon.
Thank God. Or not. My anxiety spiked before settling into a dull, thumping pulse.
I leaned back in my chair, resting my chin in my palm as I watched her burst into the foyer like a localized hurricane. "Now what are you doing here?" I asked, my voice flat, gravelly, and dry from disuse.
"Hey, Soph!" she called out, completely breathless.
Me and the cat both looked at her. Then the cat turned his massive orange head and looked at me. Then, in slow, perfectly synchronized unison, we both looked back at Manon.
Without a single beat of hesitation, Manon casually shrugged off her denim jacket and tossed it over the back of my couch. She didn't even take off her boots.
Mind you, I used to have a strict, non-negotiable shoes-off-at-the-door policy. But as I glanced around at the dust motes dancing in the air, the scattered papers, the sheer disaster zone my life had devolved into—yeah. The policy was dead.
Manon took two aggressive steps into the living room, then stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers, her mouth dropping open into a dramatic, perfect "O."
"YOU GOT A CAT?!" she shrieked, her voice hitting a frequency that vibrated my windows. "A FAT CAT?!"
She was an absolute, hopeless sucker for animals. Which was exactly the problem.
Abandoning her purse on the floor, she lunged forward and swooped him straight off my mail pile, burying her face in his fur with a series of loud, dramatic squeals.
Three seconds later, her whole body seized.
"Hh—hhhH-TSHOO!"
The sneeze nearly launched her off her feet. The cat, unbothered, kept dangling from her arms like an oversized loaf of bread.
"Bless you," I said flatly.
"I'm fine," Manon said, sniffing hard, her eyes already glassing over pink at the rims. She buried her face right back into his fur anyway, because apparently self-preservation was a foreign concept to her. "Worth it."
"You've had that cat in your arms for eleven seconds."
"And I'd do it again." Her voice had gone thick and nasal. She dug into her jacket pocket, pulled out a half-crushed blister pack of antihistamines, and dry-swallowed one like it was a vitamin. "I always keep these on me now. Megan's shelter animals. I'm basically building up an immunity through sheer force of will."
"That is not how allergies work, Manon."
"It's how my allergies work." She sneezed again, wetly, directly into her elbow this time, and did not put the cat down.
The cat didn't even fight it. He just accepted his fate, dangling limply in her grip while staring blankly into the middle distance, fully resigned to his new life as an oversized, allergen-producing stuffed toy.
Suddenly, Manon paused mid-cuddle, her hand hovering over a rough patch on his thigh. "Wait—Soph, what happened to him? Is that a wound?"
"He's a stray," I murmured, watching her thumb gently outline the small scab. "He came with battlefield scars."
Manon shifted him under one arm like a ten-pound bag of groceries. "Damn. What did you do, little fella?"
"Meow."
"Okay, I'm gonna be careful with you now," Manon said.
She leaned over my shoulder to peer at my laptop screen. Her eyes skimmed the single, solitary paragraph I'd just typed. The loud, chaotic, playful energy dropped out of her face so fast it gave me whiplash.
"Soph..." Her voice lost all its volume. "Is that—are you writing?"
My heart did a violent, painful flip against my ribs. I closed the document so fast my finger slipped across the trackpad—not before the tiny blue autosave bar flashed—and slammed the laptop lid shut until it clicked like a gunshot.
I spun around in my chair, tightly crossing my arms over my chest to physically shield the computer with my back.
"What are you doing here, Manon?" I asked, keeping my voice as flat and icy as I could manage.
Manon blinked, shifting the fat cat higher against her chest, her eyes red-rimmed from either the allergy or something else entirely. "I just wanted to check on you," she said quietly.
"I'm fine," I snapped automatically. "I just forgot to message you guys yesterday."
"Sophia, you didn't even go to your Saturday class today," Manon pointed out. "It's the only class you have on the weekend. Megan and Yoonchae have been texting the group chat asking if you died. I had to cover for you and tell them you were nursing a hangover."
"Which was true," I muttered. "Partially."
"Which I completely understand," she said, her voice gentle to a fault.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. "How—how are they?"
Manon's eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise. It had been a long time since I'd asked about anyone other than myself.
"They're fine. Yoonchae's on that research trip to Korea, and Megan's practically living at the shelter this weekend." She sniffed again, eyeing the cat in her arms with equal parts affection and betrayal. "And me? Apparently allergic to my own good deeds."
She drifted toward the sunlit living room window. Sitting on the sill was a small, miserable ceramic pot containing a cactus that had died months ago—brown, shriveled, hollowed out by neglect. Without breaking stride, Manon grabbed a half-empty water bottle and poured a generous splash straight onto the dead plant.
Poor cactus. It didn't even have roots left to absorb it.
"What's its name?" Manon asked, sneezing once more into her shoulder.
"Twerp," I answered deadpan.
