Becca

The front door was opening and I listened, eyes closed, as human feet hit the cement of the front porch.

Stretching out my front legs, I opened an eye, peering across the porch at my boy. The warm sunlight of the early morning was shining right onto my cushioned chair and my comfort levels couldn’t have been higher but I knew I had to get up soon.

My boy spoke his gibberish, saying only one word I understood, my name, Becca. Although I did not know his language, I knew very well that he was offering me my last chance to go inside.

I was hungry but I was also very happy in my spot. The choice was hard, but it always was.

My boy walked over to me, bearing his human teeth as humans often did before brushing his hand across the top of my head and scratching under my chin. I stretched out my neck, digging my claws into the orange chair cushion that I was so happily resting on. It was cushion of rough material but that only made it better to scratch.

My boy spoke more of his gibberish before walking to the door again, standing patiently, waiting for me.

I liked the way my boy stood. He was tall and thin and goofy looking (but didn’t all humans look a little silly?). Today he had had a bag on his back and he slouched under her weight. What he could possibly be carrying inside, I wasn’t sure. Where he could be possibly be taking it, I wasn’t sure either.

I liked timing how long I could wait before my boy got mad.

I purred loudly and gave a small, chirpy meow, shining my bright eyes at him. I could see his human face soften a bit. He kneeled down to the ground, making clicking noises with his mouth. This wasn’t exactly making him wait, but I knew if I got up now, I would get plenty of attention before having to be locked away inside the house.

I rose from my cushion and hopped to the ground, strutting to my boy and pushing my head up under his hand. He rubbed his palm down my back before returning his hand to scratch under my chin again. I liked my boy’s hands. They had soft skin but they were firm. The combination of the two made it wonderful when he chose to pet me, which was often.

I meowed again, begging for more attention before I crossed the threshold from the porch to the front hall. My boy rose to his feet, opening the front storm door and, while still holding the door with one hand, bending down and rubbing gently behind my ears with the other. I closed my eyes at he did so, taking in the full joy that his attention brought me. Then he pulled his hand away and, satisfied, I continued my path into the house, not even turning as the door slammed shut behind me.

~

Sitting in the window, I watched as the big yellow van stopped on the street, opening it’s doors and allowing people to spill from it.

I quickly focused on my boy. I had always had the ability to spot his curly brown hair in a crowd.

My boy separated from the group like always as he turned towards are home and the all the rest continued in other directions. All the rest except for one. My boy always walked home alone but today he had another boy walking at his side. The other boy was a bit taller, and over all bigger, and they moved their mouths as if speaking gibberish as they walked up the driveway to my home.

As he crossed the porch, my boy tapped the glass of the window I sat behind, as he always did, and I brought my front paw to meet the spot where his finger had been. At this, the second human spoke gibberish that was muffled by the glass between us. Then my boy responded in equally muffled sound, saying only one word that I recognized, my name, Becca.

I didn’t like many people other than my boy so when my boy entered the house with the second human, I was tense. I jumped down from my mount on the windowsill and raced to hide under the footrest of a nearby chair. The footrest was large but stood high enough off the ground for me to comfortably sit under it. I pressed myself low to the soft white carpet, breathing in the smell of old socks and I watched two sets of human feet stand by the front door. My boy and the other human put their bags onto the ground and my boy called my name.

“Becca,” then gibberish, “Becca!”

The end of my tail twitched and I watched the feet closely. One set suddenly started moving towards my hiding spot and the human who the feet belonged to dropped to the ground. My boy’s face was now a few mere feet from my own. He bared his human teeth at me and gleefully said my name once again.

For a moment, all thoughts of the other human had left my mind and I crept from my hiding place, pressing my head up against my boys and purring softly.

I felt his hand cup under my stomach and his arm wrap under my back legs and he scooped me up and cradled me in his arms. He held me closely and tightly, as if constraining me from jumping from his hold, and slowly he brought me over to the other human.

The other human had deep brown eyes and thick black hair that sat in a mess on his head. He bared his teeth and me and extended a hand.

I pulled back, pushing myself closer to my boy, not wanting to be touched.

The new human didn’t touch me though. He simply held out his hand. I relaxed a bit, giving him the benefit of the doubt and leaning towards him, pressing my nose up against his skin and taking in a breath of his scent. He smelled like the coffee and pencils. There was something else too, maybe basil, but I couldn’t be sure.

The new boy moved his hand again but this time I didn’t pull away. He brushed his fingers gently across my head, pausing to rub behind my head. He spoke some gibberish, saying only one word I recognized, my name, Becca.

