Chapter 4
Chapter four
Lucy
Felony met me at my apartment door. A small gray cat with one chewed ear and an expression of permanent outrage, she’d been at the shelter for eleven months before I took her home because no one else would have her.
There’d been three adoption attempts. Three returns.
The first family brought her back after she destroyed a leather recliner in under forty-eight hours.
The second family lasted a week before she figured out how to open the kitchen cabinets and knocked every glass they owned onto the tile floor at three in the morning.
The third family returned her with a handwritten note that just said, “Good luck.”
Felony had been with me for four months now.
In that time, she had shredded two sets of curtains, learned to turn on the bathroom faucet, and figured out that if she stood on the kitchen counter and batted the cabinet latch in a specific rhythm, the door would swing open.
This meant I now stored my cereal in the oven.
She was diabolical and horrible, but on the nights when I couldn’t sleep, she’d sit on my chest and purr like she was trying to vibrate the anxiety out of me through sheer force.
I loved her for it, even though it never worked.
“Hello, you little menace,” I said, scooping her up. She headbutted my chin immediately. It was her version of affection, or possibly a threat; the line was never clear with Felony. I buried my face in her fur and stood there for a moment, just breathing in the scent of her.
My apartment was a one-bedroom in a building that had seen better decades, but it was mine.
I’d chosen every piece of furniture from thrift stores.
I’d hung the curtains myself. I’d filled the windowsills with plants that I talked to when I couldn’t sleep, which was most nights, so they were very well-spoken-to plants.
This was the part of my day I never told anyone about. The part where I held my cat and let the armor come off, piece by piece.
“I met the weirdest man today,” I told her. “Huge. Intense. Absolutely gorgeous. You would have hated him.”
She licked my thumb. Her way of saying, “Stop talking and feed me.”
I fed her because she was a rescue and I couldn’t stand the thought of her ever feeling hungry again, even though she had never once shown any sign of feeling anything other than entitled. Then I made myself a sandwich I didn’t really want and ate it standing at the kitchen counter.
The sandwich was fine. Everything was fine. I was fine.
I was so not fine.
Because today, a man had walked into my shelter and my entire body had lit up like a switchboard. Then he’d said Andrew’s name, and the switchboard had shorted out. And now I was standing in my kitchen eating turkey on wheat and pretending I wasn’t replaying both of those things on a loop.
I put the sandwich down. Felony appeared immediately to investigate.
“That’s turkey, not cat food.”
She looked at me like that distinction was beneath her.
My phone buzzed. Dani.
Dani: Just so u know, I’ve been thinking about “devastatingly” for 4 hrs and I have thoughts.
Me: Please don’t have thoughts.
Dani: Too late. Steff followed him to the door. STEFF. The cat who has never voluntarily moved toward an exit in 13 yrs. Even the animals know there’s something about him.
Me: U r basing ur theory on a diabetic cat.
Dani: I’m basing my theory on a diabetic cat and 15 yrs of ur face. U came out of that break room wearing one I’ve never seen b4.
Me: He’s a PI. I’m a witness. That’s it.
Dani: Ok. I’ll pretend to believe u. But r u ok? With all this dickhead stuff again?
Me: I’m ok. It was just weird hearing Andrew’s name out loud.
Dani: If it gets un-okay u call me. 2 AM, 3 AM, doesn’t matter. I’m here for u anytime, babe.
Me: I know.
Dani: Good. Now go study for ur anatomy exam. The human body has a lot of parts, Luce. I bet his r educational.
Me: You’re disgusting.
Dani: I’m a DELIGHT. Goodnight
Me: Goodnight, Dani.
Dani: Devastatingly!!!
Me: GOODNIGHT, DANI.
I set the phone down and picked up the anatomy textbook from the coffee table.
It was dog-eared and highlighted in three colors, but I was finally finishing what I’d started.
I ran my thumb along the spine and thought about the fact that a month ago, opening this book had made me cry, but tonight it just felt like mine again.
I’d wanted to be a vet since I was eight years old and tried to splint a robin’s wing with popsicle sticks and electrical tape in the backyard.
The robin died. I cried for two days. But the wanting didn’t die with it; it just got louder, the way wanting does when you’re a kid, and you don’t know yet that the world charges admission for everything.
I’d had the grades for it. Honor roll all four years of high school, biology teacher who wrote me a recommendation letter, a plan that started with community college pre-vet and ended with my name on a clinic door.
I’d had the whole thing mapped out on a poster board in my bedroom like a general planning a campaign.
Then Dad got sick with pancreatic cancer.
He was diagnosed the August after I graduated, and by September, I’d put the plan in a drawer and picked up a hostess apron at Applebee’s instead.
Someone had to cover what the insurance wouldn’t, and Mom had left years ago.
I worked three jobs sometimes—evening hostess, weekend retail, a receptionist gig at a medical billing office, where I spent eight hours a day processing claims for treatments I couldn’t afford for my own father.
Dad died when I was twenty-one. Left me with grief the size of a canyon and medical bills that insurance refused to cover.
I worked my ass off, and once I’d cleared them, I’d enrolled in a two-year vet tech course.
It wasn’t pre-vet, but it was a start, and all I could afford.
For the first time in years, the poster-board plan felt like it might still be mine.
That’s when Andrew found me.
I’d had six months left when I ran from him. Six months from finishing, and I couldn’t stay for that, because staying meant being in his city, in his orbit, being his version of me. So I left everything: the apartment, the course, the life that had become a cage.
I was nine months free of Andrew. But it had taken until last month to finally enroll in an online program to finish what I’d started and get the remaining credits needed to graduate.
I’d sat at this kitchen counter with my laptop and my hands shaking.
I’d clicked “submit” on the enrollment form, and then I’d gone to the bathroom and thrown up.
It wasn’t the triumphant moment I’d been hoping for, but I’d done it.
And every night since, I’d been sitting on this couch with my textbooks, highlighting in three colors, because apparently, I was still the kind of person who color-coded her notes, and that felt like proof of something.
I pulled Felony into my lap and buried my face in her fur.
“You and me, Felony,” I said. “We’re doing fine, right?”
She bit the hem of my shirt. I chose to interpret it as agreement.