Love Me Broken

by Lily Jenkins

  His mouth moves. It’s a moment before he can talk. “Yeah, dude,” he says. “That’s cool.”

  Then his clouded expression clears, and there’s this look like when I wouldn’t let him touch my duffel bag. It’s small, but I can feel him thinking, noticing the strangeness of it: my youth, my lack of backstory, and now this cash.

  But like before, the look evaporates, and he’s back to his easygoing self.

  When he starts picking the money off the table, he doesn’t ask any more questions.

  And I think we’re going to get along just fine.

  I spend the afternoon hanging around the coffee shop. Nicole is alternately busy helping customers, sweeping floors, cleaning counters—and then not doing anything at all, sometimes for fifteen-minute stretches at a time. I guess coffee shops can be like that: you get a rush, there’s a lull, then you get another rush. Either way, it gives her time to come visit with me, and we chat about New York (she chats; I smile and nod and try not to feel panicked), or she talks about her boyfriend Chad (who I would try to warn her against, if I thought she’d be with him for more than a week), but sometimes she just comes over with two fresh cups of coffee and we just sit quietly and stare out the window together.

  The sky, sunny just a few hours ago when we arrived, has grown overcast. Shadows cover the street, and I notice that people seem to be rushing more as they walk by, stopping only to stare up into the clouds. Wind makes the tree branches sway and sends the summer blossoms to the curb in little tornados. I start to wish that it would rain, just so I could watch the world become shiny and fresh, and by the end of the afternoon my wish is granted.

  Great sheets of water fall from the sky, and I sit staring at it, not even noticing when Nicole sits down next to me.

  “All right,” she says. “Closing time. You wanna wait here while I mop and break down the machine?”

  “Sure.”

  She hesitates, then adds, “Chad called. He’s on his way over.”

  I start to collect my things. I love Nicole; she’s my best friend. But Chad is someone I could do without. The traffic isn’t so bad now anyway, and I don’t have to cross Commercial to get home. “Actually, I should probably make sure my mom found her way inside from the porch.”

  Nicole smiles, recognizing my lie. “Mmm-hmm. Go then. But!” she says, holding up a finger, “you are not getting out of my birthday party.”

  I cringe. I haven’t been to a party since last summer.

  “No excuses,” she continues. “I want you there. It’ll be next Saturday at my house.” Nicole’s house is on the south side of town. While not a bad area or anything, it is generally not as nice as the rest of Astoria. It doesn’t have the sweeping view of the Columbia, or the waterfront shops to keep it busy. Nicole is still looking at me. “You’ll be there? Promise?”

  I mumble something incomprehensible and get up to leave. She grabs me by the wrist.

  “Erica,” she whines. “Please.”

  I roll my eyes. “Okay, fine. I promise.” Even though it’ll mean a long walk for me. I don’t know if she remembers that. “But I’m getting out of here before he shows up.”

  This is good enough for her. I turn to leave, see the torrential downpour outside, and realize I’m wearing a tank top and jeans, with no umbrella. All this time staring at the rain and I didn’t even consider that I’d have to walk through it.

  I consider asking Nicole if I can borrow an umbrella, but I don’t want to chance running into Chad. So I just walk.

  The rain dampens the crown of my head and my back, and splashes onto the hem of my jeans. I don’t mind the feeling as much as the memories the sound of the rain is bringing back. I try to focus instead on moving to New York, of running away from everything familiar here and starting over. It’s exciting and terrifying at the same time.

  The water whooshes down in the gutter next to me, and I don’t want to go. Suddenly, passionately, I don’t want to go. Which confuses me, because I don’t want to stay in Astoria either. I know Nicole is my friend, but she’s not enough. She doesn’t need me. And no one else even wants me here.

  I turn onto my block and see the peaks of my house. It’s on the south side of the block, facing out toward the river. As I near, I see the porch is empty. My mother must have gone inside, which surprises me. She’s stayed out through worse weather than this. Maybe she went in for more wine.

  I am walking up my driveway, my eyes still on the porch, when from my left I hear a high-pitched, desperate meow.