Manon stared at me. "Seriously? A cute, majestic, rotund cat like this, and ‘Twerp’ is the best your writer-brain could come up with?"
"He earned it."
She bent down, casually scooping the cat upside down to check between his hind legs. "Oh. Cat balls. Definitely a boy." She flipped him back right-side up and immediately sneezed again. "Okay, I need to put him down before my face falls off."
She set him gently on the rug. He immediately looked up at her, betrayed, as if the abandonment were his to feel and not hers to survive.
"I'm really glad you have a companion now, Soph," she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist. "You need something alive in here."
"I don't want another thing that depends on me," I said firmly.
The cat, who was currently lining up a second assault on the dead cactus, stopped mid-step. He slowly turned his head and stared straight at me.
"Why?" Manon pressed. "Look at him. He's literally sitting in your house acting like he pays rent."
"Because I have a lot on my plate right now," I snapped, gesturing at the messy room, the unopened mail, the slammed laptop. "I can barely keep myself alive. I am not taking responsibility for another breathing thing."
"It's just a cat, Sophia. He doesn't need a five-year plan."
"And what happens when I mess up?"
"You won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're you."
I laughed. It sounded awful. "You have a very outdated opinion of me." My voice cracked. "I can't do it. I couldn't even save—"
We fell into an abrupt, agonizing silence.
Between us, sitting smack in the middle of a plush green throw pillow, was the cat. He had folded his paws neatly into a seamless loaf, watching the two of us back and forth like he was refereeing a very loud, very sad match.
Manon's gaze softened. "Okay. Look—if you really can't keep him, at least give him to Megan at the shelter. Please. Don't just throw him back out there."
I stared at his torn ear. "He's an outdoor stray, Manon. He survived before he found my window."
"He came in here bleeding," Manon said softly. "Megan's shelter can get him cleaned up, check his vaccines, and find him a good family." A beat. Then, quieter: "And—honestly—it might be easier on all of us."
She said it lightly, but I caught the way her hand drifted to her nose again, unconsciously, like she was bracing for the next sneeze before it came.
"Fine," I muttered. "I'll take him to Megan."
The cat let out a tiny, crisp mew.
Manon let out a soft, resigned sigh, choosing not to push me any further. Instead, her stomach let out a monstrous, loud growl that shattered the rest of the heavy tension in the room.
She immediately turned on her heel and marched straight into my tiny kitchen. She pulled open the refrigerator door, stared into the barren, icy void inside, and threw her hands up in the air.
"Where the fuck is your food, Sophia?!" she yelled from behind the door. "There is literally half a lemon and a bottle of soy sauce in here!"
She slammed the fridge shut and marched back out, pointing a finger directly at my face.
"Okay, new plan. We are going grocery shopping. Right now. Whether you like it or not, because you need food, and more importantly, you need to step foot outside this apartment before you turn into a ghost."
"Manon, I don't—"
"I'm not asking!" she declared, grabbing my jacket off the rack and throwing it straight into my lap.
"Daniela used to—"
I stopped. The air left the room. Manon stopped too, her hand hovering in midair.
"...never mind," I whispered.
The orange cat perked up instantly, his tail curling into a question mark as he trotted over to the front door, looking up at us as if he fully intended to join our outing.
"No," I told the cat, standing up and zipping my coat. "No pets allowed."
"Goodbye, my handsome little prince!" Manon cooed dramatically, dropping to her knees and gathering the fat orange creature into a giant, suffocating hug. Fighting back a sneeze, she kissed the top of his fuzzy head three times until he let out a soft, confused squeak.
Before I could tell her to stop enabling him, Manon dug into her coat pocket, pulled out a small, unopened stick of dried salmon jerky she'd apparently been carrying around, snapped off a generous piece, and held it out to him. The cat took it instantly, holding the thick strip firmly in his jaws like a trophy.
"Don't spoil him, he's leaving anyway," I muttered, grabbing my keys off the counter.
"Shut up, Soph," Manon smiled softly, opening the front door and pulling me out into the drafty hallway. "Let him have a treat."
As the heavy door swung slowly shut, my eyes lingered on the narrowing gap.
The orange cat was sitting straight up on the rug, his eyes—that same restless hazel—locked directly onto mine through the shrinking sliver of light. The salmon jerky hung untouched from his mouth, dangling forgotten between his teeth.
He wasn't eating it.
He was just watching me.
Waiting.
For one terrifying, impossible second, something deep in my chest begged me to turn around and walk back inside.
I shut the door before it could.
🐾2022🐾
The library smelled like old paper, radiator dust, and stale mints. In the distance, a printer whirred rhythmically, punctuated every few minutes by the metallic clack of a chair scraping against the floorboards and the muted cough of someone three aisles over.
I had been staring at the white void of my laptop screen for four hours straight.
My mind, usually a crowded room of tangled plots and dialogue, had gone completely, utterly blank. The cursor didn't even feel judgmental anymore; it just felt bored.
