by Arianna Taylor
Your cat keeps looking at me funny. I don’t understand much, but I know the eyes it’s giving me from across the kitchen—like I’m some sort of sick mammal with silk-spiked teeth. It thinks I’m a lost cause and that I’m doomed. I don’t want to stare at it anymore, but there’s nowhere else for my eyes to go. I prefer something breathing over a pictured wall, an empty cookie jar, brown bananas. Part of me wants to sleep, but every time I walk toward the bedroom the doorknob seems too big for my hands. So I’m stuck here. Back against wood, knobs of my elbows digging into a dining table with one chair. Looking at the fucking cat.
I need to go to the store, to open the blinds. I know this, but I don’t do it. The faucet is doing that thing it always does, where the water drips against the stained porcelain you could never clean. It’s driving me crazy, but I don’t want to fix it. I know I need to. I don’t know a lot of things, but I know that relying on leaks from faulty pipes to act as ticks of a clock isn’t right. I should check the time. I think the cat is hungry and I already know there is no more food for it. The empty tin of its bowl reflects, but there is nothing to see in the mirror. I should get my keys and go to the store. I should really open the blinds.
I decide I want to get up, so I do. I stand in the center of the room and the cat cocks its head like it expects something of me. I’m sorry. I don’t have anything to give. I’ll find something somewhere. I check the fridge, and there is no tuna. In the bottom drawer are your soft tomatoes. I need to throw them away. I close the door. I look at the counters—no fishy treats. There is no catnip in the cabinets. God, when was the last time I fed the cat? I’ll grab my wallet and my shoes, and I’ll go find something. The cat looks up at me and licks its mouth. I just need my keys first. Feline sighs. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’ll find my keys, get in the car, and go.
I don’t know why I look at the little hook against the wall at the front door first—I never remember to put my keys here. You did, but that was you and I am me. I leave the cat in the kitchen and check the colorful end tables alongside the couch. The blankets across the backs are folded into fuzzy triangles, and I do not smile. I should really turn a light on, one of your stained-glass lamps that reminds me of God, but I’m not in a beautiful mood. I look to the bookshelf, packed with spines, but no words stand out. No keys here. No keys anywhere.
I walk into the bathroom. The keys aren’t going to be in here, but I look around anyway. There is an uncapped tube of toothpaste on the lip of the sink, a full hamper. There are the seashell-shaped soaps you bought, waves of citrus-scented clams that you were too scared to touch. You were worried their shapes would dissolve into nothing more than smell—loving something too much. You were always careful. I pick up the dish of sea and place it underneath a drooped hand towel, out of sight—I’m scared too. I leave the bathroom.
There’s only one more place my keys can be, but I can’t go into the bedroom, can’t see the made comforter and the open closet door half stuffed with cold clothes. I hear the cat’s soft meow from the kitchen and I don’t know what to do and there’s no one to ask. I yell because no one will hear it. My feet crash into the kitchen and the cat is still there and I scream with an already raw throat. I don’t have anything to give you. There is no food, and I don’t have my keys. I wish I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. I wish the problem wasn’t so clear. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to be who you knew me as or how to be someone new. The cat’s fur stands up at the sounds of my shrieks, and I immediately feel the fingernails of guilt crawling up my shins like a makeshift scratching post. But I don’t stop. I knock over the coat rack, smash the head of the leaky faucet with my fist until flesh rips. But the drip still goes. I tear the blinds from the window above the table and the cat cowers. The streetlights in the distance make the snow look marigold orange and you are dead. I’m supposed to love winter but I can’t anymore because I don’t remember what season was your favorite. I can’t remember anything. I can’t even remember where my fucking keys are.
My chest is heaving as I stand in the onslaught of night light. There is only my breathing, my hot face and aching fingers. I sit in the chair. My elbows prop themselves atop the table, and I stare outside. After quiet minutes, the cat creeps closer and slowly rubs its tail against my calf. It nudges my bare legs with its wet nose, asking for pets. I concede, the only thing I can do, the thing I should do. I pick it up and caress its furry face with a bloody hand, hold your baby with trembling arms. It purrs against my chest like it somehow recognizes me—like it loves me too much. I’m sorry but you know that. It curls its body in my lap and stays, so I stay too. We sit there, glued together under a moon we haven’t seen in weeks, like two astronauts suspended in gray air, searching for an answer among stars.