  I stop and turn toward the sound, eyeing the bushes lining the opposite side of the driveway, but I don’t see anything. I wait, and a moment later I hear it again: a long miserable me-e-e-e-owww.

  “Hello?” I call. “Kitty?”

  From behind the bushes creeps an orange tabby cat, dripping wet. Its white paws and white stomach are gray with dirt, and its green eyes look huge in its face with its fur flattened by rain. A blue collar is visible around its neck. There’s a name on it: PETE. But I don’t see an address or phone number.

  Maybe he’s lost. Maybe he needs someone to rescue him.

  I crouch down in the middle of the driveway. “Hi there,” I say. “You okay, little guy?”

  The cat stares at me. His wide eyes are completely dilated. For a moment I fear he might be feral, the wild way he is looking at me. Then I remember the collar, and put out a hand for him to sniff.

  “Are you cold? I bet you are, huh?”

  I wait another moment crouched like this, but the cat does not move from his bush. He must be too scared.

  Then I have an idea. I walk up to the garage and poke in the combination to the keypad. The old door springs to life and rattles and moans its way up the track. When it’s up, I step into the cover of the space.

  My dad’s car is here. I don’t want it touching me, and I feel a sweat breaking out being so close. The one-car garage is crammed with shelves and boxes, but I manage to back in, keeping a body’s width between me and the car.

  I turn to the cat.

  “Here, kitty, kitty,” I beckon. “Here, Pete.”

  He stares at me, water dripping from his chin.

  “Don’t you want to get where it’s dry?”

  I back away a little, in case he is afraid of me. He puts one small wet paw out—and then stops.

  Then I have an inspiration. “I’ll be right back,” I tell the cat. I walk to the rear of the garage, where there is a door that leads into the house, and wipe my feet on the mat. Then I go inside and up a few steps to the first floor of the house. I am on my way to the kitchen when I pass my mother in the great room that the kitchen overlooks.

  She’s passed out on the couch, her face strained and her arms and legs pulled into herself. It might have been a fetal position, except she looks so uncomfortable. Her breathing is hitched, and I notice that her shoulders are shivering in her sleep.

  Before going to the kitchen, I walk back to the hallway and open the linen closet. I pull out a thick afghan and bring it to the living room. Carefully, trying not to wake her, I drape the blanket over her, starting at the feet and slowly dropping it along her body until I get to her neck, where I let the rest of the bunched-up blanket fall. Her eyebrows cringe a little at the touch, but she doesn’t open her eyes. Then I turn and head back to the kitchen.

  I flick on a light and open the cupboard next to the stove. It is full of cans and packaged goods. I push aside cans of tomato soup, pinto beans, and jalapenos, and find in the back corner what I am looking for: a small tin of tuna. I pull it toward me and head to the sink. I drain it there, pressing the lid against the contents to hurry the process, and take the tin with me as I walk quickly to the garage. I pass by my mother again on the way and notice that her hand has emerged from the blanket. It is clutching the fabric, holding it close, and her shivers seem to have stopped. For now.

  I run down the steps back into the garage, then stop myself right by the door so that I can open it slowly. I peek around the ga
p and see nothing but the car and the assorted boxes of junk. I step around the side of the car and to the opening of the garage and peer into the bushes. There’s nothing there.

  “Petey?” I ask. “I brought you some food.”

  At the sound of my voice, a small wet head pokes out from behind the bush, the ears flattened back. The cat stares at me, but doesn’t move any farther.

  “Tuna,” I say. “Yum yum.” I hold it out, trying to entice the cat, hoping he’ll smell it. I think he does. Two orange ears perk up ever so slightly.

  When he doesn’t emerge after another minute, I set the tin down a few steps inside the garage on the side of the car. Then I back away to the door. And wait.

