Parts of the Cat Were Missing

As I was driving away from some of the slummiest apartments I'd ever seen, I started crying because this stupid cat. It was running around in the parking lot with only half a tail. For some reason, the bachata coming through my speakers didn't help my mood, and I imagined the cat shrieking in pain after realizing that it had lost a good four inches. I imagined it hiding under something, shaking, scared, alone and bleeding. Now it strutted across the parking lot in front of my car without even running. It wasn't afraid of me, or the sound it might make if it crunched itself under my tires. It wasn't afraid of anything. It made me so sad that I started crying right there in the car, not knowing why.

Two days later, sushi boy texted my phone at six in the morning to tell me that he wished I loved him like he loved me.
Upon reading this ridiculously forward and disappointing, but unfortunately typical text message, I sighed, sagged against the bathroom wall, and texted back "You don't know me. You think you do, but you don't."

I didn't even have the energy to deal with it. Long ago I would have tried very hard to match his fervor, "giving it a whirl" like the kid from Home Alone in the grocery check out line. Not now. I don't have the time or the patience for that. Frankly I've just lost any patience I ever had. I don't want a reincarnation of things past. In the end, I know it won't matter how much he says he loves me when he doesn't know me. There will be a rift between us. A divide he can't cross, and that I'm not willing to travel. So hell no, I wasn't about to work myself up for that. I wasn't in the mood to train somebody up on myself and American culture. Or to teach them English. Or to be their American-Girl advocate. It made me sick to think of slumming through the muck of it all. Overcoming the same insecurities, the same "sacrifices," the same idealistic baloney.

"This will not work between us." I texted.
It won't, I knew. I can't give you a chance, sushi boy. I'm not that strong anymore.

Halfway down the street past Altamont, where I saw the cat, I stopped crying. That poor cat had lived through some traumatic stuff, you know. And it was okay. It was living and breathing and it was just fine. Sure there was a scar, and parts of the cat were indeed missing. But it was okay. Somebody probably loved it a lot. It hadn't been starving. I bet lots of people loved that cat. I bet they fed it tuna and cans of cat food out on their patios.
I bet the tail had been an accident that didn't involve malice.
I wanted to believe that. I wanted to believe someone had picked it up when it was all bleeding and scared and saved it. I pictured that part in my head and held it there.
I sniffed and changed out my bachata cd for my french rap mix. I felt a little better.