Chapter 16
Céline
Miss Astoria slept in my bed like she had lived there her entire life.
Not beside me. On me. At some point during the night, she had migrated from the pillow to my chest and stayed there with the absolute confidence of a creature who had survived emotional devastation only to discover central heating and expensive duvet covers waiting on the other side.
I woke slowly to the weight of her pressed warm against my ribs and the sound of Blackwater’s perpetual rain still moving softly against the dorm windows.
For a few quiet seconds, I forgot everything.
Katherine. The funeral. Vincent. The terrace.
All of it. There was only the steady comfort of another living thing breathing against me and the faint vibration of her purring under my palm.
Then Miss Astoria sneezed directly into my mouth.
I opened my eyes immediately. “You’re disgusting.”
The cat blinked at me without a trace of remorse, blue eyes calm and unapologetic.
Grey morning light filtered weakly through the curtains, turning the room soft and hazy. My phone sat charging on the nightstand beside three unread texts from Thad and one from Sophia that simply read: do not move i want to photograph the cat in daylight.
I smiled despite myself, the small curve of my mouth feeling almost foreign after so many heavy days. Miss Astoria stretched luxuriously across my chest, claws catching briefly in my sleep shirt before she climbed higher and pressed her face beneath my chin as if she belonged exactly there.
“You’re needy,” I told her quietly, running my fingers through her soft white fur.
The cat purred louder in response, the sound rumbling deep and satisfied through my sternum.
I lay there another minute staring at the ceiling while rainwater slid quietly down the windows outside.
The room felt different now. Softer somehow.
Less haunted. Grief became more difficult to romanticize when a cat screamed for breakfast at seven in the morning and refused to let you pretend the world had ended.
Miss Astoria abruptly climbed off me and marched across the bed with startling purpose. Then she sat beside the bedroom door and screamed.
I closed my eyes. “Wonderful.”
Another scream.
“You survived one night without starvation.”
Scream.
“You’re so manipulative.”
Scream.
By the time I opened the bedroom door, Sophia and Anya were already standing outside like divorced parents arriving for a custody exchange.
Sophia held a mug of coffee in both hands, her dark hair pulled into a low knot, and her silk robe draped perfectly over her shoulders even at this hour.
Anya stood beside her wearing an oversized Bellamont sweatshirt and one sock, her striking pale eyes already bright with amusement.
“Good morning,” Sophia said, yawning.
“How long have you both been standing there?” I asked, stepping aside so Miss Astoria could charge into the living room like a tiny white general claiming new territory.
“Long enough to hear the emotional abuse,” Anya replied, crouching down immediately as the cat rubbed against her ankles with surprising enthusiasm.
Miss Astoria inspected Anya’s offered hand, then decided the kitchen counter looked more interesting and leapt onto it with graceful precision. Sophia’s eyes widened in quiet delight.
“Oh, she’s elegant.”
“She licks trash bags at three in the morning,” I said tiredly, following the cat into the kitchen while rubbing sleep from my eyes.
“That’s still more graceful than most men at Bellamont,” Sophia answered, pouring a third mug of coffee without asking if I wanted one.
Anya pointed dramatically at the cat. “Miss Astoria, would you die for me?”
The cat walked directly past her toward the bowl of wet food I had set down.
“I’ve been rejected by an animal named after inherited wealth,” Anya announced solemnly.
Miss Astoria chose that exact moment to leap directly onto my shoulder instead. I caught her automatically, her small body warm and surprisingly heavy against my neck.
“Jesus Christ.” I muttered.
Sophia burst out laughing, the sound light and genuine for the first time in days.
“She climbed you.”
“She always does that when she wants attention,” I muttered while carefully prying white fur away from my face.
Anya leaned against the counter beside me, watching the cat settle more firmly on my shoulder. “You know,” she said carefully, “this apartment feels less sad now.”
The honesty of it startled all of us slightly. Sophia looked toward the living room windows where rain streaked softly down the glass, and the ocean beyond Bellamont disappeared beneath fog. “I think we needed something alive in here to ward off the bad energy.”
Miss Astoria purred loudly against my ear, the vibration travelling straight through me. I scratched beneath her chin the way she liked and felt something dangerous loosen inside my chest.