  It’s a good few minutes before the cat comes out to investigate. I feel such pity for him, watching him creep nervously forward in the rain, his body looking so small and frail. Why didn’t someone feed him? Then the cat tiptoes, one carefully placed step at a time, into the garage. He reaches the tin of tuna, looks up at me as if expecting an ambush, and finally drops his head to the tin. He eats ravenously, picking at the meat, and I notice again just how thin he is. Even though there’s a collar and he must have come from somebody’s home, this cat was starving. The ribs are showing behind his coat, and his fur is all dirty. I have the urge to pet the animal, to comfort him, but when I take one step forward, the cat’s head whips up and his body leans back in alarm. I wait a moment, hoping for the cat to relax, but when I don’t back away he hisses at me.

  “All right,” I say, and back away to the door again. “Fine. Just eat my food. You don’t have to be such a Prickly Pete about it.” I laugh at my joke, and decide that’s what I should call him: Prickly Pete.

  Since the cat obviously wants to be alone, I open the door a crack and start to step through, turning back for one last look at him.

  How long has Pete been out in the rain? What kind of owner leaves his cat outside? What if I hadn’t been walking by? Would the cat have starved? What if—I gasp—what if he had gotten run over? By a car?

  Tears start filling my eyes out of nowhere. I feel stupid, but also surprised. I haven’t cried in months. In—nearly a year. I haven’t been able to. My emotions, while not pleasant, had settled into a comfortable numbness over time.

  But staring at this orange tabby, watching him gulp down the tuna like he hasn’t eaten in days, and thinking of him going back into the cold, cruel, dangerous world, it fills me with such intense sadness.

  Nobody wants this cat, I think, and the thought repeats in my head. I think of this innocent cat being thrown out into the gutter, and the tears start to come. “I’ll love you,” I sob, and the sound makes the cat look up again, and our eyes meet for a moment. At my glance, he lifts his lips a little to show his teeth, and this sign of defense only makes me love him more. Only an animal treated poorly would react to kindness this way.

  I have to turn away and go inside. But before I do, I reach over to the wall next to the door and find the button for the garage door. The machine rattles into use, and the cat looks up.

  “It’s okay, Pete,” I whisper and hold my breath as the cat watches the garage door.

  “Please, please, please,” I beg as the opening to the outside world gets smaller and smaller. “Please stay with me. I’ll help you. Just give me the chance.”

  The cat takes a step toward the driveway but gets frightened by the descending garage door. The door reaches the ground and stops. It is quiet, the sound of the rain muffled by the metal door. I flick on the garage light so the cat will be able to see, then close the door back to the house. As I walk upstairs and head to my room, I start to question what I have done.

  The cat will want to get out, I tell myself. Pete doesn’t like you, even after you fed him. And you don’t even have a litter box.

  But I can’t bear the idea of sending Pete back outside into the rain. Tomorrow, I decide, tomorrow I’ll figure out what to do with him: whether it’s taking him to a shelter, keeping him, or trying to find his real owner. I just can’t put a living creature back onto the streets. I can’t be another person who doesn’t want him.

  But even as I think this, trying to be rational, I know there’s something deeper at play here. It’s not just the cat; it’s me. I need the cat more than he needs me.

  I enter the silence of my room and suddenly I understand how those lonely spinsters become crazy cat ladies. I get it completely.

  They just need somebody to love.

  I don’t sleep well that night. The rain falls outside my window, and I have nervous dreams about drowning in puddles on the street. It keeps waking me up at odd hours, and I sit up in a cold sweat, my heart beating so fast I worry I might be having a heart attack. The rest of the night is the same: tossing and turning until morning. Dawn doesn’t so much stop the anxiety as much as coat it in a haze of daylight.

  I push myself out of bed, my body stiff and my mind groggy. I feel awful, the way you feel after a night of crying. Was I crying during my sleep? I couldn’t cry for months, and now that’s twice within a day. Was it the cat? Or am I just going insane?

  I’m wearing bright pink pajamas: a button-up shirt and loose pants. I slip on a pair of fuzzy slippers and make my way down the staircase, rubbing my eyes and blinking at the light. I feel awful.

