I knew with just a few words I could shut it down. I knew I could stop giving her rides to school, I could stop sitting with her at the games, I could stop surfing with her, riding around town with her, finding every excuse possible to be with her.
I could… but then again, I couldn’t.
She was, in every sense of the word, my addiction.
But it wasn’t until Christmas Eve that I realized she was my salvation, too.
There was a demon slowly being born in the hollow of my chest that fall semester — my last fall semester in high school. I’d been able to mute it by throwing myself into basketball, spending time with Jenna, and pretending like I didn’t have deeper feelings for B.
But when Jenna left for Colorado that Christmas break, and basketball practice was put on hold until after the holiday, I couldn’t ignore it any longer.
It sucked me down into a dark, bottomless ocean, cutting off every breath I tried to take. It pelted me with every question, worry, and fear I’d been so artfully avoiding.
I was graduating high school. I was leaving Florida. I was moving on to the next chapter of my life.
And I was fucking petrified.
It was after midnight when I reached for my phone more out of panic and desperation than anything else, and I didn’t know then why B was the first person I thought of, but I know now.
- Are you awake? -
My heart was in my throat as I waited for her to answer, staring at the open text screen in the otherwise dark of my bedroom. I’d kicked the covers off, laying spread eagle in my bed in just my boxers as I waited for her to answer.
- Indeed I am. -
The breath of relief that flooded out of me was unlike anything I’d ever known — more so than hitting a shot at the buzzer.
I should have known then I was playing with fire.
- Take a drive with me? -
- Sure. -
I jumped out of bed so fast, I tripped on the sheets tangled around my ankles, thumping hard to the floor. But I was up in the next heartbeat, hurriedly yanking on a hoodie and basketball shorts and grabbing my keys.
Fifteen minutes later, B was in my passenger seat, her bare feet on my dash.
I didn’t realize it then, the comfort just that alone brought me. That seat beside me? It belonged to her — literally and metaphorically. And when she was there, everything felt okay.
I had the music turned up far too loud, trying and failing to drown out my thoughts. William Joseph’s “Standing the Storm” spilled from the speakers as I drove us through town. It was quiet that night, barely any other cars on the road, because every normal person not suffering from a panic attack was home in bed waiting on Santa Claus.
It was an hour of me sighing and shifting around and gripping the wheel so tight my knuckles hurt before B reached forward and turned down the music.
“Did I ever tell you about why I hate cats?”
I frowned, thinking I’d misheard her as my head snapped back. But when I realized I’d heard correctly, the faintest smile found my lips. “Oh, this ought to be good.”
“See, I had a cat once,” she said, sitting up straighter and tucking her feet under her thighs. I still remember how… comfortable she looked in that moment. She wore an oversized sweatshirt and tiny little shorts, her toes painted a bright purple.
That moment, right there, was the first time I felt the urge to hold her.
“Her name was Aurora,” she continued, snapping me back to her story. “Like the princess, but we called her Rory. Only she wasn’t a princess. Like, at all. She was actually the devil.”
A loud laugh boomed out of my throat.
“She refused to shit in her litter box. I’m serious — refused. She would shit right outside of it, instead. And because I’d begged my mom for the damn cat, guess who got stuck picking up after her?” She poked both thumbs into her chest. “This girl. But that wasn’t the worst of it.”
God, why is she so fucking cute it hurts?
“Should I pull over for this?” I asked.
“This is serious, Jamie Shaw!” She smacked my bicep, and damn it if I didn’t love the way she looked when I teased her.
“Anyway,” she continued. “So, Rory would always find small ways to torture me. Like she would eat her string toys and then throw up on my favorite clothes. Or wait until I was in the deepest part of sleep and jump onto my bed, meowing like an alley cat right up in my ear.”
“I think I like this Rory.”
She glared at me like she wasn’t afraid to hit me right in the balls if I kept pushing her, which only made me grin wider.
“You think you’re hilarious, don’t you? Do you just sit around and laugh at your own jokes? Do you write them down and re-read them at night?”
That earned her a real laugh from me.
“As I was saying,” she said, giving me another look before she continued. “She was a little brat. But for some weird reason, she always loved to be in the bathroom with me when I took my baths.”
“You take baths?”
The question flew out before I could stop it, because now, all I was thinking about was B, naked, bubbles covering everything but her head and knees.
“You’re seriously missing the point of this story!”
“There’s a point to this story?” I teased, trying to ignore that I was still thinking about her in a bathtub.
B huffed, but couldn’t hide the way I was making her smile.
I loved that.
God, it was like a hit of cocaine.
“Yes!” she screamed with a bit of a laugh. “The point is, I thought that was our bonding time. Rory would weave around my legs while I undressed, and she’d hang out on the side of the tub the entire time I was in the bath, meowing occasionally, pawing at the water. It was kind of cute.”
“So you bridged your relationship with your cat during bath time?”
“Ah, well see, one would think that. But, one night, that little demon hopped onto the counter and just stared at me. I couldn’t figure out why, but she just wouldn’t stop staring. She kept inching her paw up, setting it back down, inching it up, setting it down. And finally, I realized what she was going to do — and she knew I did — because as soon as realization dawned, Rory smiled at me — swear to God — and flipped the light off in the bathroom.”
The image had me doubling over, fighting through my laughter to keep my eyes on the road.
“I’m terrified of the dark, Jamie! It was awful! And so I jumped up, scrambling to find a towel so I could turn the light back on. But because I’m a genius, I yanked on the shower curtain to help me stand up, but that only took it down, and me along with it. I fell straight to the floor, but I broke my fall with my hands instead of my face.”
“Luckily.”
“Oh,” she chided. “Yeah. So lucky. Except guess where Rory’s litter box was?”
My eyes widened, and I turned to her with realization striking like a hot iron. “No!”
“Ohhh yeah. My left hand landed right smack in the middle of a steaming pile of poo. And Rory laughed inside that little manic head of hers as she watched the whole show.”
I was thankful we pulled up to a red light then, because I was laughing so hard I had this old man wheeze thing going on.
“This seriously has to be made up.”