Page 11 of Kitten

“If they were able to do it, they might not have killed themselves.”

“I can’t think of anything that would require more self-control than killing yourself,” I said, and then James looked sad, and I immediately regretted it. Quietly we finished our scallops.

James broke the silence. “Okay, what’s something you really wanted when you were a kid that you have now? A dream, or a birthday wish.”

What did I want as a kid? I wanted to never grow up.

“A boyfriend,” I finally said, lying.

“Well, there you go.” James laughed. “Doesn’t that make you a little bit happy?”

“Yes,” I said, and then realized that it was true.

—

Becoming James’s girlfriend was easy.For our first date, he took me to the Frick. I disliked museums, but I didn’t want James to think I was difficult. He was excited about their new porcelain collection. Porcelain was fine, I could do plates. But the museum was small, the porcelain collection even smaller, and really, you couldn’t avoid the paintings.

As James strode through the exhibits, I focused on observing the minutiae of his body: the downy hair lining the back of his forearm that curled so slightly near his wrist, the small dark canyon where his ear met his neck. I felt for the first time that I was really looking at somebody, and this act of sustaining my gaze caused unfamiliar feelings to emerge. Watery affection, slight apprehension. A strong and physical desire to touch.

James didn’t notice me staring at him. In front of a portrait of some rosy-cheeked noblewoman, he pulled me aside and whispered, “If you’re bored, we can go.” Desire muscled through me; I kissed him on the mouth. He gave me a funny look. “What’d you do that for?” I thought it was obvious: because I wanted to. He kissed me, told me I was surprising. The adrenaline of our kiss, layered with the buzz of the drinks that followed, was almost great enough to override all other feeling, yet still, a few hours later, lying naked and ready to be fucked on the crisp navy sheets of his bed, Iburst loudly and without warning into tears, remembering that it had been my mother’s birthday the day before and I’d forgotten to call.

Instantly and without any alarm, James folded himself around me and stroked my hair until I quieted. “You can still call her,” he said while I sobbed into his shoulder that I could not. Half a year had passed since our fight on my last visit home. If I called now, I would only confirm what she accused me of doing: forgetting her, abandoning her. I not only did these things, but I did them easily, all dressed up with my lips pressed against a stranger.

Still clothed, breath drunken, James petted me until I caught my breath. “I can tell this is really hard for you,” he said. I hadn’t considered this before, that it was difficult to be horrible. I continued to weep while he continued to repeat, “I can tell this is really hard,” until almost imperceptibly his voice broke, and I realized he had begun to cry, too. A numb peace took over me, my suffering refracted, and soon my eyes dried.

The next morning, we were both hollowed out by the humility of having been completely exposed. I knew I’d experienced an essential part of James that was unseen by most, a real porousness and sensitivity to devastation. When I told Lou about the date, she said that only I could bring a grown man to tears before even sleeping with him. “You and your melodrama,” she said drolly. “If I were him, I’d run.”

—

When I checked my phoneafter dinner, I had a gigantic text from Lou. My stomach dropped. I still hadn’t paid her.The text was written in an uncharacteristically flowery style, with lots of randomly capitalized words and semicolons.

Because of these aforementioned reasons, I will be moving out in One Week.

I hastily took a screenshot of my bank balance and sent it to her, along with the message:

I seriously don’t have any money right now. I’ll call the law library as soon as they open tomorrow. Can you give me a few more days?

u couldn’t have asked james???

This message was more in line with her normal texting style, which made me suspect she’d crafted the previous one with somebody else. I plucked out single strands of my hair until my eyes watered.

Lou liked to bring up how wealthy James was, but I suspected it was because she was secretly rich herself. She had a membership to a gym that celebrities went to and a credit card that weighed a lot. She replied:

sorry, but i’ve made my decision. the only reason i haven’t moved out already is bc i feel bad for you. but you’re never around anymore,so what’s the point? i can ask anna if you can stay for another month but…

idk what you were planning on doing after your work study job ended, bc then you’d basically be unable to pay rent? would you just move in with james? i guess it doesn’t matter if you don’t pay me back. but it’s messed up because i know for a FACT that you CAN!

I closed my eyes and sawfact,can. So some time ago, she didn’t seriously think that I could pay her. But now, because I was dating James, I seemed to have crossed some threshold, beyond which lay new expectations. I looked at the thin rows of embroidered roses on James’s couch, considered the delicate beauty of everything in this house. What was his couldn’t simply be mine, could it?

I said James’s name. He was lying with his eyes closed and head on my lap. The position was a new one for us, the pressure against my thigh odd but not uncomfortable. My thumb found the curve of his left eye, slightly bigger than his right and shaped like a teaspoon, silky and bulbous. He sat up. “What is it?”

I thought about asking him for money. He would say yes. I would pay Lou back. And then things would change, the idea of a threshold hardening into truth. I would gainsomething from this. Something that would continue to grow and return to me more things, the kind of things my mother would never have. It was just one question away.

“Never mind.”

I felt a soft and sudden pressure on my thigh: Silver’s paws. She’d jumped onto my lap and was now kneading my flesh. Instinctively, I tilted my phone away before remembering that cats couldn’t read. Her paws pressed deeper into my skin. I let her do it, focusing on the feeling, counting to fifty.

—