  Downstairs, the couch is empty, the afghan crumpled on the side like a used tissue. I look to the front of the house and see the silhouette of my mother’s head through the window. Her hair is unkempt, sticking up in random tufts. I hear my father upstairs, his footsteps through the ceiling, and I continue into the kitchen. I rummage through the cabinets, pulling out the coffee beans. The pain of the dreams is beginning to wear away, but it’s left me feeling emptied out and exhausted. I think I’m more tired now than when I went to bed. I dump the grounds into a filter and then pop it into the coffee maker. I’ll have a good caffeine buzz even before I leave the house, and then I’ll get a few more cups when I visit Nicole. Too much coffee used to bother me, making me jittery; now I welcome anything different from this swampy state after the nightmares.

  The coffee has just started dripping into the pot when I hear my dad rush downstairs. He turns toward the kitchen. I have my back to him, facing the coffee machine. He must see me, because his footsteps stop, then he goes in the other direction. He’ll pick up coffee on his way to the office. When I hear the door to the garage close, I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding.

  I don’t think I’ve seen my father face-to-face in weeks. I’m almost forgetting what he looks like. I wonder if he’s forgetting about me. Then I realize that’s probably what he’s trying to do. Both of my parents are just biding their time until I move out for college. I’m not sure what will happen to them then—will they continue this separate existence under the same roof? Or will they separate? And if they do, where will my mother go? She hasn’t been able to do more than weep on the couch or on the porch for months.

  The coffee is sputtering out when I hear the clanking of the garage door opening. It is then that I remember the cat, and a bolt of adrenaline more powerful than ten cups of coffee passes through me.

  “No!” I cry, and run from the kitchen, leaving the coffee pot on. I rush to the front window and see my dad pulling out of the driveway. Then I see an orange blur take off in the opposite direction, running down the middle of the street. “NO!” I scream, and throw open the front door. My outburst causes my mom to give a rare look in my direction, and I race down the steps, leaving the front door open behind me. “No, come back!” I scream, and see the cat rushing along the street ahead of me. I reach the middle of the road, and the grip of my slippers against the asphalt makes me realize that I’m still in my pajamas, with my hair wild and my face smeared with sleep and dried tears.

  The cat is about to cross the intersection when a black truck rushes by, not even stopping, and misses the cat by barely an inch. My heart leaps into my throat and I take off running. Pete turns his head and sees me co
ming. In response, he runs away from me, still in the center of the street.

  If I thought this cat had any chance of lasting on his own, I would have stopped there. I know cats are survivors, but this cat seems to lack all common sense. I seriously doubt he’s ever been outside before, and he obviously doesn’t know what cars and trucks can do to him. I can’t bear the idea of losing anyone or anything else, especially in a way that feels so preventable. Just the thought of him dying makes me feel like I’ve failed him.

  So I run. My slippers slap against the pavement, and when I reach the end of the block I can barely see the cat ahead. He turns north at the next intersection, down toward the river, and I rush to close the distance between us.

  I pass an old man watering his rose bushes. He takes a step back as I pass, as if I might be dangerous, an escapee of the mental ward.

  I don’t have time to care. The cat is not slowing down, and I don’t think it’s just because I’m chasing him. I think the cat is frightened and just wants to run, run as fast as he can, not even caring where he is going as long as he is moving. There is a growing pit of dread in my stomach as the cat reaches downtown, nearing Commercial where I can already see cars and traffic passing. I don’t think I can handle seeing this cat die, and my eyes fill with tears again. But I don’t stop running.

  The cat veers left, a block shy of the busy traffic, and starts heading west, back into the residential streets. By this time my lungs are burning, and there’s a hitch in my side that I am forced to run through. I try massaging the area where it hurts on my abdomen, but then get distracted by another wild turn from the cat, back uphill.

  This cat is taking me in one big circle, I think disdainfully.

  But we keep running. My throat becomes dry and scratchy. Sweat covers my body, and I wonder how this cat has such crazy stamina. He turns another block, and when I reach the corner I nearly fall over. I push onward, uphill, leaning my body forward against the angle of the street. These slippers really aren’t meant for running. They give no arch support or cushion, and it feels like I’m running barefoot.