116.
now
When I left, I made sure everything was sealed up tight. Didn’t I? I swear I did. But I was hurt and tired, and maybe I made a mistake?
What was I thinking, leaving him for even a minute?
There’s his harness. I do remember taking that off when we came back earlier, because it would be ridiculous to tie Yolo up inside his own house.
I’ve assumed that the someone else in town is someone I want back, or someone who, on some level, might care about me.
But what if that’s not the case?
Maybe Yolo’s out catting around.
Hanging out with other cats, chasing small animals. But there haven’t been any here since the Rapture. At least, not that I’ve seen.
Did something chase him?
Did someonetakehim?
Uneasiness catches at my heels as I spring up the stairs.
“Don’t worry, Yo,” I call out. “I’m coming.”
117.
now
There’s a shatter of glass in the bathroom.
A baseball bat in the middle of the floor. It’s Jack’s, the one I’ve been carrying around with me sometimes. I thought I’d left it in the car.
The space under the vanity, with no Yolo curled up underneath it. Only the blanket, and the other things I’d left there.
There’s blood, a smear of it, on the grip of the bat.
Whoever swung the bat at the mirror did it with such force that the point of impact is perfectly preserved, a star-shaped imprint with shards radiating outward. It reminds me of how the water looks after you jump in—the circle, the ripples out.
Some of the fragments are on the floor.
They seem to be in a pattern. The shards laid end-to-end, spelling out...
GET THEM BACK.
118.
now
“Yolo?” I scream.
Yolo’s not anywhere in my yard.
You found him before, remember?I tell myself. And,He’s a cat, of course he’s going to find ways to do his own thing.Yolo has stayed by my side a lot since he came back, even before I became a paranoid disaster and got the cat backpack and all that, but before all of this he always had a whole secret life I didn’t know about.
He would wander off during the day or at night, come back ravenous or a bit disheveled, too cool to even meet your gaze when you fawned over him, so glad for his return. So maybe he’s gone to one of those places that I’ve never known about. “This is Yolo’s neighborhood, we just live in it,” our neighbor had said once, and we’d laughed because it was so true.
My gaze must have flickered over to the fence between our yards, because that’s when my eye catches on something. I walk closer to make sure.
