Chapter Two #2
I set the take-out box on the counter and flip it open.
Imani insisted I take home a batch of chicken wings she’s been experimenting with for the taproom menu.
I’m thankful I hired her. If it were up to me, dinner would be cereal or frozen pizza.
Melanie always handled the cooking, so I never had to learn.
Cryptid hops onto a barstool, his green eyes trained on my fingers as they lift a wing to my mouth.
“No. This is my dinner,” I scold, biting off a chunk of meat. “I’ll feed you afterwards.”
He trills in protest—a dramatic, accusatory chirp.
I sigh. “Glutton.”
Not that I can blame him. He used to be a stray, and it shows.
When Melanie found him, he was ripping into someone’s leftover burrito in the parking lot of our first shared apartment.
We were broke and absolutely did not need another mouth to feed.
But she scooped him up anyway and brought him inside.
I remember the way he looked at me: ribs showing beneath patchy fur, little body trembling, face still somehow stupidly adorable. And that was it. I couldn’t say no.
That was over nine years ago. The thought makes my stomach sink with dread.
Cryptid isn’t the same tiny scrap of fur anymore. He’s filled out—maybe a little too much—but the signs of aging have crept in quietly. The faint cloudiness in his eyes. The slower way he jumps onto furniture. The extra second he takes before settling down, his joints stiff with each movement.
I finish the last of the wings, drop the bones into the take-out box, and toss it in the trash before rinsing my hands under the sink. Cryptid paws at my legs the entire time, tail swishing with impatience.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, drying my hands. “I didn’t forget you.”
He meows dramatically while I scoop a portion of kibble into his bowl, then dives in with enthusiasm, crunching loudly.
Once he’s settled, I wander into the living room and collapse onto the couch with a long, exhausted sigh. I turn on the television and mindlessly scroll through streaming services, feet propped on the coffee table.
A moment later, a satiated Cryptid hops up and curls in my lap, a warm, purring weight against my thighs. I rest a hand on his back, letting the steady rumble of his purr ease the tightness in my chest that’s been there since that dreadful day last spring.
When Mel and I first started dating in our early twenties, people warned her about me, spouting biphobic bullshit about how I’d never be satisfied with a woman, how I’d inevitably cheat on her.
Oh, the irony.
Because the truth is, I’m fiercely loyal—probably to a fault.
I was so committed to our marriage I didn’t see what was happening right in front of me.
Needless to say, walking in on her in our bed with her coworker shattered my world.
Every illusion, every sense of safety, was ripped apart in an instant.
At the time, Melanie and I were actively trying to have a baby—fertility supplements, awkward sex positions designed to “make it stick,” late-night conversations about potential names.
It was frustrating as hell, but in hindsight, Melanie not getting pregnant was a blessing in disguise.
I wouldn’t have wanted to bring a child into that mess. No kid deserves that.
I later learned she’d been secretly on birth control the entire time.
Somehow, that betrayal cut deeper than the affair itself.
I might’ve been able to forgive the sex, eventually.
But letting me believe we were building a family together, letting me hope, only to take it all away? That loss destroyed me.
I thought our marriage was solid. I thought we were happy, standing on the edge of the next chapter. I had no idea she was planning her exit, siphoning money into a private account, quietly preparing for a future that didn’t include me.
She told me I’d pushed her away over the years—that I’d simply been too much.
After the initial screaming and crying and mountain of paperwork that followed, I came to a bleak realization: there wasn’t much left for me in Chicago.
The friend group that had once been “ours” suddenly became hers by default.
Invitations stopped. Group chats went quiet.
I found myself orbiting a life that no longer had room for me.
It became painfully clear how intertwined my world had been with Mel’s—how much of my identity I’d stitched into hers.
All I had left was the one thing that kept me sane through the long, echoing nights in that empty house—brewing craft beer in the basement.
I’d spent years daydreaming about opening a brewery of my own, but life kept getting in the way.
Mel was the cautious one, wary of financial risks, unwilling to take out loans for what she called my far-fetched fantasy.
So when everything finally collapsed, I did the unthinkable. I bet on myself. I uprooted my life and started over in a new state, a new town where nobody knew my name. I loved Chicago, but it was impossible to heal in the same place where my still-beating heart had been torn from my chest.
In my lap, Cryptid twitches in his sleep, probably dreaming about chasing a mouse through some shadowy alley. I let my hand drift through his fur, smoothing the cowlicks along his back.
“We got this, buddy,” I whisper. “Just you and me.”