“Nah, I don’t think so. We already had someone call to check if Penguin is still available. I mentioned Tuna, but they can only take in one cat.”
Thank God for whoever renamed her Ruthie—I wonder who it was. I guess I’ll never know, because in this reality, that person is me.
I stare at Ruthie, and she stares back, unblinking. Unyielding. If she could talk, I know exactly what she would say right now: She’d tell me to stop staring and leave her alone. She always had an independent streak like that.
Maybe not so independent after all, I think as I focus on Penguin.
He stares at me with wide eyes, and I must not be thinking straight, because it almost feels like he looks worried, his eyes beseeching me to help him. He opens his mouth again in a quiet, barely theremeow.
Oh God, am I actually doing this?
I walk into our dorm room, shut the door behind me, place my backpack on the floor, and open it. The moment I do, Madison screeches, “What the hell are those?”
I snuck Ruthie and Penguin across campus and up to my dorm room in my backpack, delicately clutching it to my chest the entire walk, the zipper slightly open to allow them to breathe. On my arm, inside a large tote bag I keep in my car for groceries, is a small litter box, litter, food and water bowls, and cans of the kitten version of Ruthie’s favorite food.
As far as impulsive, my-prefrontal-cortex-is-not-fully-formed behavior goes, this takes the cake for reminding me that I am a thirty-two-year-old in an eighteen-year-old’s body.
That doesn’t mean I regret it.
“This is Ruthie, and this is Penguin,” I say, nodding at each of them.
I unpack my supplies as the kittens explore the room. Ruthie immediately darts under my bed, which is unsurprising—if she’s anything like she was when I adopted her in 2020, she’ll spend weeks under there getting acclimated before I see her again.
Penguin, on the other hand, starts frolicking around the room, putting his nose into anything and everything. There doesn’t seem to be a shy bone in his body. I sit cross-legged on the floor and watch him explore.
“What are they doing in our dorm room?”
“I adopted them from the shelter.”
“They let you adopttwocats when you live in a dorm?”
“I lied and said I moved into an apartment for my second semester.”
Madison is quiet for several moments. She visibly takes one, two, three deep breaths before she responds. When she does, her words are slow and deliberate.
“Why couldn’t you wait until we moved into anactualapartment to adopt two cats?”
I’m pleasantly surprised by her use ofwe—less than a month after making up, we’re already back to assuming-we’ll-live-together-next-year territory. Honestly, not bad.
“I know this comes as a surprise,” I begin. I realize this is extremely unhinged, and I didn’t even give her a heads-up. In my defense, it’sRuthie. She needed me. Penguin needed me. What if I’d left them there and they got separated before I had a chance to come back? They’re best friends. They should never have been separated in the first place. “But I promise it’s temporary. Obviously, we can’t keep two cats in our dorm room for the whole semester.”
I throw a joking tone into this last sentence, like the very thought is so outlandish that I can’t actually believe she would think that was my plan. Like I didn’t just waltz in with two cats, no real explanation, and absolutely no plan. Itisoutlandish. It’s reckless. I’m old enough to know better—hell, when I was actually eighteen, I was old enough to know better.
But I couldn’t justleaveRuthie there, not when I’d finally found her. And once I decided to adopt Ruthie, leaving Penguin’s fate up to chance felt cruel.
I’m just not quite sure what my next move is.
I lie flat on the floor so I can see Ruthie under the bed. She’s cast in shadow, her eyes the only part I can adequately make out. As I’m in thisposition, Penguin takes an interest in me and saunters over to chew on my hair.
I huff out a laugh and scratch Penguin’s chin. He leans into my touch, and I find myself surprised by the motion. So this is what an affectionate cat is like, huh? Strange.
“This could get us expelled,” Madison tells me.
“They’re not going to expel us for keeping cats in the dorm.”
“You don’t know that.”
“In the grand scheme of rule-breaking that college students get up to, sneaking a couple kittens into your room doesn’t even begin to rank. But I know it was inconsiderate to bring them here without consulting you. I promise they’ll be here a few days, tops. I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, can you see this as… an adventure?”