Exasperated, I slammed my laptop shut—a little too hard, earning a sharp glare from a guy studying organic chemistry two tables over—and stood up. I needed inspiration, or a spark, or at least a distraction before my brain turned entirely to mush.
I wandered into the maze of book aisles, drifting toward the fiction section. My fingers lightly dragged along the wooden shelves as I scanned the spines: Humor... Drama... Periodicals... Romance...
And then my eyes landed on a section subtly tucked into the far corner. Adult/Explicit Fiction.
I stopped. I stared at the dark red and black spines a little longer than I probably should have. A genuinely baffled thought crossed my mind: Do university libraries even permit this stuff? I mean... it's on an official shelf, so clearly someone approved the budget, but what the hell?
"Gonna read one of those?"
"AH!"
A violent jolt went straight up my spine. A squeak tore out of my throat, but I clamped both hands over my mouth so fast I nearly bruised my own jaw.
I whipped around. Standing right behind me, holding her laptop flat against her chest like a shield, was Daniela.
"H-Hi, Dani," I squeaked out through my fingers.
"Hey," she said, leaning her shoulder against the shelf. She pulled a thick paperback from the explicit section, handing it to me with a confident, effortless flourish. "Here. Surprise pick."
I looked down at the cover. It featured a dramatically shirtless cowboy cradling a woman on a thunderous peak. I flipped it over, skimmed the blurb, and felt my eyebrows climb straight into my hairline.
"Dani..." I said slowly.
"What?"
"I don't think you read the back of this."
She tilted her head, peering over my shoulder. Her eyes scanned the summary—specifically the explicit, deeply unhinged taglines. Her expression instantly crumbled into sheer, bewildered panic.
"Oh."
"Yeah. You just handed me literary pornography."
"..."
"..."
"I may have made a mistake," Daniela whispered, her face flushing a brilliant, glorious shade of pink.
I burst out a soft laugh. "I thought you were being suave."
"I was trying to be!" she hissed softly, hiding her burning face behind her laptop. "Okay, your turn. Pick something for me to drown out my shame."
Ten minutes later, we were standing at the front checkout desk.
I had picked out a copy of “Pride and Prejudice” for her—partly because I knew through the grapevine that she had a soft spot for sweeping romance, and partly to balance out the smut stick she was currently holding.
The student worker behind the counter lifted Daniela's book, scanned it, and then reached for mine. He picked up the cowboy romance novel, looked at the dramatic, shirtless cover, looked up at me, and let out a puff of air that was dangerously close to a snort.
"Enjoy your..." He looked down at the cover again, clearing his throat. "...reading."
Daniela offered the student a sweet, completely innocent smile, acting entirely unbothered.
I, on the other hand, immediately glued my eyes to the floor, aggressively counting the ugly, abstract linoleum tiles like my life depended on it. One, two, three, four... if I stare hard enough I will simply dissolve into the floorboards.
The student stamped the cards and slid the books toward us. Daniela grabbed hers, bumped her shoulder lightly against mine, and whispered, "Walk fast."
We ducked around the corner into a quiet nook behind the history archives. Once we were out of sight, Daniela let out a soft, wheezing laugh, pressing a hand over her mouth.
I looked at her, and the sheer absurdity of it caught in my chest. I started laughing. Daniela saw me trying not to laugh, which made her laugh harder. I clutched my stomach, fighting for air, which set her off into a silent, full-body fit of hysteria.
Before we knew it, we were both crouched under the wooden study table, hiding behind a hanging display of historical maps, pressing our faces into our knees to muffle the sounds.
"Shh!" a voice hissed from the next aisle.
That was the nail in the coffin. Daniela choked on a giggle, burying her face into her sleeve, her shoulders shaking violently. We sat there in the dust motes and shadows, clutching each other's arms, tears pricking our eyes from laughing so hard we couldn't breathe.
When our silent hysteria finally ebbed, we dragged ourselves out from under the table and sat side by side at the long wooden desk.
For twenty minutes, it was peaceful. The A/C hummed quietly overhead. Daniela leaned back in her chair, completely immersed in Austen's prose, flipping pages with a rhythmic grace.
I opened the cowboy novel.
My eyebrows drew together. My jaw slowly drifted open. The writing was a chaotic train wreck of wild metaphors and deeply unscientific anatomy.
"Listen to this," I whispered, leaning toward her. "'His heart thundered like a wild stallion trapped in a storm of desire.'"
Daniela closed her book, rested her chin in her hand, and snorted. "Poetry."
"It's horrifying," I whispered back, but I couldn't hide my grin.
She looked at me for a long beat, her eyes warm. "So... what are you actually writing?"
My hand instinctively moved to cover my closed laptop. "Nothing. Just... mess."
"Come on. Are you a writer?"
"No," I said quickly, the defensive instinct kicking in automatically. "I don't think I'm good enough for that."
