by K. Ryan
It was the best date I’d ever had. Simple, easy, and fun as hell.
And, the second I entered the kitchen, Mara was on me like a cheap suit.
“What has gotten into you today?” she whispered, her voice dripping with excitement. “I’ve never, and I mean never, seen you like this before. Oh—is it your neighbor? The Browning Adonis who came in here last week to see you?”
I knew she wasn’t going to let me get away without some sort of explanation. “We went to a movie last night.”
Mara’s whole face lit up. “That’s great! I mean, it obviously went well. Look at you, you’re practically glowing.”
“And,” I figured I might as well get this over with. “I’ve been meaning to ask you...Finn actually works at Matthews Brewing Co., well, he doesn’t just work there, his family owns it, but they’re having this little party there tomorrow night and they said I could invite a friend, so I was wondering if you wanted to go with me.”
She reared back, shaking her head at me like she couldn’t believe her ears. “Wait a minute, wait a minute...let me get this straight. You’re inviting me somewhere?”
“Yep. So, do you wanna go? I already got Nicole to switch shifts with me and I figured since you’re off tomorrow night anyway—”
“Oh my God, Emma, I’d love to go. I just can’t believe—you know what? Never mind. I can’t wait! And...your sexy neighbor, sorry, your sexy boyfriend has got some seriously awesome connections. I just went to that brewery and let me tell you. It. Is. Beautiful.”
Unfortunately, I was only able to zero in on one part of what she just said. “Can we not refer to him as my boyfriend?”
I didn’t need her blurting something like that right in front of Finn or worse, Slinger, his dad, or his uncle. Our relationship, our friendship...whatever it was, the undefined lines between us were already so blurry, I didn’t need to add any confusion to the mix, too.
Mara, on the other hand, cocked an eyebrow and swept her eyes over me skeptically. “Sure. Whatever you say. So, are you going there with your boyfr—neighbor? Should I meet you there or come to your apartment? What do—”
Luckily, my phone buzzed in my back pocket at that exact moment and rescued me from having to finish that conversation with Mara for the time being. I glanced at the number flashing across my screen and gestured towards the back door with my head. I’d had the foresight to clue Mara into Oliver’s little operation today as soon as my shift started and she’d agreed to cover for me whenever the vet called to check in. She waved me to the door and I swiped the screen to answer.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Emma, this is Dr. Gentry at Bayview Veterinary Clinic. I was just calling to talk to you about the results of the tests we discussed when you dropped Oliver off this morning.”
“Right,” I nodded to myself as I stepped outside through the café’s back door. I couldn’t remember what those tests even were—she’d rattled them off so quickly I hadn’t been able to keep up.
“He tested negative for feline leukemia, but he did test positive for FIV.”
The vet kept talking—she said something about a low white blood cell count, but I barely heard her. All the air whooshed out of my lungs. My eyes stung. My legs felt anchored to the pavement. My heart skidded to a stop.
“Wait—what?” I shook my head. There was no making sense of this. “FIV? Like HIV?”
“Well,” Dr. Gentry explained and her calm, laid-back tone just did not match what she was telling me. “Feline immunodeficiency virus affects the body similar to HIV, but unlike in humans, it’ll never turn into full-blown AIDs.”
Just hearing that acronym had my body seizing in shock.
“What...I don’t understand.”
“It’s very common in strays, unfortunately,” she went on, clearly oblivious to the fact that I was practically hyperventilating into the phone. “And it is absolutely not something you could contract. It’s a strictly feline to feline disease. If you have any dogs in the house, they wouldn’t be affected either. It’s mainly transferred from saliva, so he probably contracted it through a bite wound from another infected cat.”
That still didn’t make me feel any better or really answer any of the questions I just didn’t know how to ask. All my brain seemed to hear was disease.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “Does that mean...does he need to be put down?”
It was like I was in some sort of nightmare. There was no way I’d just said those words out loud. It didn’t compute. My brain and my heart wouldn’t accept it. Numbness had the rest of my body on ice and I couldn’t have moved if I tried.
“I wouldn’t jump right to that,” Dr. Gentry asserted quickly. “There’s no need to go doom and gloom right away because there’s no way of knowing how or when the disease will impact him. He could easily live for years with the disease if it’s managed properly, just like a person with HIV.”
My lungs still heaved. My eyes still burned. My heart still tangled and spliced.
“So it’s like HIV or it isn’t? I don’t understand,” my tone was sharper than I’d intended, but I didn’t really have the capacity for politeness right about now.
“Like I said, it’s similar. It’ll affect his immune system the way HIV would affect a human. He’ll be more prone to things like ear infections, dental issues, and upper respiratory problems because his body won’t be able to fight those issues off as easily the way an uninfected cat could.”
“So...he’s not going to die, is he? I just don’t—”
“I wish I could give you a better answer about longevity, Emma, but there’s just no way to know. He’s still young, all his organs look fantastic—his kidneys, his lungs, his heart—everything looks great. He’s going to need special care, potentially a special diet, but I’ve seen plenty of cats with this disease live for years with proper care.”
