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After speaking with the girl at the mall, I couldn’t get those poor abandoned cats out of my head. I spent the next two days scouting out the locations of the feral cat colonies with the people from Happy Paws and the nights reading up on the problem of feral cats in California.
It’s what I do these days. I obsess over things that have nothing to do with my real-life problems, so I can avoid thinking about those. It’s not the ideal solution, I know. If nothing else, many therapists have told me so. But they also told me to do what works to feel better. And this is it. For now.
“OK, OK, we’re all coming to help trap them,” Harper says, laughing as I pause to take a breath in the middle of explaining how important it is to trap and spay as many feral cats as possible.
We’re at a cafe with my sister and Summer, waiting for Eden and Trixie to join us so we can have lunch. I was going to continue talking, laying out how spaying and neutering helps protect them from abuse too. And from the stigma of being seen as just pests.
“I’m sorry, I do tend to go on and on,” I say and take a sip of my iced tea. My throat is very dry, probably from all the talking.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” she says, laying her hand on my arm and flashing my sister a look that I can only describe as worried. “I like hearing about this.”
“Yeah, it’s really nice that you feel so strongly about this,” Veronica says. “And I can’t wait to go help put out the traps tomorrow.”
“We should get the guys to help too,” Harper says. “The more, the merrier.”
“Help do what?” Eden asks as she and Trixie sit down next to me.
“Trap the cats so they can be fixed,” her twin sister Summer answers.
“Oh, yeah, that. We should totally get the guys to help,” Eden says, and the others agree. But I can’t help feeling like they’re just being condescending. It’s not anything in their words, or their tones, just in the way they all look at each other and me. Like they’re worried I’ll just fall apart or disintegrate if they blow on me too hard.
Ruin’s the only one who doesn’t make me feel that way.
It’s a weird realization to just have out of the blue like this. And in the middle of feeling very ganged up on by people who worry too much about me. I blame Veronica for that. I’m sure she’s told everyone to treat me with kid gloves. I know she warned Ruin away from me and told him I’m too fragile to pursue.
I’ve tried to tell her to stop doing that so many times, but between her guilt for not protecting me, and my inability to just be normal, she probably never will.
“But won’t the guys be gone this weekend?” I ask, and the silence that follows feels like I dropped a bomb and they’re all holding their breath, waiting for it to explode.
I can never say the right thing to save my life. The MC is riding tomorrow to fight another battle in this war everyone is constantly worrying about. Veronica spent all morning before we got here telling me how worried she is about Chance.
Summer nods, Harper fiddles with her napkin and Veronica gulps down her iced tea so fast some of it trickles down her chin and onto her shirt, which she doesn’t notice. The day was hot before, but there’s a chill in the air now that has nothing to do with weather.
“Oh, come on, they’ll be fine,” Summer says, but her face is as white as the tablecloth covering our table. “They always come back.”
“I wish this damn war was over already,” Trixie says. “And I know Hunter does too.”
Her voice is so low and monotone it sends chills down my arms.
Harper’s eyes are glassy and unfocused and she’s looking off into the distance and not at any of us.
“I had no frame of reference for how hard this would be,” my sister says. “The waiting at home while they go out, I mean. Chance says I’m overreacting, but I literally haven’t slept since he told me they’re going. And it gets worse every time. Does it ever get easier?”
Summer shrugs, Eden looks aways, and Trixie clears her throat.
“I wish it did. But it really doesn’t,” Harper says and tries to smile.
“But it’s what we chose when we chose our guys, right?” Trixie says. “I worry even when I’m miles away.”
She chuckles like it’s somehow funny. The rest sort of smile too. She and Hunter had an on-off relationship for a decade before finally getting married last fall, so I guess she knows what she’s talking about. There’s no escaping it.
“It is what it is,” Summer says. “I used to worry about my dad, now I worry about Edge too. And everyone else.”
The silence that falls isn’t charged with the fear of an imminent explosion. It’s like a thick sheet of snow, endless and cold. Inescapable.
“At least saving all those cats will take our minds of it for the weekend,” I say, knowing I put my foot in my mouth again before all the words are even out of my mouth.
But they all smile and assure me I’m right.
