Page 46 of The Sharpest Edges

A cold.

Her cat has a cold and it could kill him.

Ava still doesn’t understand how somethingso common could sneak up so quickly and be such a threat, but the vet had been clear that kittens are fragile and these sorts of things can turn south quicker than anyone expects.

She feels guilty for not noticing sooner. She spent the whole day otherwise occupied, not thinking of anything except Dean. The cat seemed fine earlier in the kitchen, a little sleepy maybe, left some food in the dish that morning, but he was purring and happy like nothing was amiss. He certainly didn’t look a few steps away from death’s door.

When she finally walks through her front door with Dean trailing behind her there’s no cat in her arms. It’s only proof she needs to accept that she can’t be trusted to care for something so easily broken. There was a reason she fought so hard to avoid taking one in the first place.

“I should have checked on him more. I can’t believe I didn’t. What’s wrong with me?” she says into the darkness of the living room, not expecting an answer, voice cracking with the weight of her guilt.

“Snuck right up. The vet said it happens. I bet he calls later to go pick him up again. Just for observation, remember?”

The vet had seemed confident that IV fluids, antibiotics, and observation would be all he needed. She wishes she could trust that as easily as Dean does, but everything inside her screams that it’s a lie and this is the start of her worst fear coming true. She was a fool to let herself get attached, even a little bit because look what happens when she opens her heart up and lets anything or anyone in.

“You ah… you want me to go? I can, it’s no big deal. Give you some space if you want it?”

That’s when she realizes she’s been standing in the middle of her living room, lost in her head. He’s unsure of his place herenow, as if he could be intruding, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

She doesn’t want to be alone, doesn’t think she could handle the silence and the absence of the warm little body next to her if she goes back to bed. “Stay. Please stay. I don’t think I’m dealing with this very well, but I don’t want you to leave.”

Her response prompts some of his uncertainty to seep away, allowing his expression to fall softer, the worry lines less pronounced. Then he’s on her sofa, kicking off his shoes and putting his feet up on the ottoman, holding out a hand that she hesitates to take. “Come over here.”

Curling up with him sounds like the best plan she could ask for, but all this resolve she’s built might evaporate on contact. She’s sure of it.

Dean wiggles his fingers and she can’t leave him hanging. Reluctantly, she reaches out with a frown, allowing him to pull her down next to him. Her chin wobbles, and her eyes water. It only gets worse when he wraps a loose arm around her shoulders and the safety of his embrace warms her heart.

“It’s just a cat,” she says, trying to convince herself more than him. “I knew this would happen. I knew it. It’s just a cat. It’s fine.”

“It’s not just a cat,” he whispers into her hair, all low, rumbling tones that reach into her soul and smooth out the rough places.

How did she get so lucky to have him with her, especially when she’s been doing a decent job of only opening half of her heart to him? She keeps the other half protected at all costs, fearful of the devastation she’s come to expect whenever she gets too close.

“I thought if I didn’t let him in all the way that it was safer,but look what happened. I got attached even though I tried not to and now he’s…” She trails off, unsure if she’s even talking about the cat anymore. If she were getting some much-needed therapy, her next session would be all about how the cat is a metaphor for Dean or some such nonsense that she has no desire to delve into.

He doesn’t respond, perhaps rethinking all the life choices that led him here, to this sofa with a woman precariously close to sobbing all over his clean shirt.

Then he takes a breath, one big enough that she knows he’s about to say something important and so she doesn’t let him. She’s too afraid to hear it, so she cuts him off, embracing the overwhelming need to share some part of herself, to let him know her.

“I had a cat before I married John. He was brown with stripes and sort of an asshole, grumpy all the time, but I loved him,” she pauses, her words cracking. “He didn’t make it past the first year. Not past the first real argument, when John thought I was cheating on him with someone who smiled at me at the grocery store. I should have known then, should have left him, I almost did. I cried for days over that cat, but I wasn’t strong enough to go. Felt so trapped already, isolated, even that early on. He’d hunt me down if I ever tried. Do to me what he did to my pet.”

Ava wipes at hot tears with the back of her hand, distant memories coming to life again, things she spent so long trying to shove as far back as they would go, hoping time would be kind enough to dull them.

“And then Charlotte came along and even from the start, I was so worried something would happen to her. That he’d get angry and hurt her, even by accident. Be too rough or make adrunken mistake. She was so little and helpless and I couldn’t even protect myself from him. How was I going to protect her? I did though. He never laid a hand on her, not once. But she’s still gone. Just gone.”

“What happened to her wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t.”

She nods half-heartedly against his chest, trying to focus on the feel of Dean running his hand over her arm from shoulder to elbow while telling her encouraging lies.

“Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. So many things could have gone differently that day. If I left with her sooner, she would still be here. If I was brave enough to run, she’d never have been in that car.” She sucks down a shiver of a sob, forcing herself to keep going. “I haven’t even gotten a plant since then. Everything I touch dies. Everything I love leaves. It’s so much easier to have nothing and no one. Safer. I even pushed Lori away as much as I could, but then this cat appeared, and you did. I said I wasn’t afraid of you but I lied. I am, just not in the way you think. You scare me and that’s all me…it’s not anything you’ve done….”

He freezes then, connecting the dots when this all comes back around to him. Understanding, she’s sure, that she’s so fucked up that she can’t have a real relationship without her fear of loss stunting the whole thing.

“Hey.” He’s got one finger under her chin, prompting her to look up and she almost doesn’t because she’s a red, crying mess, puffy and sniffling, but all she sees is understanding looking back at her. No hint of disgust or disinterest. No desire to escape.

He is afraid though. She can see it the way he fights to hold her gaze and not shift his attention away. As hard as this is for her, she has no doubt that his own fears rank just as high.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m in this one hundred percent. Ain’t got a clue what I’m doing. I’m flying blind, but I’m tryin’ and I’ll keep tryin’ as long as you’ll have me.”

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