Daniela didn't laugh. She just tilted her head, her gaze soft, grounded, and entirely sincere. "I didn't ask if you were good, Sophia. I asked if you wrote."
The simple, quiet weight of her words made my chest tighten.
"I write," I admitted quietly.
"Then you're a writer." Daniela leaned back, tracing the edge of her book cover absentmindedly. "Besides, you see things. You notice details people usually miss." She paused, then caught herself, letting out an awkward little laugh. "...Sorry. That sounded way creepier than I meant it to."
A soft smile tugged at my lips. "A little."
"Right. Okay. I'll work on my motivational speeches," she muttered, rolling her eyes at herself, though a faint blush lingered on her cheeks.
She opened “Pride and Prejudice” again, turning the page. "You know," she murmured softly, her tone conversational, "people always think letting go means forgetting."
I looked up from my laptop, catching the side of her profile in the dusty afternoon light. "Doesn't it?"
She shook her head gently. "I don't think so. I think letting go is just carrying something without letting it crush you."
I stared at her. "That's... oddly specific."
Daniela laughed, the sound bright and entirely unstudied. "Maybe. Or maybe I just like pretending I know what I'm talking about."
She gave me a warm smile, and for a long moment, we just sat together.
I looked down at her open copy of “Pride and Prejudice.”
My eyes lingered on the page. Then I realized... she hadn't turned it in ten minutes. Her thumb was lightly tracing the margin, but her eyes weren't moving across the text. She was staring at the exact same paragraph she'd been on when we sat down. She wasn't reading at all. She was somewhere else entirely.
Then I caught the rest of it. The faint, bruised shadows under her eyes. The tight, subtle tension in her jaw.
Wait...
Before I could process it, a sudden buzz-buzz rattled across the wooden table.
Daniela's phone screen lit up face-up between us.
Lara: Where are you? Call me.
The light in Daniela's face didn't shatter—it just quietly vanished. Her shoulders stiffened instantly. She didn't gasp or make a scene; she simply picked up the phone, flipped it face down, and swallowed hard.
"I... I have to go," she said, her voice dropping an octave, stripped of all its earlier warmth.
"Oh," I said, caught off guard by how fast the air had left the room. "Okay. Of course."
Daniela gathered her laptop and tucked Pride and Prejudice tightly against her ribs. She stood up, taking a step back toward the main aisle.
Then she stopped.
She looked back over her shoulder at me. "Hey..."
I looked up from my desk. "Yeah?"
"If one day you become famous..."
A tiny smile touched my lips. "I'm not going to be famous, Dani."
"I'm serious," she said quietly, her eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that caught in my throat. "...Okay?"
"...Okay."
"Don't stop writing."
"I won't," I whispered.
"Good," she said softly. "Thanks for the company, Soph."
I watched her walk down the quiet corridor until her silhouette vanished past the front desk.
I sat alone at the table for a long time. The library felt entirely too quiet again. But the fog in my brain—the thick, immovable block that had paralyzed me for four hours—was gone.
I pulled my laptop closer and opened the screen.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a fraction of a second. One sentence became two. Two became five. Before I knew it, I wasn't thinking anymore. I was writing.
Outside, someone coughed. A chair scraped against the floorboards. Somewhere down the hall, a printer started humming again.
The library kept moving. So did I.
I slid the ridiculous cowboy romance novel neatly into my backpack, zipping it shut.
Thanks for the ridiculous book, Dani, I thought, a faint, bittersweet smile touching my lips as my fingers flew across the keys. You have no idea what you just fixed.
🐾
The night air was sharp enough to slice through my jacket.
As we walked down the quiet pavement toward Manon's beat-up hatchback, the conversation drifted lazily through the usual mundane bullshit—classes, assignments, the slow-motion car crash of our upcoming midterms. But I wasn't really listening.
I was watching Manon.
Check.
Lock.
Pocket.
Thirty seconds.
Check again.
Thumb hovering over the glass screen like she was waiting for a bomb to detonate.
Lock.
Pocket.
She stopped the moment we climbed into her car, letting the radio hum softly between us. The silence was thick, heavy with the things neither of us wanted to say out loud.
To bridge the gap, Manon tried her absolute best at small talk. She babbled about Megan's never-ending updates from the animal shelter, Yoonchae's research trip, and some unhinged rant about her own life—just classic Manon, desperately throwing words into the air to keep the ghosts away.
We stopped at a red light on a quiet, tree-lined stretch of road. Out of nowhere—
BANG!
A heavy sound slammed violently against the roof of the car.
"JESUS CHRIST!" Manon yelled, nearly jumping out of her seat.
"It's a fruit, Manon," I sighed, resting my forehead against the cold window glass as the light turned green. "A tree fruit. Calm down."
"That was an artillery shell, Sophia, don't minimize my trauma."
Five minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of the 24-hour grocery store a few blocks away.
