Love Me Broken (5 page)

Since the cat obviously wants to be alone, I open the door a crack and start to step through, turning back for one last look at him.

How long has Pete been out in the rain? What kind of owner leaves his cat outside? What if I hadn’t been walking by? Would the cat have starved? What if—I gasp—what if he had gotten run over? By a
car
?

Tears start filling my eyes out of nowhere. I feel stupid, but also surprised. I haven’t cried in months. In—nearly a year. I haven’t been able to. My emotions, while not pleasant, had settled into a comfortable numbness over time.

But staring at this orange tabby, watching him gulp down the tuna like he hasn’t eaten in days, and thinking of him going back into the cold, cruel,
dangerous
world, it fills me with such intense sadness.

Nobody wants this cat, I think, and the thought repeats in my head. I think of this innocent cat being thrown out into the gutter, and the tears start to come. “I’ll love you,” I sob, and the sound makes the cat look up again, and our eyes meet for a moment. At my glance, he lifts his lips a little to show his teeth, and this sign of defense only makes me love him more. Only an animal treated poorly would react to kindness this way.

I have to turn away and go inside. But before I do, I reach over to the wall next to the door and find the button for the garage door. The machine rattles into use, and the cat looks up.

“It’s okay, Pete,” I whisper and hold my breath as the cat watches the garage door.

“Please, please, please,” I beg as the opening to the outside world gets smaller and smaller. “Please stay with me. I’ll help you. Just give me the chance.”

The cat takes a step toward the driveway but gets frightened by the descending garage door. The door reaches the ground and stops. It is quiet, the sound of the rain muffled by the metal door. I flick on the garage light so the cat will be able to see, then close the door back to the house. As I walk upstairs and head to my room, I start to question what I have done.

The cat will want to get out, I tell myself. Pete doesn’t like you, even after you fed him. And you don’t even have a litter box.

But I can’t bear the idea of sending Pete back outside into the rain. Tomorrow, I decide, tomorrow I’ll figure out what to do with him: whether it’s taking him to a shelter, keeping him, or trying to find his real owner. I just can’t put a living creature back onto the streets. I can’t be another person who doesn’t want him.

But even as I think this, trying to be rational, I know there’s something deeper at play here. It’s not just the cat; it’s me. I need the cat more than he needs me.

I enter the silence of my room and suddenly I understand how those lonely spinsters become crazy cat ladies. I get it completely.

They just need somebody to love.

I don’t sleep well that night. The rain falls outside my window, and I have nervous dreams about drowning in puddles on the street. It keeps waking me up at odd hours, and I sit up in a cold sweat, my heart beating so fast I worry I might be having a heart attack. The rest of the night is the same: tossing and turning until morning. Dawn doesn’t so much stop the anxiety as much as coat it in a haze of daylight.

I push myself out of bed, my body stiff and my mind groggy. I feel awful, the way you feel after a night of crying. Was I crying during my sleep? I couldn’t cry for months, and now that’s twice within a day. Was it the cat? Or am I just going insane?

I’m wearing bright pink pajamas: a button-up shirt and loose pants. I slip on a pair of fuzzy slippers and make my way down the staircase, rubbing my eyes and blinking at the light. I feel awful.

Downstairs, the couch is empty, the afghan crumpled on the side like a used tissue. I look to the front of the house and see the silhouette of my mother’s head through the window. Her hair is unkempt, sticking up in random tufts. I hear my father upstairs, his footsteps through the ceiling, and I continue into the kitchen. I rummage through the cabinets, pulling out the coffee beans. The pain of the dreams is beginning to wear away, but it’s left me feeling emptied out and exhausted. I think I’m more tired now than when I went to bed. I dump the grounds into a filter and then pop it into the coffee maker. I’ll have a good caffeine buzz even before I leave the house, and then I’ll get a few more cups when I visit Nicole. Too much coffee used to bother me, making me jittery; now I welcome anything different from this swampy state after the nightmares.

The coffee has just started dripping into the pot when I hear my dad rush downstairs. He turns toward the kitchen. I have my back to him, facing the coffee machine. He must see me, because his footsteps stop, then he goes in the other direction. He’ll pick up coffee on his way to the office. When I hear the door to the garage close, I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding.

I don’t think I’ve seen my father face-to-face in weeks. I’m almost forgetting what he looks like. I wonder if he’s forgetting about me. Then I realize that’s probably what he’s trying to do. Both of my parents are just biding their time until I move out for college. I’m not sure what will happen to them then—will they continue this separate existence under the same roof? Or will they separate? And if they do, where will my mother go? She hasn’t been able to do more than weep on the couch or on the porch for months.

