Chapter Four
OfficialEndeavourHigh: If whoever stole the traffic cones from the upper-level parking lot could please return them, there’ll be no questions asked.
I sit down cross-legged on a concrete floor, and Esha hands me a kitten. My hands gently wrap around the wriggling mass of fluff, and I hold him out in front of my face. He looks like a sentient cotton ball.
“That one’s Tuba,” she says as she picks up another two kittens in each hand. “We named the litter after brass instruments. These two are Cornet and Euphonium.”
Tuba squeaks in a way that suggests he’s not a fan of me, and I let him down onto my lap. All around me, similar noises echo, the kittens communicating with one another and us. Esha seems to understand their language, even if I don’t.
“How can you even tell?” I ask her. The room at the shelter is overflowing with pure white kittens just like him. I scratch between Tuba’s ears with one finger, and he digs his tiny claws into the knee of my jeans over and over.
“His personality. He’s chaotic.” She lets her kittens go, and they start chasing one another around her legs.
“I thought the orange ones were the chaotic cats,” I joke. I lean back on my palms as Tuba continues his exploration of my lap.
“Tuba’s spiritually orange.” As if to illustrate her point, Tuba launches himself off my knee, attempting to swat at a little calico who’s just passing by, minding her own business.
He misses her entirely and lands on his feet.
His ears flare back, his tail puffs up. He does a complete 360 spin in confusion, like he doesn’t know how he ended up on the floor.
Then he looks at me, as if I have some explanation.
I don’t know either, dude.
“You’re upset,” Esha says, picking up Tuba and smoothing out the fur he’d frazzled. “I thought Tuba could help.”
“I’m not upset,” I tell her, looking around at the tiny room stuffed full of kittens. “I don’t know what I am, but I don’t think upset is it.”
Tuba squawks at her and kicks his tiny arms and legs.
Esha puts him down and reaches around her back to grab a gray kitten climbing up her hair.
The little calico girl Tuba was trying to jump on ambles her way over to me.
She has a poof-ball toy in her mouth, like one you’d find on the end of a Santa hat.
She drops it right at my hand, and then she just stands there, waiting for praise.
“Who’s this?” I ask as I reach for the calico. She butts her head against my fingers, and I pick her up.
“That’s July. Different litter. We named them all after months of the year.”
“There were twelve of them?” I hold July to my chest, and despite being nearly microscopic, she has a strong voice. Her grumbly purr echoes through my ribs.
“No. We skipped a few months.” Esha stands up with Tuba, taking him toward the little, round hammock part of the cat tree in the corner where a few other kittens are sitting in a cuddle puddle.
Esha calls those soup bowls. Practically every day, I get a text with a picture of a cat or two curled up in one of those, and all it ever says is: Look, they’re being soup.
“Is this for me?” I try to hand July back her beloved toy. “That’s so nice of you.” I scratch under her chin with my thumb.
“Tell July what’s wrong.” Esha’s behind me now, spreading out blankets that’ve been crumpled by play and picking up stray toys.
I take a deep breath. July hums a rumbling purr.
“You know how you were just minding your own business, and then that mean boy tried to jump on you?” I ask her. “Tuba thinks he can because he’s bigger than you. And that makes everything easier for him. He can jump on you and steal your toy, and you’re just supposed to take it.”
“O-kay,” Esha says, sitting back down on the floor in front of me. “I think she’s maybe too young for this metaphor.”
I hug July to my chest one last time and then let her go, placing her gently back down on the floor.
“Why does he bother you so much?” Esha asks.
I take a second, trying to put it into words. My natural instinct is to just lie back on the concrete and let the kitten army overtake me, because that’s easier than talking about this.
“Everything’s easier for him. I work twice as hard just to come in second—and then he rubs it in my face, when he’s not actively sabotaging me. No matter where I go, he’s going to get there faster, because he had a head start.”
Esha nods. My parents didn’t go to college, but Hayes’s parents are doctors. He could afford tuition to anywhere, while I’m competing for every accolade I can leverage into scholarship money. It was always assumed that he’d go to college. For me, it’s a path I forged entirely on my own.
He’s always going to be miles ahead.
“Listen.” Esha sighs. “I know that you want to beat him, and I get why, because what he did to you absolutely sucked. But I think it might be time to stop seeing him as an obstacle.”
I feel my brows wrinkle up. My knees pull to my chest. It’s a protective stance, I know. “What do you mean?”
“Look at her.” She points at July, now curled up on a huge bed in the corner by herself. Her poof-ball toy is tucked between her front paws. “She’s fine. Doing her own thing. She doesn’t give a shit that some boy tried to mess with her. He’s not annoying her because she’s not letting him.”
I look over at Tuba. He’s asleep too, in his soup bowl cuddle puddle. He almost looks innocent like that.