The moment we stepped out of the car, the chilly wind hit me like a slap. I wrapped my jacket tightly around myself, shuddering as we pushed through the sliding glass doors into the harsh, buzzing fluorescent light of the store. Manon yanked a silver shopping cart out of the corral with a loud metallic rattle.
"Just so you know," Manon announced, pointing a strict finger at me, "we are splitting this bill fifty-fifty."
I snorted, rubbing my shivering arms. "I'm shocked you're even making me pay half. Truly, what a humanitarian."
"Hey, I'm dragging you out of the void, not funding your lifestyle."
We wandered into the first few aisles, the wheels of the cart squeaking rhythmically against the linoleum floor. When we hit the dairy and snack section, my eyes blindly scanned the shelves until they caught on a bright yellow box with bold blue lettering.
Twinkies.
They landed in the cart with a soft, heavy thump.
Manon stopped pushing. She looked down at the box. Then she looked at me.
"You're really not subtle at all, dude."
"Shut up," I muttered, looking anywhere else.
She immediately began reaching for random shelves, grabbing boxes of granola, pasta, frozen waffles, microwave rice and sweets - lots of sweets - and throwing them into the cart like a wildly energetic game show contestant just to keep me distracted. Just to make sure I ate something that wasn't air.
Then I looked down into the cart. It was already piled dangerously high, and we were only on aisle two. "Are you trying to make me obese?"
"No," Manon said, throwing in a jar of peanut butter. "Just trying to get enough caloric mass in you so you don't blow away in a gust of wind."
As we moved down toward the international aisle, Manon's phone buzzed in her coat pocket. She pulled it out instantly, her eyes darting over the screen.
The irritation that had been simmering in my chest finally boiled over.
"Raj came to my place earlier," I said, keeping my tone deceptively casual.
Manon whipped her head around so fast I thought her neck was going to snap. "What?"
"Surprising, right?"
"What did she do?" Manon demanded, her eyes wide with sudden panic. "Did you kill her? Soph... tell me there isn't a body in your bathtub."
"Oh, trust me, I'd love to bury her one day," I said dryly. "But no. She came for a different reason."
Manon stared at me, her posture stiffening into a clear spill-it-already look.
I let out a long, heavy sigh, my shoes squeaking against the floorboards. "Her gold necklace got lost in my apartment. And unfortunately, that little twerp of an orange cat managed to knock it down somewhere in my apartment."
"No!" Manon gasped, her hand dropping from the cart handle. "Sophia, that's... that was really important to her. And to... to Dani."
I nodded slowly, bracing for the hollow ache in my ribs.
"I already disappointed her enough anyway," I whispered, my gaze drifting down to my boots.
Manon was stunned. "You? Disappointed her? Never, Soph. You know that's not true. None of this is your fault."
"Yeah, it is," I said softly, reaching out to the shelf beside me. My fingers brushed over a box of matcha-flavored biscuits—another quiet ghost—and I dropped them into the cart beside the Twinkies.
Manon went silent for a long, heavy minute. The fluorescent lights hummed above us.
"You should go see her sometime, Soph," she said gently, her voice stripping away all her usual chaotic armor. "I think... I think she's just been waiting for you."
I swallowed hard, staring at the floorboards. "I don't think I'm ready. Besides, she'll probably just push me away."
We reached the pet aisle a few minutes later. Manon paused, picking up a bag of fancy, high-end salmon cat treats. "We should get these for twerp."
"I'm giving him to Megan tomorrow," I said flatly.
Manon froze.
Still, my hand moved on its own. I took the bag from Manon. I turned it over in my hands. I read the ingredients—real tuna, no corn filler, added taurine. My thumb traced the plastic edge.
Slowly, carefully, I placed it back on the shelf.
"He's an outdoor cat," I muttered, turning away. "He doesn't need gourmet tuna."
Manon looked at the spot on the shelf where the bag sat, her eyes soft with quiet understanding, but she didn't say a word.
At the register, we rang up the mountain of food, strictly splitting the bill 50/50. Afterwards, Manon dragged me to the 24-hour convenience store next door because she suddenly declared she desperately needed a Slurpee. And yeah, she actually paid for mine.
What a saint.
We sat down on a cold concrete bench right outside the store, the heavy grocery bags resting on the metal table between us. The night was dark, the chilly air biting at our cheeks, but it was quiet.
"AUGH!" Manon suddenly shrieked, clutching her temples with both hands. "Brain freeze! Oh God, my skull is splitting!"
"That's what you get for forcing me out into sub-zero temperatures for frozen syrup," I said, taking a slow, deliberate sip of my own cup.
We sat there for a few peaceful minutes—until Manon's phone pinged again in her lap. Her eyes darted straight down to the illuminated screen.
I set my Slurpee down on the table, the plastic cup making a dull thud. I was exhausted.
