Losing it

before I’m ready? What if I choose the wrong cat? Or what if I’m bad at it… being a cat owner, I mean?”

God, how much easier would this be if I could say what I was really thinking?

Cade rolled his eyes, and pushed the animal into my arms. “Bliss, you couldn’t be bad at this if you tried.”

I could be bad at sex though. Knowing my over-active, neurotic brain—I could be completely awful at it.

The cat reached up and rubbed the top of its head against my chin. It was pretty adorable. Cade was beaming at me, and I thought… maybe Cade would be the better choice. Would I be so terrified of sex if I were having it with Cade?

The thought made me feel shaky, unsteady.

I passed the cat back into his arms, still unsure, but feeling a little calmer. I came to the line of cages, and searched for a gray one that could pass for a Hamlet. When I found her, Fate must have been laughing at me. She was hunkered down in the back of her cage, her large green eyes wary. I pulled the cage door open, and she replied with a guttural growl.

Of course… I would get the scary cat.

Over my shoulder, Cade said, “You’re not serious.”

If only I weren’t. But I’d told Garrick that Hamlet was gray.

“Sometimes, it’s the scary things in life that are the most worthwhile.” I told him. I’m pretty sure I’d read that in a fortune cookie once upon a time. That made it wise, right?

I reached my hands into the cage, prepped for a bite or a scratch or full on massacre, but as my hands circled around the middle of the beast, she reacted only with a low groan.

Cade shook his head, confused. “Why wouldn’t you want this one?” He pulled the black cat up close to his face. “He’s so sweet!”

In contrast, the cat in my arms was on full alert—her legs straight, eyes wide. I had a feeling if I tried to hold her any closer, she would maul me. I sat her down on the ground and she took off, hiding beneath a nearby bench.

I knew he was only asking about the cat, but I heard another question. One he hadn’t asked, not today anyway. And Cade was sweet, and the thought of being with him didn’t leave me immobilized with fear. The thought of being with him didn’t leave me with any overpowering emotion, actually.

That’s when I knew—

“Cade… I need to take back my maybe.”

I swear even the cats stopped their meowing. I could imagine their stunned silence. I wondered what cat- speak was for Oh, no she didn’t.

“Oh.”

I wished he would react—scream, argue, anything. I waited for him to lock up like that cat, claws out, teeth bared. Instead, he walked calmly away and placed the black cat carefully in his cage, probably so we wouldn’t have more than one cat out at once like the lady said. That was Cade, always thinking about the rules. That’s how I’d always been, too, but I was starting to think it wasn’t how I wanted to be now.

His movement was mechanical, simple, precise. He pulled the cage door closed and turned the latch with a sharp snap. He kept his back to me as he spoke.

“Am I allowed to ask why?”

I breathed out. I owed him that much, but how could I tell him this? He couldn’t know. If I was going to do this thing with Garrick (which who was I kidding? I probably was), then no one could know. Not even my best friends.

“I… there might be someone else.”

“Might be?”

This was stick-your-hand-into-a-blender-terrible. He wouldn’t look at me, and the heart in my chest felt paper thin, like tissue paper, which meant I was pretty damn close to heartless, doing this to my best friend.

“Things are still a little… complex. But I like him, a lot. I was going to wait it out, see if the feelings went away, so that maybe you and I could…” I trailed off, not wanting to put into words what I’d been thinking. There was no point. “But Cade, I can’t handle how things have been. It’s been less than a week, and I feel like I’m dying. I hate questioning everything I do around you, wondering if it’s okay, wondering if it crosses a line, wondering if I’m hurting you. I miss my best friend, even when I’m standing right beside you. So… I had to make a choice. And I need you in my life too much to screw us up. If I’d told you yes, and then my feelings for him didn’t go away… I couldn’t do that. Please tell me I haven’t screwed this up already. Please, please.”

He turned then, and I was startled by the hurt I saw in him. Cade’s face looked foreign with a frown. “I want to say we’re okay, Bliss. I need you, too. But I can’t pretend I wasn’t hoping this would go somewhere. I don’t know if I can do it. The truth is… you are hurting me. Not on purpose, I know that. But I love you and every second that you don’t love me back… it hurts.”

“Cade—“ I reached for him.

“Don’t, please. I can’t.”

The medicated smell of the shelter was suddenly overpowering, nauseating.

I asked, “Can’t what? Can’t be my friend?”

“I don’t know, Bliss. I just don’t know. Maybe.” The hint of bitterness in his tone was small, but it struck me like a slap across the face anyway. He walked out the door, and I sunk down on the bench, feeling frayed and burnt and bruised. My tissue paper heart was shredded.

I sat there, trying to puzzle out a way that I could have done this better. Was there any possible path I could have taken that wouldn’t have fucked this up so completely? Would telling him no straight out have been better? Should I have waited until the year was over and Garrick had left, and then tried to have something with Cade?

My mother had told me once when I was little and had a friendship fall apart that some relationships just end. Like a star, they burn bright and brilliant, and then nothing in particular goes wrong, they just reach their end. They burn out.

I couldn’t fathom my friendship with Cade being over.

Something nudged at my calf, and then the gray cat’s head poked between my legs. She pulled her whole body through the space between my limbs, rubbing against me as she went. She circled back and pressed her head against my shin. I reached a hand down, and she froze, flattening against the floor in fear. Slower, I moved until my hand pressed against her back, sliding along her fur in one smooth stroke. Her body relaxed, and I petted her again.

I eased myself down on the floor beside her. She locked up again, but she didn’t run. When I was certain she was comfortable with me, I picked her up in my arms. I pressed my face against her fur, absorbing the comfort she didn’t realize she was giving.

“Let’s make a deal, Hamlet. I’ll help you be less afraid, if you help me, too.”

Chapter Seventeen

By the time I had filled out the necessary paperwork, and had Hamlet housed inside a cheap cardboard cat carrier, nearly thirty minutes had passed since Cade had walked out to my car. Standing in the parking lot, I couldn’t find him anywhere.

I pulled out my phone, no text.

I looked on my windshield, no note.

I called his phone, no answer.

I called his phone again, straight to voicemail.

By the beep, I was crying.

“Cade, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to make this better. I Just want us to be how we’ve always been. God, that’s stupid. I know we can’t be. I know things can’t be how they were before, but… I don’t know. Nevermind. Just… let me know you’re okay. You’re not at my car, and I don’t know how you got home, if you got home. Just call me. Please. Let’s talk about this.”