Olivia

Light, at last. Ted’s hands on me, lifting me out of the dark. Bourbon hangs thick on his breath.

‘Hey, kitten,’ he breathes into my fur. ‘You ready to behave? I hope so. I missed you so much. Come watch TV with me. Tell you something, I’ll do the stroking and you do the purring, doesn’t that sound good?’

I twist out of his hands and rake my claws across his face. I slash at his arms and chest, feel cotton and flesh part, feel the blood come. Then I run and hide beneath the couch.

He calls to me. ‘Please,’ he says. ‘Come out, kitten.’ He fetches a plate with two chicken fingers on it, and puts it in the centre of the room by the recliner. He chirps and calls me, ‘Here, kitty, kitty, kitty …’ The chicken fingers smell really good but I stay put. I’m hungry and thirsty, but my anger is stronger.

I feel like I don’t even know you any more, I say, though of course all he hears is a hiss. In the end he gives up, which is typical. He can never take responsibility for anything.

As he goes, something falls out of the cuff of his pants. It is little and white, but I can’t quite make it out. The thing bounces and my tail twitches. I want to chase it. Ted doesn’t notice.

In the kitchen, I hear the hollow crack of a beer being opened, the clicking of his throat as he swallows, and his heavy tread as he climbs the stairs. The record player blares into life. The sad woman begins to sing in long elongated vowels about dancing. He’ll lie in bed now, music playing low, drinking until there’s nothing left to drink.

Right now I’m hiding under the couch, even though the dust bunnies tickle my nose very badly. I have to record this.

So, obviously, I had to go get the thing that fell out of the cuff of Ted’s pants. It was irresistible. Cats and curiosity and all that, you know?

I stalked towards it, belly flat to the floor. The scent came from it in waves. It was the scent I lick off my paws and jaws after Night-time has been with me. It was the scent that came from the little white flip-flop. That’s when I knew this was bad, bad.

I took the thing in my mouth. It turned out to be a square of paper, folded so many times that it was like a hard little pellet. I thought, Why would Ted carry it in his pants cuff? Weird.

I got safely back under the couch and teased the note open with a claw. It wasn’t paper, actually, but a scrap of white tree bark, thin and beautiful. But it had been used as paper. I saw there was a word, written in pink marker on the creamy surface. I froze because I know those messy letters. I have seen them often enough on the whiteboard in the kitchen.

It’s Lauren’s writing. Above the word in pink marker, like outlying islands, are three irregular patches of brown. My nose tells me what they are. Splashes of blood.

Several times I pushed the note away and tried to pretend it didn’t exist. Then I retrieved it and I read it again, each time hoping that it would say something different. But it didn’t. There it was, just that one word.

Help.