Alley Cat

Imagine a small taco shack transformed into a rooftop restaurant. Golden string lights glow softly to replace the sinking sun of late evening. Nonexistent barriers give way to the endless New York horizon. Suddenly, the lavish sofas and bar tables lose meaning in the existence of age-old skyscrapers and pillar. They stand with pride derived from their gargantuan size. There’s something about the city that hits differently at night. The traffic becomes significantly less annoying when you’re looking down at it from ten stories up. And the starless obsidian sky seems natural as if there were no such thing as light pollution, as if it was always meant to compliment the effervescence of the city below it.

Sitting at a lone table with Kaya, I try my best to slow my nervous heart. When I’m as calm as I can will myself be, I rise from my seat. Kaya tilts her head towards the door before picking up a wide brimmed glass of margarita to take a sip. The chunky grains of salt encrust her lip, alleviating the pungent punch of alcohol that comes with the fruity taste of the drink.

“After you go through the door, take a left and you’ll find the kitchen. I bet you he’s in there.”

“I bet he is,” I say, eyeballing Kaya’s margarita. Condensation accumulates little dew drops around the rim of the glass and falls like teardrops. My face reflects in the glass, making it appear that I’m crying. Maybe it’s an omen. Maybe Todd won’t forgive me.

Kaya’s snicker breaks me from my anxious spell. “No way. You’re scared! Helene Singh ‘The Monster Slayer’ is scared!”

“Of course I’m scared!” I snap back. “What if he hates me?”

“Then he hates you.” Kaya puts it bluntly. Our server arrives and drops off our appetizers at the table in a ghostly manner. We don’t even notice him leaving.

Smart server.

“I don’t want him to hate me,” I say while reaching for a tiny glass filled to the brim with ceviche. I stab a fork through a piece of raw fish and bring it to my mouth. The tang of lime, salt, and onions make me sigh with bliss. I temporarily forget about my worries until the food slips down my throat, leaving me empty again.

Kaya mirrors my moments and only stops to do a double take on the appetizer. She’s never had raw fish before and finds herself stunned at how the unexpected flavors mingle harmoniously in her mouth. “Well, regardless of what you want, he may or may not already hate you without you confronting him. Don’t you want at least some kind of closure before you off yourself later?”

The thought of my impending doom motivates me to rise. My knees rock beneath me and I sit back down to Kaya’s disappointment. “Maybe Todd will be better off not knowing. I’ll spare him the pain.”

“Helene.” Kaya says my name with an exasperated groan. Her disappointment is contagious. The ceviche in my stomach comes to life and makes me nauseous.

“Don’t look at me like that! You know how it feels. There’s a few types of pain that you can never grow accustomed to. The sting of rejection is one of them.”

Kaya’s fork full of ceviche freezes halfway to the entrance of her mouth, and she sighs. “Fine. I can’t make you go in there and talk to Todd. But I’ll say this: you’re going to regret not telling him how you feel. And if you ask me, you already lived a nine lives of regret. It’s time to find peace.”

A swinging door by the entrance captures my eye. Two people enter the rooftop: a young woman and a man. She’s dressed in formal attire. A padded blazer emboldens her look, adding to her Prada purse and her studded heels I can’t help but notice how her dark hair captures moonlight, harnessing its beauty and making it hers. Her sleek tresses falls over her shoulders and softens her cunning face. She outshines her partner, wiping him from existence. Me? I’m mesmerized.

“Have you found peace?” I ask Kaya. My eyes are still set on the woman at the entrance. My gaze follows her every move and becomes fixed when she sits down at a table not too far from ours. I can see her clearly now. My attention flips back and forth between Kaya and the mysterious customer. I anticipate what’s to come.

“No.” Kaya admits, still unaware of the heart attack sitting just a few tables behind her. “I’ve got a few things to figure out.”

“Ah. Okay. Well then, I believe one of those things is sitting right over there.”

Before Kaya can turn around, I push back my chair and stand.

“SHIRISHA!”

My abrupt display of attention turns heads everywhere. Kaya’s body petrifies from embarrassment. Me? I can’t care less. My stunt succeeds in gaining Shirisha’s attention, the only person I want to notice. Shirisha’s eyes widen with recognition as I wave her over.

“Spotlight’s yours.” I wink at speechless Kaya and run towards the door.