"Okay. What is up with that?" I asked flatly. "You've been checking your phone every two minutes since we left my place."
"It's nothing," Manon lied smoothly, locking the screen and shoving it face-down onto the table. "Just group chat notifications."
Even after two years, she was a shockingly terrible liar.
"I know it's her," I said, taking another slow sip.
Manon froze. She didn't say a word.
"How long are you going to keep doing this, Manz?" I asked, my voice dropping into something lower, tired, and heavy. "You know she's been trouble from the absolute beginning. We warned you about her. Daniela warned you about her."
Manon stared down at her melting Slurpee, her jaw tightening. "You don't understand her, Soph."
"Then help me understand!" I snapped, the frustration finally breaking through my flat exterior. "Because right now, nothing makes sense! You're not making sense, Lara's not making sense... none of this makes any damn sense!"
"Just... please be patient with her," Manon muttered quietly.
"Patient enough that she can keep taking advantage of you?" I challenged, leaning closer. "That's not love, Manon. That's a slow hostage situation."
Manon remained dead silent, staring at the condensation dripping down her cup. "Sometimes," she said softly, "you have to be close enough to look to actually understand."
A suffocating silence settled over the bench. The wind blew a stray piece of trash across the parking lot.
Manon finally looked up at me, her eyes soft and tired. "Take all the time you need, Soph. But eventually... talk to Daniela. Maybe that'll finally give you the answer you're looking for."
I didn't answer.
Somewhere across the parking lot, a shopping cart rolled lazily across the asphalt before bumping into a curb.
The world kept moving.
Mine didn't.
We gathered the heavy grocery bags and walked back to her car parked under a flickering streetlight. Manon popped the trunk, we threw the bags inside, and settled back into the front seats, pulling the heavy car doors shut against the cold.
The warmth of the car enveloped us. Manon reached for the keys in the ignition—
"Meow."
Manon froze.
So did I. My hand stopped mid-air, inches away from the seatbelt buckle.
Silence.
"Meow."
Slow. Deliberate. Coming from directly behind us.
We turned our heads at exactly the same time.
"THE FUCK?!" Manon screamed, her entire body jumping so violently her arm slammed into her drink holder.
"DUDE! YOU SPILLED ON ME!" I yelled, frantically wiping a sticky streak of red syrup off my jeans.
Sitting smack in the middle of the dark leather upholstery, licking his paw with absolute, regal indifference, was the orange menace himself.
Twerp.
I stared at him in complete, unadulterated disbelief. "How the hell did you even get in here?!"
The cat paused mid-lick, looked straight at me, let out a sharp, offended hiss, and then curled himself into a tight, fuzzy orange loaf on Manon's clean leather seat.
"SOPH! HE’S HERE!" Manon gasped, her hand clutching her chest.
"I can see that, Manon!"
"No, I mean—think about it, Soph! It’s a sign!"
"A sign?" I repeated, holding up my syrup-covered hands. "A sign of what? Trespassing?"
"A sign that he’s supposed to be your forever friend!" Manon said, staring back at the cat with starry, dramatic eyes. He was already squirming happily against the leather, rubbing his fat face against the headrest like he owned the vehicle.
Before I could open my mouth to shut down her little cosmic destiny theory, Manon leaned over the console, looking at me with unbearable sincerity. "Just think about it, Soph. Life really is full of surprises—"
Warm. Heavy. Pungent.
A sudden, biological wave hit the front seat.
The stench was immediate, devastating, and thick enough to peel the paint off the dashboard.
Manon’s heroic expression instantly crumbled. Her nostrils flared, her eyes watered, and her jaw dropped in pure horror.
We both slowly looked down at the floorboard of the backseat.
"Okay, now clean that shit up," I said flatly, pulling the collar of my jacket over my nose.
"I am going to throw up," Manon gagged, reaching frantically for the glove box.
It took twenty minutes, half a roll of paper towels, a full travel pack of wet wipes, a bottle of hand sanitizer, and almost half a can of cherry-scented air freshener to restore the car to a semi-habitable state. He sat on the pristine hood of the car the entire time, watching our desperate labor with cold, aristocratic judgment.
Once we were back on the road, the air freshener battling a losing war against the residual fumes, the cat decided he was the backseat driver. He didn't just meow; he held a continuous, warbling, multi-tonal monologue in the back.
“Mrow-row-ww-rawr.”
"What is he even saying?" I groaned, rubbing my temples. "Is he threatening us?"
"Yeah, tell her not to get rid of you," Manon called over her shoulder, easing the car through an intersection. She paused, catching herself in the rearview mirror. "Sorry for calling you a twerp, little guy. I know it's a slur against your intellect."
The cat blinked slowly at her... and let out a vicious, flat-toned HISS.
"Deserved," I muttered.
"I am showing him affection, Sophia!"
Without a single second of warning, a streak of orange launched itself over the center console.