Years. She’d said years. She’d also said disease in the same sentence. My brain just refused to digest it.
“So, that being said,” Dr. Gentry concluded, still in that easy, light-hearted tone that made me want to shove my fist through the phone and punch the woman in the face. “I still feel comfortable with moving forward with the surgery today. We won’t give him that next round of shots like we’d planned and with your consent, I think it would be best to do the procedure by laser instead. It’s a little more money than we previously discussed, but the recovery time is faster and healing is—”
“Yes,” I cut in abruptly. “Whatever you think. If it’ll be easier on him, do it.”
After Dr. Gentry promised to call me after Oliver was in recovery, I swiped across my screen to end the call and covered my face with my hands.
A pair of grey, sea foam eyes flashed through my mind and the dam broke right along with my heart. Hot tears rushed down my cheeks and I somehow managed to muffle a loud sob with my hand. Words like disease, illness, white blood cells, infection, organs, and longevity rushed across my mind and another sob erupted from my throat.
I was losing my shit right behind the café...I was supposed to be working, goddammit, but instead, I was crouched down against a wall with my face splashed with tears, weeping over a cat.
Just a cat.
Even thinking that sentence fragment had me convulsing in tears.
He wasn’t just a cat. He was my cat. He was my sick cat. Or at least, it seemed that way. Devastation didn’t even begin to round the corner of what I was feeling right now. I was demolished. Heartsick. Completely ripped apart.
Somewhere in between worrying about allergies, whether or not he’d attack, scratch, or bite me, and getting caught with contraband in my apartment, this had never, ever crossed my mind. The possibility that he could have a disease that would be detrimental to the course and longevity of his life just wasn’t on my radar.
And now that he was in my life, I couldn’t imagine being without him. I couldn’t even imagine what my life had been like before he showed up on my patio...that was how deep
I’d fallen. The one thing I thought I’d never want in my life had somehow become the one thing I didn’t think I could live without. Trust me, the irony wasn’t lost on me.
The idea that he could suddenly just disappear, that he could just be gone—I couldn’t go there. I just couldn’t.
Tears streamed down my face. There was no point in even trying to stop it. And before I could stop myself, my fingers swept across my phone and hit dial. My phone kept ringing and I just kept on crying until a familiar deep voice finally answered.
“Hello?”
“Finn?”
I couldn’t fake calm if I tried. The panic practically oozed from my pores, so it was no wonder Finn picked up on it instantaneously.
“Em, what’s wrong? Are you okay? You’re at work, right? What’s goin—”
“I’m fine,” I whispered into the phone and squeezed my eyes shut. “I just talked to the vet and...”
I couldn’t say the words. I just couldn’t do it.
“Emma, slow down. Take a deep breath. Tell me what’s wrong.”
My breath heaved in and out and I tried to follow Finn’s instructions, I really did, but I just couldn’t.
“Oliver has FIV.”
That reality, served with a fresh stream of hot tears, did nothing to alleviate this frenzied terror shooting up and down my body.
“Okay.”
Okay? That was all he had to say?
“I mean, he’s gonna be sick, right? How long can he live with that? I just don’t—”
“You know,” Finn cut in thoughtfully. “I think one of my sister’s cats had that.”
“Really? Is that cat...still alive? God, what am I saying? Of course the cat’s dead. That was, what, fifteen years ago?”
“Yeah. She’s dead. I think she was about eight or nine when she went.”
I sucked in a breath. I don’t know why, but that made me feel better. The vet thought Oliver was a year old at the most, so that meant he still had time, didn’t it?
“Was she sick?”
“Nope. I’m pretty sure my mom accidentally ran her over with the car.”
“Oh,” I exhaled and then that exhale reshaped into a breathy laugh. “Oh. That actually makes me feel better. Is it terrible that it makes me feel better?”
“No,” Finn laughed and I could practically see him tugging his hand through the long floppy pieces that always hung in his face. “It doesn’t. It really doesn’t. So, is the vet still doing the surgery today?”
“Yeah.”
“Then he’s not in bad shape, Em. There’s no way they’d do surgery if they didn’t think he could handle it. He’s gonna be okay.”
I swallowed hard as his words gradually sank in. “Okay.”
“You’re doing everything right, Em. You’re taking good care of him and you’re gonna keep taking good care of him. That’s all you can do.”
“Thank you,” I whispered and then, I stepped out of my self-involved bubble for just a second. “Oh my God, I just called you at work. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt—you were probably right in the middle of something, weren’t you? And you have your presentation tomorrow! I completely—”
“Don’t worry about it, Em,” he chuckled. “You can call me anytime. You know that. And I’m glad you called—you sounded like you pretty much lost your shit before.”
I ran a hand over my face and wiped my eyes. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“You’re picking him up after work, right?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer. “I’ll meet you there. Just tell me where to go.”
“No, you don’t have to do that. It’s fine. Besides, Finn, you’d have to leave early and—”
“Em, it’s not a big deal. Family business, remember? I’ll be there. Just tell me where and when.”
