Page 44 of Kitten

“Of course you were.” Isabelle nodded gravely, her excitement gone as quickly as it materialized. “This is fucked. I mean, you could sue.”

“No, it’s fine.” Her righteousness bemused me. Maybe Icouldsue. I’d never considered it before; even banter about lawsuits was thrilling and foreign to me, a real grasp at power hiding behind a joke. “I’ve already paid rent, so Idon’t have any huge expenses. I do owe my roommate for utilities. She’s moved out because of it, so I should take care of that first.”

“Oh,” Isabelle said. She sounded cautious. “I’m sorry. Was she just a roommate, or an actual friend?”

“I’m not really sure.” I slid my hands underneath my thighs, then removed them because the seat was too hot. Isabelle turned down the temperature. “She flips the switch very quickly on people.”

“Tough person to be friends with.”

I thought about it before deciding: no, Lou was easy. I still remembered every detail of our first real day together, a late Thursday afternoon on the last summer-hot week of the year. Lou had unveiled a handle of vodka from beneath her pillow. I thought she might drink it on her own until she passed me a cup, which filled me with equal parts terror and exhilaration. We skipped our 4:10s and cleared the vending machine with her debit card. She introduced me to a Korean girl in the junior year who gave me her old driving license, the fake ID that would get me into every bar in every year following until I no longer needed it. Lou was like that. She opened doors for me, stretching the boundaries of what I could expect from life before I even knew to want it.

“She did me a huge favor moving me into her cousin’s place uptown,” I said. “Away from all her actual friends.”

“You’re not an actual friend?”

“I think we were mostly just roommates who got along.”

“Listen, I’ve had my fair share of roommate and friendship drama,” Isabelle said. “No fight is permanent. Relationships aren’t these one-act shows, you don’t know how they’llend. You think you’re in act three, but really you’re just at, I don’t know, an intermission.” She made her voice confident. “The love doesn’t go away just because you’re fighting.”

Isabelle’s words made me feel like we were in a movie, and this was supposed to be the scene that changed everything. Even so, I thought she was overperforming slightly.

“I don’t think we love each other,” I said.

“But you chose to stick together for four years. That sounds something like love. It doesn’t have to be this big confessional thing, you know. It can be simple.”

Part of me saw Isabelle as completely absurd, while another part of me wanted to believe her. Love as simple, love as the answer, love as something you could give to anyone. James certainly did not hesitate to say he loved me. But the confession had felt trivial, unearned. Just a few small words, offered in the same breath as his offer of a home. It seemed unfair that these words could change my life. I’d said it back. But did I really love James, or did I simply need him? He might love me, but he didn’t need me. What good was one without the other?

If I knew the answer, I might’ve believed Isabelle’s version of love, one that was unscarce and gave more than it demanded. But that wasn’t how I saw it. Love wasn’t for roommates or friends or even men you got to take you in. Love turned me into a bad child. It was for my mother, who needed it.

—

That night, as I waitedin bed for sleep, my banking app notified me that money had entered my account: lastmonth’s paycheck, just under two thousand dollars. I looked at the numbers and felt nothing, no sense of relief. They were weightless things, figures that altered the surface of my life without ever touching its core. Figures that never lasted past an hour. I sent Lou all the money I owed her. I sent Isabelle the remaining amount. I owed them both something more than the money, but money was the only thing I had.

14

Despite his many attempts to reach me yesterday, James did not answer when I called him last night. I hadn’t thought to inform him of Silver’s hospitalization until Isabelle drove me home, and by then he was deep into some work celebration for his co-worker’s promotion. They rented a karaoke bar for the team. Everybody got wildly drunk. Late into the night, a group of passing strangers attempted to enter the bar. There were miscommunications, tempers flared. A fight broke out. Somebody on the street threw a bottle, which pierced the skin of his co-worker’s eyelid. He had to go to the emergency room. He didn’t even get to sing “Piano Man.”

James needed to stand in for this co-worker on an important pitch, delaying his return to Holme another day. He delivered this information in two rambling, apologetic voice notes. To my astonishment, he didn’t mention Silver. His guilt seemed to have eclipsed my bad behavior, all the calls I’d let go to voicemail. His last message to me was a heart emoji.

It was almost too easy how quickly James let me off thehook. If I continued to think about this, I might’ve begun to feel disdain. But I had more important concerns: Silver was coming home this morning.

On the drive to the vet, I told Isabelle about James’s night.

“Men are like babies,” Isabelle said. “They’re babies in fancy suits.”

“Babies are like drunk men,” I said. “In tiny shoes.”

“A hundred percent.”

The conversation stalled. We weren’t sure where to go after that. Then Isabelle said, “At least babies are cute.”

“I’ve always said cuteness is the only reason people put up with children.”

“I was an ugly baby,” she replied. “So if you’re right, that explains everything.”

Isabelle would’ve been a stock beautiful child. But it was difficult to tell with babies, featureless blobs of human beings. Maybe she was born ugly. I wouldn’t understand, I was born cute. The photos spoke for themselves. I had great power as a baby.

At six in the morning, the vet lobby smelled fresh, nearly floral. I missed the stench from the night before, proof that the animals inside were alive.