It doesn’t take me long to find the kitchen. I walk into a chaotic mess. A cacophony of sizzles, searing, and grilling comprises the atmosphere. Line cooks work elbow to elbow, shuffling around the kitchen in white uniforms that make it hard to distinguish one from the other. I’m surrounded by clouds of delicious smells. Culinary discourse infiltrates my ears, increasing my dismay. But in spite of it all, I manage to locate Todd at the epicenter of chaos.

Todd sits at a small chair located near the swinging doors as the head chef presents him with plate after plate. He’s treated like a king. I barely recognize him with his appearance and stature. A part of me still refuses to believe that my beloved fat cat has always been the lanky Asian boy sitting before me. There are still scars on the side of his head where hair can never grow. He’s more human than I ever saw him. Each bite of food sends a heavenly smile to his face, and I know that he has found his place. He’s happy.

“The garlic’s undercooked. Make sure the garlic is yellow before you add the rest of the ingredients in. It brings out the flavor.”

The head chef heads his word and sends the dish back. Todd grins and leans back in his chair. It’s only when he sees me standing by the door that his smile fades.

“What are you doing here?”

There’s accusation in his tone. It lashes me, and I recoil from the sting. My heart pounds violently within me as I lock eyes with him. I hear blood rushing my ears; it’s a flooding river out of control.

I stand petrified as the head chef returns with a new dish. Todd takes a bite of food and is careful to maintain his gaze on me. With a smack of his lips, Todd decries.

“Are you trying to give the customers hypertension? There’s enough salt in here to kill a sea. Send it back.”

The head chef wanders off with his tail between his legs. I mess up by laughing at the chef to which Todd glares at me.

“Are you going to keep staring at me all night or do you actually have something to say?”

Words lodge at the back of my throat. No matter how much I cough, I can’t spit them out. Todd’s expression is too intense, too blinding for me to focus. I turn my gaze to the frenzy of bickering cooks in the back and my mind clears.

“I’m sorry.” The two words leave me in haste. I’m left deflated and shapeless. I grab at the wall to keep myself from falling. “At first I came here to seek your forgiveness but now I realize that there’s nothing I can say to fix what I did. I abandoned you for three years. I left you in your weakest moment, and I know that I’m a coward. There’s nothing you can call me that I haven’t already thought of myself. That’s why I’ll respect what you want. If you want me to leave right now and never show my face ever again, then I’ll do it. Just give me your word and I’ll be off.”

Todd leans back in his chair and lets out a huge, fat, scoff. His scoff turns into a sadistic cackle that leaves me stunned. “You’re unbelievable, Helene. You really haven’t changed.”

My silence answers for me. “Even now when you’re remorseful, it’s still always about you. It’s always been about you. It’s never been about me. I was hurt because you didn’t stay to find out who I was or what happened to me. You always had your own thing going on. People always fought over you...even after you left.”

“That’s not fair.” I say, shaking my head. “I’ve been honest with you the entire time and you lied to me just like everyone else. You were a werecat this entire time and you didn’t even bother to tell me.”

“Didn’t bother?” Todd rises to his feet. I’m surprised again when he towers over me like a skinny pillar. His gray eyes darken ominously. A storm’s brewing in the back of his mind. His words boom louder than thunder. “You never gave me the chance! I just died, came back from the dead, AND became human again!”

“You had so many chances!” I keep my voice heavily low and controlled. It takes every ounce of strength I have not to break.

“YOU were going to judge me!”

“I was in no position to judge! I have been alive for 803 years! I have done the shittiest things imaginable! I have failed and suffered and gone to hell and back! You have no idea, no inkling, of how wrong I am. And you still think I would have judged you? Of all people?”

“I’m not as innocent and good as you believed I was.” Todd says with an all-knowing smile. It contains enough cruelty to wound me, forever erasing the image of my beloved friend. “You don’t know me. I’m not some little cat you can dote on anymore.”

“I know,” I say with a solemn nod. “The day you died, I lost my friend that day, too.”

Todd looks at me with hardness in his eyes, and it saddens me beyond my threshold. A few tears streak my eyes, but I wipe them away viciously with the back of my hand.

“At least you’re happy now, right? That’s all I ever wanted for you.”

“I am.” Todd sneers.

“Good.” A smile tears a chasm across my face. I turn around to glance at the door, knowing that my time is near. “You know, the people who love you won’t judge you on where you came from or what you’ve done. You’re a different person now. And that’s all that matters. Take it from me.”

This time it’s Todd that answers back with silence.

“But before I go, let me tell you one last story about me.”

“I’m done listening to your stupid stories.” Todd jeers.