~

The new human’s visits became a regular thing to a point that he was no longer new. I came to know him as my boy’s friend.

My boy’s friend never stayed long, though his stays were always filled with much gibberish and teeth baring. He always left before the older humans returned home from their daily travels but sometimes at night, when it was cold outside and I chose to rest at my boy’s side, I could hear my boy talking quietly on his phone, the familiar tones of his friend’s voice replying in their silly gibberish.

It was a rainy day when I sat on the edge of my boy’s desk, watching as he laughed his loud human laugh with his friend. I turned my ears as thunder shook the outside world but I payed the sound no more attention than that, as I knew I was safe at my boy’s side.

My boy and his friend sat on my boy’s bed. I was always fond of that bed, as it always bounced when I jumped onto it, and the red comforter that covered it was perfect for napping. The comforter was covered in thin pieces of my fur and I felt acclaimed to know that my scent marked the bed.

Ad my boy’s laughter ended, his friend spoke softly in their gibberish, moving to sit closer to my boy.

My boy replied to his friend, even softer, before leaning in and meeting his friend’s lips with his own as the adult human’s often did with each other.

Somewhere inside me, a purr started up. It wasn’t something I had expected but it wasn’t something I wanted to stop. I knew my boy was happy, and that simply knowledge filled me with an abundance of joy. I wanted to celebrate with my boy in his merriment so in a grasp for attention, I meowed.

My boy took his lips away from those of his friend and they both laughed. My boy looked at me with shining eyes, saying only one word that I understood, my name, Becca.

~

My boy’s friend visited almost every other day, sometimes more often, sometimes less. It wasn’t long before I came to trust him almost as much as I trusted my boy (but not fully as much, as I trusted my boy with a deep, powerful trust that I could not even trust myself with).

One day I had chosen to wait on my boy’s desk, instead of in the front window, for his return home from his daily adventures.

My ears turned as I heard the front door downstairs slam shut. There was a thud, and some stomping, and soon a trail of loud footsteps pounding up the stairs.

My boy rushed into his room, our room, shutting the door forcefully behind him. His cheek was dripping with tears and crimson blood and the eye on the less bloodied side of his face was surrounded with a slow forming bruise. My boy was shaking as he struggled to catch his breath and for a moment I wasn’t sure what to do.

He flung himself onto his bed and I quickly jumped to be next to him. I meowed loudly in distress, trying pushing my head up against his ear, trying to get him to lift his face from the comforter. He ignored me though, as he continued to cry into his bed.

I pushed my head up against the side of his once again.

You are safe, I thought to myself, hoping he understood, I will protect you for you are my kin.

My boy looked up this time, rolling to lie on his side. His eyes were watery with tears and his breath was shaking but he reached out to rub his hand across my back. And as he did so he spoke his gibberish (and I could tell you, another human would have likely referred to it as gibberish too, for my boy’s crying made his familiar syllables into slurred sounds that were beyond recognition). Through this mess of speaking though, I made out one word, my name, Becca.

~

Two days later, long after my boy had returned from his adventures, I slept on the couch in the living room. I had never liked the living room much, as people who were in this room tended to be noisey, but the beige couch that sat in the light of a window was too hard to resist.

The older humans had joined me in the room, one sitting at my side on the couch while the other sat in a chair. They both stared quietly at thin sheets of… something, that were decorated with symbols of all sorts. They didn’t bother me, I didn’t bother them, and all was good.

That was, of course, until my boy came into the room.

His face was no longer painted in shiny blood but his eye was still darkened with the pain of past days. My boy stood in the middle of the room, his hand behind his back, his face straight. He cleared his throat and quickly gained the attention of the older humans.

He spoke his gibberish quietly, and gibberish as it was, I could tell it was important news that he was bearing. He stopped for a moment, taking a deep breath before delivering a final line of gibberish in a rushed manner.

The room seemed eerily still, like a forest before a storm. The adult humans did not move and neither did my boy. And I watched his chest closely as it rose and fell, making sure that in his stillness he was still very much alive.

Then the older human in the chair spoke. HIs voice was deep and a feeling of anger lied behind it. As he spoke, the older human at my side, who was crying now, nodded her human head up and down and up and down.

And I watched my boy as he began to cry too. But his tears were different than the ones of the human at my side. While the older human’s tears were clearly of bitter disappointment, my boy’s tears were of fear, and sadness, and anger. And my boy ran from the room and to the stairs.

I lept from my spot and chased after him but my boy had closed himself inside out room before I had been given the opportunity to enter.

