wither. If a cat never gets any treats, he wonāt miss them. Right? I donāt know. Looking at my reflection in the window, Iām not so sure anymore. My brain might be dumber than a catās. It might be one of Reikeās blobfish, swimming aimlessly in the bowl of my skull. I have no idea.
Itās June. Almost summer. Sunset doesnāt come early anymoreāif itās dark outside, Levi must have left hours ago. I stand gingerly from the couch, feeling heavy and weightless. An old woman and a newborn calf. Wretched little me, still containing multitudes. But as much as Iād rather wallow in self-pity, this situation is a grave of my own digging. There are things I need to do. People I need to take care of.
First, RocĆo. Sheās not in her apartment and doesnāt pick up when I callā
because sheās with Kaylee trying to forget todayās fustercluck, because she hates me, because sheās a Gen Z. Could be all three, but what I have to tell her is important, and Iāve already hurt her chances to get into the Ph.D.
program of her dreams enough, so I email her.
Whatever happens with BLINK, get in touch with Trevor ASAP and ask him to let you stay on the project as the RA (Iād do it, but itās best if it doesnāt come from me). Levi will support this. What happened today is my
responsibility only and wonāt re ect on you.
Okay. One down. I swallow, take a deep breath, and tap on the Twitter app. Shmacās next: he needs to know whatās going on with STC. That if he continues to associate with Marie, things could go south very quickly. I still donāt know what the hell happened, but publicly disavowing me might be best for him.
I DM him to ask if he has a minute, but he doesnāt immediately reply.
Probably with the girl, I tell myself. After my disastrous conversation with Levi, the idea of someone brave enough to seize that kind of love, intense
and eviscerating and gutting and joyful, fills me with an envy so overwhelming I have to push back against it with my entire self.
I click on Shmacās profile, wondering whenās the last time he was online.
He
hasnāt
tweeted
much
in
the
past
weekāmostly
#FairGraduateAdmissions stuff, comments on the peer-review system, a joke about how heād love to be writing, but with his cat sitting on his laptop he really canāt
ā
Wait.
What?
I click on the picture attached to the tweet. A black cat is snoozing on top of the keyboard. Itās short-haired and green-eyed and . . .
Not Schrƶdinger. It canāt be. All black cats look the same, after all. And this pictureāI can barely make out the catās face. Thereās no way to tell whoā
The background, though. The background . . . I know that backsplash.
The dark-blue tiles are just like the ones in Leviās kitchen, the ones I stared at for half an hour last week after he bent me over the counter, and even without them I can see the edge of a carton of soy milk in the picture, which Levi finds āgross, Bee, just grossā but started buying when I told him it was my favorite, and . . .
No. No, no, no. Impossible. Shmac is . . . a five-eight nerd with a beer belly and male-pattern baldness. Not the most perfect Cute Sexy Handsome Guyā¢ in the world. āNo,ā I say. As if itāll somehow make everything go awayā the last few disastrous days, Shmacās tweet, the possibility of . . . of this. But the picture is still there, with the tiles, the soy milk, and theā
āShmac,ā I whisper. Hands shaking, out of breath, I scroll back up our message history. The girl. The girl. We started talking about the girl when Iāwhen did we first talk about her? I check the dates, vision blurry once again. The day I moved to Houston was the first time he mentioned her to me. Someone from his past. But, noāhe told me she was married. He said her husband had lied to her. And Iām not, soā
But he thought I was. He thought Tim and I were together. For a long time. And Tim did lie to me.
āLevi.ā I swallow, hard. āLevi.ā This is impossible. Things like theseāthey donāt happen in real life. In my life. These coincidences, theyāre for Youāve Got Mail and nineties romcoms, not forā My eyes fall on the longest message he sent me.
I know the shape of her. I go to sleep thinking about it, and then I wake up, go to work, and she is there, and itās impossible.
Oh my God.
I want to push her against a wall, and I want her to push back.
I did that, didnāt I? He pushed me against a wall, and I pushed back. And pushed. And pushed. And pushed. And now Iāve pushed him away for good, forever, even though . . . Oh, God. He has offered me everything, everything Iāve ever wanted. And I am such a cowardly, idiotic fool.
I wipe my cheek, and my eyes fall on the object Levi left on the table. Itās a flash drive, pretty, shaped like a catās paw. A calicoās. My laptop doesnāt have a USB port, so I frantically look for an adapterāwhich of course is at the bottom of the damn suitcase. Thereās one single document on the drive.
F.mp4. I plop down on the pile of unfolded clothes I just tossed around and immediately click on it.
I knew there were cameras everywhere in the Discovery Building, but not that Levi had access to them. And I donāt understand why heād give me thirty minutes of night surveillance footage. I frown, wondering if he uploaded the wrong file, when something small and fair slinks in the corner of the monitor.
FĆ©licette.
The date says April 14, only a few days before I moved to Houston.
FĆ©licette looks a little smaller than the last time I saw her. She trots across the hallway, glances around, then disappears around the corner. My body leans in to the screen to follow her, but the movie cuts to April 22. FĆ©licette jumps on one of the couches in the lobby. She circles around, finds a good spot, and starts napping with her head on her paws. Wet laughter bubbles
out of me, and the video changes againāthe engineering lab is semi dark, but FĆ©licette is sniffing tools Iāve seen Levi use. Licking water from the drip tray of the break roomās water dispenser. Running up and down the stairs.
Giving herself a bath by the conference room windows.
And then, of course, in my office. Scratching her claws on my chairās armrests. Eating the treats I left out for her. Dozing on the little bed I set up in the corner. Iām laughing again, Iām crying again, becauseāI knew it. I knew it. And Levi knew it, tooāthis is not something he put together quickly last night. This is hours and hours of combing through footage. He must have known FĆ©licette existed for a while, andāI want to strangle him. I want to kiss him. I want everything.
I guess this is itābeing in love. Truly in love. Lots and lots of horrible, wondrous, violent emotions. It doesnāt suit me. Maybe itās for the best that I sent Levi away. I could never live with thisāitād raze me to the ground in less than a week, andā
I want to push her against a wall, and I want her to push back.
Oh, Levi. Levi. I can be fearless. I can be as fearless and honest as you are. If you will teach me.
I sit back, let the tears flow, watch some more. She really did like my desk, FĆ©licette. More than RocĆoās. As the date changes, she nestles around my computer more often. Steps where I found her little paw prints.
Delicately sniffs the rim of my cup. Chews on my computerās power cable.