Always on Your Side (NaNoWriMo 2019)

32.

Marina Velazquez Flores: Len!! I didn't talk to you at all yesterday! i miss yoooou! :3

Len Wilkerson: I miss you too! Sorry, I was flying basically all day. How is spring break for you?

Marina Velazquez Flores: ehh, road trips! Dx I finished the manga I brought, like a half hour in and I got no cell service. so I had nothing to do but listen to my parents' boring music. now my parents are making my sister show us the entire college campus even though we've already been here like 3 times.

Len Wilkerson: lol that sucks. Hope it's more fun once you get to Mexico.

Marina Velazquez Flores: probably not lol. my annoying cousins are going to be there. >_> how is your spring break?

Len Wilkerson: not great tbh. I've never been at my dad's house without Brendon before and it's hitting me harder than I thought...

Marina Velazquez Flores: ...shit. I'm so sorry.

Len Wilkerson: And my dad is so awkward about it. It makes it worse.

Marina Velazquez Flores: :( I'm sorry Len.

Len Wilkerson: and he never even bothered to tell me that my goldfish that Brendon and I raised together since they were babies got eaten by hawks since he put them outside, so when I got here and found that out I cried for like an hour lol. My dad has no common sense about people's feelings.

Marina Velazquez Flores: I'm sorry. I don't even know what to say to that. *hugs*

Len Wilkerson: It's fine lol. I'm over that now. I just wanted to make fun of how insensitive my dad is. Like, I'm kinda insensitive too sometimes, but I never would have not told someone their pet died.

Marina Velazquez Flores: that is pretty bad.

Marina Velazquez Flores: i gotta go, my phone is dying and my parents are hogging the charger even though I bought it. >_> ttyl, love you! *hugs again*

I click my phone off, sigh, and finally sit up in bed. No point in staying in here without Marina to talk to. But then again, there's not much point in going downstairs, either.

Dad is cooking vegetarian sausages and pancakes, a tradition for the first breakfast of each visit. I don't tell him that Brendon is the one who preferred vegetarian sausages to real ones.

"So, I was thinking," Dad says as he plops a plate of pancakes down in front of me, "I took a few days off work to spend time with you. Maybe we could go to PetPlace to pick up some cat supplies, then head down to the shelter?"

I shrug. "Sounds good."

The rest of our meal, and the car ride to the pet store, is silent. My dad, having made a list of necessary cat supplies, grabs a cart and makes a beeline for the litter boxes. I start to follow him, but before I can, my attention is caught by a beautiful blue betta fish with white-colored fin tips. It looks angelic, like the white tips are a gleaming aura. The label on its cup says, "Butterfly."

I stay by the bettas for a few minutes longer. Butterflies remind me of Brendon, now.

"There you are," Dad says, approaching with a cart full of food, litter, toys, and a scratching post. "The clerk told me they're setting up a cat adoption event in the store right now. Thought we could take a look."

We make our way to the back of the store, where a few older ladies in blue T-shirts that say "Lending Paws Cat Adoptions" are arranging crates full of cats on folding tables. They ignore us for a good while. They all seem to know each other and each other's foster cats; they stop periodically to peer into the cat crates and affectionately address them by name.