ALL THAT WAS LEFT BEHIND

Following Instincts

            I carefully bent down beside her, and looked at the gracious way it crunched each bite of terrible kitty kibble. She looked so soft, as if her long black fur would feel like velvet, and running a hand down her long back would feel like stroking a slip of silk.

            Considerately, I bent down reached my hand out to touch its fur, feeling guilty that I had judged the poor animal so quickly. I think part of me trusted Doug with things such as this, for his opinion seemed more practical. Maybe he was wrong about cats.

            My fingers softly brushed against her smoothly groomed fur, and ran down her back. It was as soft and silky as I imagined, and so beautiful too. Just like petting a smaller, fatter version of a panther, but a tamed one.

            “Aw, hi there snowball,” I whispered.

            I slid my hand up her back to the flat of her head, ruffling up her fur.      

            Rapidly, the cat whipped around from her bowl, and lunged her bared nail like teeth towards my hand. I quickly snapped it away, and jumped away from her.

            I landed hard on my backside, and stared at the cat with bewilderment, which was casually eating its food again.

            I scrambled to my feet, a little cautious of being around the thing, and made a mental note of never to touch it while it was eating ever again.

When I arrived at the school, the air wrapped around me and refreshed my tired mind. It was frigid, but brightly lightened by the sun, delicately kissing it as it poked from the clouds in the sky.

            I recognized Willa, Zoë, and two other girls waiting at their usual spot at the front doors. As Willa saw me, they all came up to greet me with wide smiles, as they were absent the day before.

            Zoë’s long wispy hair blew down around her hips, and I marvelled on how long it was. She looked at me with a serious face and asked, “Are you okay? I mean, from Saturday, and the fire and all?”

            I nodded and smiled at the group. “Yes, I'm doing well, thanks. How are you guys? I didn’t see any of you yesterday.”

            “My parents wanted me to relax for one more day since the fire. It was kind of pointless, but whatever,” Willa explained with a shrug.

            “Yeah,” perked up the other girls, even the ones who weren’t there.     

The group seemed to have no interest in telling me their weekend stories until they fished out every detail of what happened, and took great interest in my strange adventure. I revealed what parts I could, deliberately leaving out the snippets of information that was deemed evident to Samuel’s case. I didn’t breathe a word about the wallet Matt went back for, so when they questioned where he went afterwards, I said I wasn’t sure.

            “Yeah, I can’t believe that happened! It’s too bad, since we didn’t get to hang out after and all,” Zoë exclaimed after I finished.

            Willa gave her a look. “You mean, we didn’t get to finish our project, right?”

            She rolled her glossy brown eyes.

            “At least I have it finished, we don’t have to worry about it,” Willa said, sighing to herself.

            I felt my stomach clench ever so slightly, for I had yet to even start the thing. I was always one for routine, and for things to have specific sense to it, wasn’t I?