"HOLY SHIT!" Manon shrieked, swerving the wheel as he landed with all four paws straight in my lap.
"MANON, WATCH THE ROAD!"
He paid the near-fatal traffic hazard zero mind. His nose twitched, zeroed in on the sticky, sugar-soaked patch of cherry Slurpee on my jeans, and immediately began rough-licking my pant leg with terrifying, industrial enthusiasm.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
"Get off—ew! Stop it!" I jostled my leg, but the cat dug his claws into the denim for traction, purring like a chainsaw while scraping his sandpaper tongue against my knee.
I slumped back into the passenger seat, staring up at the roof of the car in total defeat. "I hate today. I hate everything about today."
"He likes the red ones," Manon observed smugly, completely unfazed now that her leather seats were safe. "He's a boy of culture."
By the time we pulled into my apartment complex, the sun had fully dipped below the horizon, leaving the sky a dark, bruised violet. We unloaded the trunk, dragging four heavy bags of groceries toward the stairs. We were halfway up the landing before I realized the orange shadow trotting silently behind us, his eyes locked onto the plastic bag carrying the meat.
"Wait—did we almost lock him in the car?" Manon asked.
"He followed us out, Manon."
Once inside my apartment, the quiet, stagnant air was instantly shattered. Manon tossed her keys onto the counter and immediately took charge, helping me unpack the groceries while the cat did laps around our ankles, letting out sharp, demanding shrieks every time a plastic bag crinkled.
"I'm cooking," Manon declared, rolling up her denim sleeves.
"I can cook," I offered automatically.
"Soph, you haven't eaten a real meal in god knows how long, and your idea of cooking is boiling water for cup ramen," Manon said gently, shoving me toward the cutting board. "Pass me the onions. We're making sinigang."
My chest tightened, just a tiny bit. Sinigang. Comfort food.
I passed her the tomatoes before she even asked. She caught them one-handed without looking, setting them beside the pot. I reached for the tamarind packet in the cupboard, but Manon was already filling the stainless steel pot with tap water, adjusting the flame on the burner with familiar muscle memory.
Neither of us spoke. We didn't have to.
I sliced the radishes into neat rounds, dropping them onto the wooden board with precise, rhythmic thuds. I didn't have to tell her how much garlic to crush or when to drop the pork belly into the searing pot—she already knew. She'd memorized the exact sequence back in our sophomore dorm when homesickness had almost swallowed me whole, watching over my shoulder until my mother's recipe became second nature to her, too. It was a silent choreography, effortless and old, carried out in the warm haze of steam.
The peaceful atmosphere, however, was constantly under siege. The cat threw his entire light-pound body against my shins, weaving between our feet, screaming at the ceiling as if he were actively starving to death.
"I told you, no ‘people food’," I told the cat, stepping over him to reach the pot. "You're a menace."
"Oh, relax, I've got it covered," Manon said innocently.
She reached into the paper grocery bag and pulled out a heavy, multi-pack box of gourmet tuna-and-salmon cat pate.
I stopped chopping. "Manon. You bought cat food?"
"You're welcome," she smirked, popping the tab on a can with a satisfying clink.
She dropped a spoonful onto a small saucer and placed it on the floor. He instantly abandoned his protest, diving face-first into the food with ungodly, desperate noises.
A half-hour later, the apartment smelled of rich tamarind, garlic, and simmered pork. We sat across from each other at my small kitchen table, the steamy bowls between us.
The cat, having finished his feast, hopped onto the empty chair beside me. He placed his front paws neatly on the edge of the table, peered into my bowl of steaming sinigang, and let out a soft, heartbreakingly sweet mew.
His hazel eyes went wide, round, and shimmering with pure, innocent longing.
"No," I said flatly, keeping my eyes firmly on my spoon. "It's mine. It has onions. It will literally kill you."
The cat tilted his head, letting out a tiny, high-pitched squeak that sounded like a rusty door hinge.
"Don't look at him, Soph," Manon whispered, holding her spoon halfway to her mouth, watching us in awe. "He's weaponizing his face. This cat is fucking terrifyingly smart."
Manon, taking pity on the beast, blew on a tiny spoonful of the warm sour broth and held it out to his nose. He took one sniff of the sour tamarind, his whole face wrinkling in absolute horror. He let out a dramatic shriek of disgust, turned his back on us, and trotted off with his tail held high in the air, retreating to his tuna bowl.
Manon snorted into her napkin. "Beggars can be choosers, apparently."
We ate in a warm, comfortable silence for a while, the ambient noise of the city humming outside the window.
"Five months left," Manon said softly, tracing the edge of her water glass. "Then graduation. Then real life."
I stared down at the floating radish in my bowl. "Yeah. Five months."
"You're going to be okay, Soph," she murmured, her voice losing its sharp, protective banter for a moment.