But I go on. I go on because it’s the last thing I can give him, the only thing I have that’s of any worth. I present him with a slice of my soul.

“I had a daughter. And her name was Sara.”

It happened during my fourth life. I worked as a wench in a little English tavern. In my head, I was 250 years old. But to everyone else, I was just fifteen.

I worked hard to make ends meet. All I ever wanted was to make enough money to leave the dreadful island, but I soon learned that sometimes hard work wasn’t enough. I stole on the job. I pickpocketed drunk blokes who had too much ale to drink. I slipped rings off fingers, confiscating rubies and emeralds...whatever could afford me the golden ticket out of Hell.

And although I hated myself for it, I did it well. No one ever blamed the poor tavern girl for a missing purse or a stolen ring. How could they? I was a useful pair of ears. Men came to me with tales of woe and complaints of Parliament. I knew how to make people like me but even then it came at a cost.

I caught my boss’s eye. He drank more than any other regular at the tavern and often rubbed me up when I was waiting tables. I hated how his greedy hands grabbed at my breasts so tightly like he owned them. I hated everything about him, from his swollen red eyes, to his alcoholic breath. I hated how his belly blew up from all the ale. And I especially hated how he treated his wife, as if she was nothing less than a dog he can gawk at.

But as much as I hated him, he offered me a deal that I simply couldn’t refuse.

A way out.

In exchange for my sex.

And I did it. Stupidly. He never kept his end of the deal, and I remained stranded in England for years to come without a job.

I also fell pregnant.

The birth was the most excruciating pain I ever endured. Sara ripped me open, wrecked my insides, and mutilated my belly in ways I couldn’t describe. It hurt so bad that I thought I was going to die holding her in my arms as I bled out on the straw bed.

I wanted to hate her. I expected her to be ugly, to look like the man that deceived me. I wanted to hate her for hurting me, for making my life more difficult than it already was. But when I looked at her little face and her tiny dark eyes, I fell in love. It was the purest feeling I ever felt. I cried out of remorse and swore to always love her. Sara became my world.

And for some time, we were happy.

Sara was all I needed. She grew up faster than I wanted her too. I taught her how to walk, how to read, how to sing. She was always bouncing with energy. Even when I was falling asleep at the spinning wheel, Sara was always there to wake me up, to remind me that I was almost there. I was almost done.

I made a meager living off of mending dresses and when Sara was old enough, she helped me. It was us against the world. I didn’t want anything to change. I didn’t want Sara to grow. I wanted everything to stay the same.

But life, as everyone knows it, never stops for anyone.

Sara started talking less and leaving the house more. She wouldn’t tell me where she was going. And when I tried to ask, she would explode in my face. She called me nosy. She told me that it was none of her business. It broke my heart that I was hurting her and didn’t even know how.

It wasn’t until years later that I found out the neighborhood kids were bullying her. They told her that her mother was a whore, that a troll was her father. They told her that her skin was too dark and that her dress looked like it was made of hay.

She blamed me for her misery, and she was right. I didn’t think twice before bringing her into the world. I couldn’t give her everything she needed. I failed as her mother.

I became too ashamed to face her, so I forgot that I ever was her mother. And then one day, she never came home.

I needed help searching for her. I had no choice but to ask the only person that was ever kind to me. John was a humble shoemaker who lived down the street. I knew that he would help me. He was my only hope of seeing my daughter again.

John and I searched everywhere. We asked people at taverns, at the market, at the docks. We finally got a clue from an old sailor who recognized Sara’s description. He said that she went to buy some rope from him. And with a heavy heart, I knew what my little girl had done.

We found her body at the bottom of a lake. Sara had tied herself to a heavy rock and drowned. Alone. I never forgave myself.

When I finish my tale, Todd glares at me with tear brimmed eyes. He trembles nervously, flaring his nostrils like a bull ready to charge. I close my eyes when Todd runs towards me. He collides into my chest and brings his arms around my body for a constricting squeeze. We cry into each other and sob with such melancholy that it disrupts the kitchen’s rhythm.

“Y–You don’t hate me?”

“I could never bring myself to hate you.” Todd wipes his eyes with my hair, and I smack him. We laugh and continue crying right after. “I was just really hurt that you left...but now I understand that you did it for yourself.”

“I wouldn’t have remembered if I didn’t.” My tears flood faster than I could stop them, but I embrace the pain. I don’t regret it at all. I feel stronger than I ever felt before. I am Love and Pain and everything in between. I am finally complete.

I’ve found peace.