My phone buzzed against the counter.
Thad.
I stared at the screen for one second too long. Sophia noticed immediately, her gaze sharpening with that gentle concern she could never quite hide. “So,” she said carefully, pouring cream into my coffee, “are we pretending the boyfriend situation is normal again?”
I looked away from the phone. “It is normal.”
Anya made a skeptical sound from the other side of the counter.
“You haven’t seen him in almost a week.”
“I saw him three days ago.”
“You stared at the ocean for twenty minutes afterwards like a war widow,” Sophia replied calmly, sliding the mug toward me.
“I’m not that dramatic.”
“You’re so dramatic,” Sophia said. “We’re frequent observers.”
Miss Astoria chose that exact moment to sneeze loudly into the silence.
None of us moved. The sound was so sudden that it cut straight through the quiet kitchen like a tiny explosion of white fur and accusation.
Then Anya slowly set down her own coffee cup, her pale eyes narrowing with dramatic suspicion as she looked between me and the cat still perched on my shoulder.
“Céline.”
“No.”
“Céline.”
“I literally said no.”
Sophia stared at me with growing disbelief, her elegant fingers still wrapped around her mug. “You hate him, just admit it. You have no chemistry.”
“No, I don’t! Thad is a nice guy; he’s a little boring, but he treats me well.”
Anya made a strangled noise somewhere between a laugh and a gasp. “Oh my God, she’s in psychological danger.”
I buried my face against Miss Astoria’s soft fur while the cat purred louder, completely unbothered by the chaos unfolding around her.
Heat rose sharply into my face, which was catastrophic because now both of them were watching me with open fascination.
The apartment felt warmer than it had in weeks.
The rain kept falling outside, steady and quiet, and for the first time since Katherine died, I let myself breathe a little easier in the middle of it all.
Life without her still hurt in ways I could not name, but it no longer felt empty.
There was a ridiculous white cat demanding breakfast, two best friends who saw too much, and the slow, tentative shape of something that might one day feel like ordinary mornings again.
Sophia set her coffee down carefully, her expression shifting into that gentle but relentless mother-hen mode.
“Céline, darling, you’ve been avoiding Thad for days.
You barely answered his texts this morning.
And when Anya mentioned the lab yesterday, you looked like someone had walked over your grave.
So forgive me, but when you say the boyfriend situation is normal, I have to ask…
is this really about Thad? Or is it about Professor Moreau? ”
The name landed like a stone dropped into still water. I felt the ripple move through me before I could stop it. Miss Astoria shifted on my shoulder, sensing the sudden tension in my body, and I reached up automatically to steady her.
“Nothing is happening,” I said, the words coming out too fast.
Anya leaned forward, elbows on the counter, her voice low and theatrical. “You reacted like a woman being investigated federally.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “You are actually insane.”
Sophia didn’t smile. She just watched me with that quiet, perceptive calm that always made me feel seen in ways I didn’t want to be.
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m worried.
You’ve been different since the lab started.
Tense. Distracted. And the way you looked when his name came up just now…
” She let the sentence trail off, giving me space I didn’t want.
“You hate him. That much is obvious. But the way you hate him feels… complicated.”
I stared down at the cat, her white fur blurring under my fingers. “It’s not complicated. He’s arrogant. He forced me into the lab after I tried to withdraw. He enjoys watching me unravel. That’s it.”
Anya raised an eyebrow. “And yet you’re blushing like you just got caught stealing from the cookie jar.”
“I am not blushing.”
“You are,” Sophia said gently.
Miss Astoria purred louder, pressing her face against my neck as if trying to remind me she was still there. The simple warmth of her grounded me enough to breathe again. I scratched behind her ears and tried to keep my voice even. “Nothing is happening. He’s my professor. That’s all.”
Sophia didn’t look convinced. She never did when she sensed I was holding something back. “Just promise me you’ll be careful. Grief makes everything feel bigger than it is. And men like him know exactly how to use that. He’s very charming, but you never know what’s underneath.”
I nodded because it was easier than arguing, but the words settled uneasily inside me. I shove the phone into my pocket without answering Thad.