I laid on the ground of the hall, trying desperately to shove my paw beneath the door. When that didn’t work I meowed and cooed. And when that didn’t work I scratched at the white wood that kept me from seeing my boy.

It may have been minutes, or maybe even hours that I spent lying in the hall, trying without result to be allowed passage into the room.

Then the older humans came and they knocked on the door, pounded even, until it opened to reveal my boy standing on the other side.

I ran past them and into the room, stopping to walk in circles around my boy’s ankles.

And my boy and the older humans spoke in their gibberish before moving further into the room. The older human with the longer hair sat down on my boy’s bed and he sat next to her. The other older human stood near, watching quietly and the tow on the bed spoke.

I jumped up to join them, sitting myself in between them despite that there was little room for me there.

The older human had a laptop on her lap that she had carried it into her room. It showed a bright screen of symbols and pictures. The pictures showed small houses and men in black robes. The older human spoke gently, pointing to things on the screen but my boy just shook his head, repeating the same sound over again, saying it enough that I soon learned a new word. ‘No’.

He spoke the word with a shaking voice as his continued to cry and the older human payed to attention to the being of my boy. I leaned into him, purring loudly, hoping my false comfort could bring real comfort to him.

Soon she closed the laptop and she reached an arm to wrap around my boy, but he pushed himself away from her, repeating his word, ‘no’. She moved her arm away but quickly brought her hand toward my boy’s knee. I swatted it away before she could make contact, hissing as I leaned away from her. She clearly wasn’t here on a peaceful mission.

Then my boy spoke and he shouted at the lady in his gibberish.

And the older humans shared a sad exchange of glances before both leaving the room, closing the door as they left.

My boy pulled me into his arms in a rough manner, but I didn’t mind. He pressed his face into my back and his hot, wet tears, soaked into my fur, but again, I didn’t mind. He laid on his bed again, keeping me close, stroking my head with only his thumb, and he whispered to me softly, as if sharing a secret, speaking only one word that I understood, my name, Becca.

~

This crying became a nightly occurrence. I no longer slept outside.

In the dark of the room I would sit by my boy, watching as he struggled to breath between sobs and watching the tears roll down his face until there were no more tears for his eyes to give. I could comfort him only when he was willing to allow himself to pet me for I could not speak his language and he could not speak mine.

He would whisper to himself, and sometimes to me. On rare nights he would speak again to his friend through his phone, but even then he was not happy.

I licked his tears sometimes, though they were unpleasant and salty, and then occasionally my boy would smile weakly for a moment before returning to his state of distress. And I would lay at my boy’s side and purr, though it was no longer in fake comfort, only in my own fear for the fate of my boy.

When my boy wasn’t home, I hid. The older humans, who I had once trusted, were now who I most feared, for they were the ones to bring such a deep sadness to my boy. I didn’t want to see them and I didn’t want them to see me.

It was a cold night when my boy first laid in his bed without tears. The wind outside was howling, threatening a storm but not bringing one. My boy laid awake for hours, staring at the blankly ceiling that hung above his bed.

Then he rose, quietly dropping to the ground a pulling a bag out from under his bed. He then moved quietly through the darkness of his room, changing out of his sleeping outfit and into his adventuring clothes. He then grabbed the bag and slipped out of his room.

Curious as I was, I followed closely behind. Something was wrong, or maybe right. All I knew is that something had changed. I followed my boy as he left the house and made his way across the front porch. It was raining now, so I didn’t dare pass past the shelter of the porch’s overhang. I meowed loudly, though, in a desperate attempt to catch my boy’s attention. I feared he was going somewhere else to cry and I wouldn’t be there to comfort him.

At the sound of my call, my boy stopped, turning to face me. His face which had been so blank was suddenly overcome by a look of sadness. In the rain he knelt down, rubbing gently under my neck and pressing his lips against the top of my head. I could feel him shaking. And he pulled himself away from me and parted his lips and I listened patiently, expecting gibberish, but instead, for once, understanding what came from his mouth.

“Be good,” he said softly, “and be brave. I will miss you.”

My boy stood up tall, looking down at me with more sadness than he had shown in any of the previous nights. It was a sadness that weighed down his once bright eyes and a sadness that weighed down my once light heart.

And my boy turned around and began to walk into the rain.

And I meowed, loudly, begging for him to come back to me. Over and over, I called out, but he ignored my voice. I watched as he reached the end of the driveway and I ran out into the rain, hoping to catch up with him, but the pour of water strengthened until I could no longer see where I was going and so I continued to call out through the storm.

But there was no response.

And I knew I had lost my boy.