The coffee is sputtering out when I hear the clanking of the garage door opening. It is then that I remember the cat, and a bolt of adrenaline more powerful than ten cups of coffee passes through me.

“No!” I cry, and run from the kitchen, leaving the coffee pot on. I rush to the front window and see my dad pulling out of the driveway. Then I see an orange blur take off in the opposite direction, running down the middle of the street. “NO!” I scream, and throw open the front door. My outburst causes my mom to give a rare look in my direction, and I race down the steps, leaving the front door open behind me. “No, come back!” I scream, and see the cat rushing along the street ahead of me. I reach the middle of the road, and the grip of my slippers against the asphalt makes me realize that I’m still in my pajamas, with my hair wild and my face smeared with sleep and dried tears.

The cat is about to cross the intersection when a black truck rushes by, not even stopping, and misses the cat by barely an inch. My heart leaps into my throat and I take off running. Pete turns his head and sees me coming. In response, he runs away from me, still in the center of the street.

If I thought this cat had any chance of lasting on his own, I would have stopped there. I know cats are survivors, but this cat seems to lack all common sense. I seriously doubt he’s ever been outside before, and he obviously doesn’t know what cars and trucks can do to him. I can’t bear the idea of losing anyone or anything else, especially in a way that feels so preventable. Just the thought of him dying makes me feel like I’ve failed him.

So I run. My slippers slap against the pavement, and when I reach the end of the block I can barely see the cat ahead. He turns north at the next intersection, down toward the river, and I rush to close the distance between us.

I pass an old man watering his rose bushes. He takes a step back as I pass, as if I might be dangerous, an escapee of the mental ward.

I don’t have time to care. The cat is not slowing down, and I don’t think it’s just because I’m chasing him. I think the cat is frightened and just wants to run, run as fast as he can, not even caring where he is going as long as he is moving. There is a growing pit of dread in my stomach as the cat reaches downtown, nearing Commercial where I can already see cars and traffic passing. I don’t think I can handle seeing this cat die, and my eyes fill with tears again. But I don’t stop running.

The cat veers left, a block shy of the busy traffic, and starts heading west, back into the residential streets. By this time my lungs are burning, and there’s a hitch in my side that I am forced to run through. I try massaging the area where it hurts on my abdomen, but then get distracted by another wild turn from the cat, back uphill.

This cat is taking me in one big circle, I think disdainfully.

But we keep running. My throat becomes dry and scratchy. Sweat covers my body, and I wonder how this cat has such crazy stamina. He turns another block, and when I reach the corner I nearly fall over. I push onward, uphill, leaning my body forward against the angle of the street. These slippers really aren’t meant for running. They give no arch support or cushion, and it feels like I’m running barefoot.

The cat is two blocks ahead. I’m slowing down without realizing it, my body revolting with spasms of pain and hitching breaths. “No,” I wheeze. Pete doesn’t slow down. He turns another corner, this time running along the even ground of an east-west street, and I stagger after him.

I am about ready to collapse when I finally turn the corner. What I see then almost does make me fall over, but for a completely different reason.

Sitting on the side of the street is a guy I’ve never seen before. He’s young, with brown hair and a tight white shirt and dark jeans. He’s sitting on the curb, and next to him, almost cuddling up to him, is my cat.

I’m stunned. I take this in for a moment, my shoulders heaving.

He is saying something to the cat, smiling at him, and Pete arches his back as the guy runs his hand along it. Then the cat goes up to his knee and rubs his face into it.

I blink, stupefied. I am unable to move. This must be his cat. And instead of relief, a bolt of anger rushes through me. Who is this guy? How could he let his cat out in the rain? Prickly Pete was almost run over! I want to scream at him.

Then I realize I am still in my pajamas. The guy is around my age, and—from what I can tell—has a nice build. I swallow, and just as I am thinking about turning back, he looks up at me.

We are maybe the length of two houses apart, but I can hear him clearly. “Hey!” he calls out. “Is this your cat?”

And I have no choice but to go up to him.

This has to be the weirdest morning of my life. First Levi wakes me up at dawn to bring me cereal in bed—I think he’s still wowed by a thousand bucks cash in his hand. Then, when I step out to have a moment to myself, this random cat comes up to me like it knows me. It’s an orange tabby with a white belly, and it’s a scrawny-looking thing. It races around the corner and practically jumps in my lap. I chuckle and let it sniff my fingers, then it starts rubbing its face on my legs. When I start to pet it, it purrs. I like cats. Dogs, too, and I kind of miss having a pet around.