Before the mood could get too heavy, Manon's eyes dropped to the sofa, locking onto the messy dishcloth I'd wrapped around the cat's front paw earlier, and the ugly, swollen scrape higher up on his back thigh.
"Okay, hold on," Manon said, her inner pre-med student taking over. "That bandage looks like it was applied by a pirate. We need to disinfect those before he gets sepsis."
"Manon, leave him alone, he's had a day—"
"I have antiseptic wipes in my bag! I'll be gentle!"
What followed was three minutes of excruciating, high-stakes negotiations.
Manon crouched beside the sofa, moving in slow motion like she was defusing a bomb, holding a damp antiseptic wipe out in her open palm. The cat didn't attack—he just pulled back against the green pillow, his ears flattening, a low, pained hiss bubbling up from his throat as he protected his injured hind leg.
"It's okay, little guy," Manon murmured softly, her voice dropping into that quiet, soothing tone she usually reserved for panicked freshmen. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Just let me see..."
She reached out—careful, agonizingly slow—and managed to barely touch the tip of the stained dishcloth bound around his shredded paw pad before the cat let out a sharp, pathetic whimper and yanked his leg away.
Manon instantly pulled her hands back, wincing in total defeat.
"Okay. Okay, okay, okay, no touch," she cooed softly, backing away on her knees.
She stood up, carefully adjusting her jacket, looking deeply rattled. "See? I barely touched him. But he knows I care. It's the thought that counts."
"You did absolutely nothing," I flatly observed.
"I offered medical consultation, Sophia! That's forty percent of doctoring!"
Gasping for air, Manon finally called it quits, grabbing her bag off the floor. The orange stray, satisfied that the medical establishment had retreated, tucked his front paws under his chest and settled back down on the soft green throw pillow.
Manon paused at the front door, looking back at me, then down at the cat.
"Think about keeping him, Soph," she said gently, her hand resting on the doorknob. "He's chaotic, he smells terrible, and he clearly stalked us." A small, knowing smile touched her lips. "He needs a friend. And honestly? I think you do, too."
Before I could formulate a witty rebuttal, she slipped out the door, the latch clicking securely behind her.
The apartment fell dead silent.
I stood at the sink, the cold water running over my hands as I washed the two bowls. My fingernails accidentally struck the edge of the porcelain with a sharp clack.
I froze for a fraction of a second, my heart catching in my throat, waiting for an echo that never came.
I turned off the tap, dried my hands on a dish towel, and walked over to the couch.
The stray was still there, tucked into his little loaf on the green pillow, taking extra care to keep his bandaged paw and tender thigh tucked safely against his side. His eyes were half-closed, his chest rising and falling in slow, steady rhythms.
"You're a terrible houseguest," I whispered to him.
The cat didn't even twitch an ear. He just let out a soft, sleepy snore, completely ignoring me.
I sighed, running a hand through my tired hair. I walked over to my desk, flipped open my laptop, and sat down in the quiet dark. The white screen glowed back at me, illuminating the dusty corner of the room.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a long, quiet minute. Then, slowly, I began to type:
It was ridiculous. The police report sitting at the bottom of his desk drawer was two years cold, stamped in red ink that had long since faded to the color of dried blood, declaring Eleanor Vance dead. Yet the postmark on the corner read Yesterday. Rowan smoothed the page flat, his jaw tightening as he stared at the familiar, sharp loops of her hand. Dead people don't buy stamps. Dead people don't ask to be found
Ping.
A sudden, sharp sound broke the stillness of the room.
My fingers froze over the keys. My breath hitched in my throat, every muscle in my body going lock-jaw stiff.
I glanced down at my phone sitting beside the mousepad.
It was the group chat. Megan had just sent a picture of a brown Shar Pei—Colonel Mustard—sprawled directly across her lap, looking smug.
meimei_the_sage: he misses his favorite auntie. we all do. love you soph <3
chae_the_voice_of_reason: If you are eating cup ramen again tonight, I am personally driving over there to revoke your kitchen privileges.
At the bottom of the screen, the three little gray dots appeared. Manon was already typing her reply, likely about to recount our chaotic dinner.
Slowly, I turned my head toward the couch.
The orange cat hadn't moved. He was still fast asleep on the green pillow. But as he dreamed, his long, bushy tail twitched, knocking against the hard wooden side table beside the sofa.
I stared at the cat in the dim light, my heart hammering against my ribs, the quiet apartment suddenly feeling far too full.
I picked up my phone. My thumb hovered over the screen as though it might explode any second. I opened my internet browser instead of replying to the chat, tapped the search bar, and slowly typed in:
FurEverHomes inquiry
I set the phone face-down on the desk next to a carrier box I'd borrowed from Manon, and looked back at the glowing laptop screen.
On the couch, the nameless orange cat let out another quiet, rhythmic snore, completely unbothered by the web page sitting open just inches away.
The cursor blinked patiently in the search bar.
I didn't press Enter.