I guess I had two choices: I could tell him to just stay at work and that I’d see him later or I could stop fighting and let him be there for me...and Oliver. The reality, served with a plate of fear and panic on ice, wasn’t just the fact that I didn’t want to go alone. I didn’t want my brother there or even Cris.
I wanted him with me.
True to his word, Finn met me at the vet and wrapped me in a tight hug as soon as he was close enough to touch me. He kissed the side of my head and held my hand when the receptionist took us back to a consultation room where a vet tech was already waiting for us. He held my hand all the way through my crazy, helicopter-esque, frantic questions and the vet tech’s patient, thorough responses. And finally, when the vet tech brought Oliver out, safely tucked away in his little carrier and wearing a plastic cone, Finn was still holding my hand.
Oliver lifted his tiny head and blinked at me from behind the metal gate separating us. Invisible strings rolled out from Oliver’s carrier, wound around my heart, and tugged.
After 26 years of going through the motions and heartbreak after heartbreak, I’d finally come face to face with true love...with a cat. And I was finally ready to admit it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I reached out a hand high in the air, stretching it up and over my head, only to have a white paw press into my cheek.
“Oh, okay,” I laughed and turned to kiss the top of Oliver’s head. “I’m sorry I’m not paying attention to you.”
His tired, glazed eyes blinked at me before he nuzzled my neck, settling back against my chest so I could continue rubbing the spot in between his shoulder blades that had those vibrations in his chest rumbling like crazy.
“You’re funny,” I smiled down at him.
Since his little surgery the day before, this had pretty much been his life in between eating and me forcing his pain meds down his throat. The second he’d stepped out of his carrier when Finn and I brought him home from the vet, the only time he left the comfort of the couch was to eat or use his litter box. I guess if I’d had my balls lasered off, I probably wouldn’t move around too much for a while either. At least he got to have his cone of shame off as long as we were snuggling on the couch together, not that it was much of a consolation.
“I have to leave pretty soon, you know,” I told him.
Meh.
“I’m a little nervous,” I went on.
Oliver’s head turned warily to face me, one side of his upper lip curling up into a kitty snarl, probably because I’d stopped touching him for just a second. As soon as my fingers slipped to the top of his head and down his back, the purring picked up again and my anxiety waned a little.
I’d spent a whole year in Milwaukee reveling in the crowds and the city life that allowed me to blend in, to get lost, to be anonymous, and now, I was about to throw that anonymity away. Tonight, I would have to step inside a crowd and allow myself to be seen.
The prospect was absolutely terrifying.
So, obviously, I wasn’t just a little nervous. Petrified was probably a better adjective.
Because I’d invited Mara to the brewery tonight, I’d felt responsible for picking her up at her apartment, a move that surprised her just as much as it surprised me. At least I wouldn’t have to walk into the brewery by myself. So there was that. Going over to Finn’s apartment to watch a Packer game with him and Slinger was one thing...that was easy. That was the type of social situation I felt equipped enough to handle. But I wouldn’t have my usual fallbacks tonight: wine, my blog, and Netflix. This was on a whole other scale. This was meeting his family. This was meeting his group of friends—people he’d known for years. People who would be scrutinizing me closely, as they rightfully should if they gave a shit about Finn at all, considering Finn’s history.
But what about my history? What if one of them sniffed it out? What if one of Finn’s well-meaning friends did a little research on me or God forbid, recognized me?
At some point, I would have to tell him.
We couldn’t stay in this wonderful bubble I’d purposefully kept us in for much longer, at least not if I wanted to keep him in my life, if I wanted this to move further. Although Finn and I were
undefined, we were still something...I wouldn’t have been invited to the brewery tonight if we weren’t.
I just wasn’t ready.
I wasn’t ready for the judgment. The disappointment. The disgust. The shock. The inevitable withdrawal that was bound to happen as soon as he knew.
I felt safe with Finn. I really did. I felt like I could be myself...but I couldn’t look him in the eye and tell him. Fear crippled me emotionally, socially, probably financially, too, if you really wanted to dig in there and psychoanalyze, and I knew it. I just didn’t feel like there was anything I could do about it.
Once again, those familiar tingles of everything I’d tried to push away—self-loathing, dread, panic…it all came rushing back. My old, dysfunctional friends were all here for the party and what a dismal, pathetic party it was.
“Ugh,” I groaned when my eyes fell on the clock. “Crap. I have to go or I’m gonna be late.”
Oliver yawned. That’s all I got from him.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, buddy,” I told him as I leaned down to kiss his head one more time before scurrying out the door. “Love you too.”
. . .
One would think going to a small party to celebrate my maybe-probably-boyfriend’s success at work would be enough to lift me up and carry me through a case of cold feet.
Nope.
My feet wouldn’t move.
And now, Mara stared at me like I’d just told her there would be no available men at this little shindig.
“Uh, Emma? Everything okay?”
How to answer that question without looking like I needed to be committed? I guess the answer was in the question, so I took the easy way out.
“I’m fine,” I started a little too unsteadily. “I’m just a little nervous, you know?”
Understatement of the year.
Luckily, Mara took that to be just a normal amount of nervousness, not an intense, crazy-person amount that was bound to have me sinking faster than the Titanic.