Chapter 15
I woke early the next day, sweating through the sheets.
Silver paced on my chest, making low, pained cries.
I tried to hug her, but she leapt off the bed and slipped out of the room, leading me to the front door.
There, she turned to face me, her cries higher in pitch and coming out in fast succession.
She wanted me to open the door, that was clear.
“Shh, shh.” I knelt to hold her, but the moment my hands met her fur, she hissed and jumped out of my reach.
Her attention was focused entirely on the doorknob, which she attacked in repeated bursts.
It was a useless effort; the door was locked.
When this became apparent, she stopped and began to shake, producing terrible hacking noises.
Her head jerked back and forth, robotic as a pigeon.
I ran to the kitchen and returned with a bowl of water.
Hoping it would either shock or soothe her, I overturned the water onto her body—she shivered, stilled, then coughed.
A splat of paint landed on my toe, dark blue.
I called James.
“Hey, Katie,” he said. “Why haven’t you been responding to my messages?”
“I was with Isabelle,” I said.
“Are you okay?”
I realized I was breathing heavily. I confessed everything that had happened. He made a noise between a cough and a breath. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You weren’t picking up. You were at karaoke, remember?”
“Yeah, but after?”
I bit my lip. Watching Silver pant, hearing the worry in James’s voice, I felt the enormity of my mistakes dawning on me. I thought about apologizing, but I didn’t have faith in my ability to deliver one without coming across as insincere.
James’s voice was stern. “But she’s okay now?”
Silver cracked her mouth open and began to whine, the mewls loud and drawn out.
“She’s upset,” I said.
“Upset?”
“She’s trying to get outside. I think she wants to go for a swim.”
“No, I don’t think you should do that.”
“She enjoyed swimming yesterday. It really cheered her up.”
“Don’t let her outside. She’s clearly sick.”
Normally, I enjoyed when James told me to do things, but this time I felt awful.
Now I really was holding Silver hostage.
I felt very sorry and useless in the face of her suffering.
She was trying to explain something to me, but I didn’t understand, which seemed unfair because she always understood me.
But that wasn’t entirely true; I basically knew what she wanted.
I just wasn’t allowed to give it to her, which was worse.
Silver gave me a look of desperation, like she knew we were discussing her. “What do you want me to say?” I said to her. “Tell me, and I’ll tell him.”
“Tell me what?” James asked. “Who were you talking to?”
“Are you sure she can’t go outside? She’s been trying to open the front door all morning.”
“Please lock it.”
I looked at Silver. She looked back at me.
I turned the lock. Her eyes widened.
“I’m sorry,” I said, kneeling. This time, she let me touch her, as if having accepted her situation. I thumbed the gunk from her eyes and caressed her ears the way she liked. She rubbed her tiny forehead against my fingers.
“It’s okay.” James believed I was apologizing to him. He took a breath. When he spoke again, his voice was clipped, like he was expecting more bad news. “And the vet bill? I didn’t get a charge.”
“I paid it. I mean, Isabelle did, but I paid her back.”
“The paycheck went through? How much was the bill?”
“Around a thousand. A thousand two hundred and ninety-nine.”
“Jesus. You paid her back fully?”
“Do you not believe me?”
“No, I’m just—thank you for doing that. Can you just make sure she’s eating, has enough water? How’s her litter?”
“Her litter?”
“You’ve been doing her litter.”
I’d forgotten about her litter. “Yes,” I said.
“Did you forget about her litter?”
I apologized. I swore to do it right after the call.
James sighed, like he was only just realizing that I had these seriously inconvenient qualities.
I didn’t consciously hide my passivity from him, but it didn’t usually have such clear consequences.
At the same time, I was relieved he was finally upset with me instead of comforting me like usual.
“Can you send me a picture?”
“Of her poo?”
“Yes,” he said loudly. “Send me a picture of her poo.”
I agreed. I apologized for being immature.
He said that I wasn’t immature but still had a lot to learn.
Again, it satisfied me to hear this, recognition of our unequal positions.
“I don’t think you’ve ever done that before,” I said.
“Told me I have a lot to learn, like I’m a student and you’re my teacher. ”
“Please don’t say that.”
“Do you not enjoy feeling more powerful than me?”
“What are you talking about? Do you think I’m more powerful than you?”
I glanced at Silver, who was standing and peering at the door. I supposed James was more powerful than me in the same way that I was more powerful than an animal like Silver. But she wasn’t powerless, either. She was behind the heat of our entire conversation.
“Only in the most obvious ways,” I said. “Like, you’re older. And you make money. An actual adult.”
“You’re an adult, too.”
“Not compared to you.”
“All these things were true when you met me.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know them back then.”
“I don’t know why you’re bringing this up now,” he said in a voice that implied that he did. I felt bad about messing up with Silver and now I was trying to make him feel bad, too. Sometimes I wished James knew me less.
I backtracked. “It’s not that serious. I don’t mean you’re more powerful in a harmful way. Only that I rely on you for, like, my life.” The last part I blurted without thinking, but it was true.
James was quiet. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I said. “I only meant that you’re capable of doing serious damage to my life, more than I am to yours.”
“Do you really believe that you can’t hurt me?”
“Maybe.”
“Let’s talk about this later.” James sounded defeated. “We’re not going to come to any meaningful conclusions on my commute.”
“Okay.”
“Are you okay?”
I said yes. I began to tell him that I missed him, but then he said, “Remember to take a picture, okay? Right after we hang up,” and then we hung up. My cheek felt hot from the phone screen.
I went upstairs to take a picture. In the hallway, I opened a window to let some air in.
I never made it to the bathroom, because at that moment, a loud noise echoed from downstairs.
Behind me, my wet feet left a trail like a crime scene.
A breeze slipped down my back, so slight I could’ve imagined it.
No, no—the door was locked. I repeated this to myself: I’d locked the door.
And yet that was the sound of a door slamming shut.
For some reason—fear, denial—I would not let myself move until I’d made sense of what had happened, thinking through the events and details of the morning until finally it occurred to me, obvious: the door was already locked when I called James, so by turning the lock when he asked me to, I had unlocked it.
Then I ran.