Page 1 of Kitty Season
TROYE
ALMOST 15 YEARS AGO.
“Mom? Mommy, are you here?” Light peeking through a rusted crack in the wall wakes me. Its jagged edges so close to my face could reach out and touch it,andthe glittering dust raining down. I won’t though. Last time I did I cut my finger.
“Mom? Dad?”
Nothing.
Wriggling my hand free of my blanket, I count on my fingers. Five, six … I think it’s the eighth night I’ve spent without a reply to that question, and the yuckiness I feel deep down in my empty belly feels a whole lot achier.
I hate being alone.
My folks have left me before. Sometimes for a night, sometimes longer, especially when they go with their friends to that town Mom showed me a post card of once. The one with the lights and the Eiffel Tower. What’s it called again … Vegas?
They’ve never been gone for this long, though.
I hope they are okay.
Tears sting my eyes, so I roll away from the light, and try my best to get cozy again. It’s hard. Not just because I’m in my makeshift bed on the floor, but ‘cause my head feels all gloopy and my tummy rumbly. The bread, spray cheese and Doritos I’d found in the cupboards are long gone, but I’m too scared to go outside to find some more.
“You stay inside when we’re gone, boy.”Dad always warns.“Otherwise those men from the government will come take you away.”
Sometimes I think I might want someone to take me away, but then I remember the good days. Like when Mom lets me watch hockey with our neighbor Mrs. Montez. She’s the one who gave me her son’s old hockey skates, another thing I have to keep secret. Not from the government men, but from my parents.
“Keep them hidden,” Mrs. Montez said as she taught me how to lace them up in our lot’s rundown laundromat. “Lord knows your father will pawn them the first chance he gets. Now, sing with me; Bunny ears, bunny ears, playing by a tree …”
On the days when Mom isn’t feeling sick, she sometimes takes me to get an ice cream, then to the drugstore where I could pick a comic. Like my skates, they’re what I really love. And I know for sure, as long as I have them tucked under my pillow, and my skates hidden in my closet, I’m going to be okay.
I reach for them now, just to triple check they’re still there, then close my eyes. Just as I begin to fall asleep, our other neighbor, Scott starts his trail bike, letting it run while he yells to his sister Maddie. She yells back and soon they are cussing at each other using words that would see me beat to a pulp if I tried to use them. This fight could go all night so I decide to get up. With not much else to do, I crawl from bed, open my closet and take out the old pocket knife I took from Dad’s truck when he wasn’t looking.
Sharpening my skates it is.
With blood pouringfrom the gaping wound on my left wrist, I leave our trailer for the first time all week and make my way into the night. Mrs. Montez—the skate lady who also sneaks me PB&J sandwiches every chance she gets—is where I’m heading. But I feel so sick, and my arm hurts so much, that I give up and go to the first trailer I can see with lights on. I’m not sure who lives here cause they just moved in, but I think it’s two ladies.
I hope they’re nice and they don’t work for the bad government.
For someone frequently described as being bigger than a brick shithouse,the thirty something hours of flight time from Melbourne to Boston was a nightmare. As was my mental state when those cabin doors finally swung open and the fuel-scented gateway air hit my lungs.
Already homesick and resigned to my failure, I staggered through customs and fell headfirst into a bro-ship. Within days of meeting, Noah Petterson became the home away from home I so desperately needed, taught me so much about the game I love, and introduced me to Quinn, the girl I love.
He single-handedly changed the trajectory of my life, and now, through the fogged up window of his fancy Back Bay digs, I watch as he asks Lotte to alter his.
Lotte is Noah’s dream girl, but unlike mine,sheloves him back. A fact that’s clear to see as he drops to one knee before her. With love struck eyes and trembling hands, he slides the ring I helped choose over her dainty finger, then stands and sweeps her into his arms. He’s crying now too, and they’re both laughing and kissing, and the whole damn thing is so sweet I might throw up.
Some might say they’re crazy. They’re young, really young, and have been together less than twelve months. Like me, Lotte is still in school studying something I can’t even pronounce,and Noah’s just begun his NHL career here in Boston. So while it’s true that there’s a lot going against them, they have one important thing tipping the scales to their benefit. Never in my twenty-one years on this earth, have I seen two people more into each other. Including the couple beside me.
Swept up in the romance of the moment, Quinn—beholder of my unrequited love—and her boyfriend—my nemesis—Troye are feverishly making out. We’re talking, kissing, petting, sighing, all that’s passionate, all with little regard to my presence.
I guess this is my life now. Watching the people I love fall in love, and get laid.
“Touch me, Troye,” Quinn begs, and I swear to God, I can feel her breath ghost over me like she’s unzipped my jeans and whispered it directly to my dick. I need to get out of here, and I need to do it now.
Since I’m a sicko that loves to punish myself, I make the ill-advised choice to sneak one last peek at Quinn before I run. Of course, at that exact moment, Troye blinks his hazel eyes open. Hooded and hungry, they dart from the face he’s eating to mine, shooting me a cheeky wink that has my boner situation escalating from uncomfortable to painful.
Sensing Troye’s divided attention, Quinn’s grinding stills, her head slowly follows his gaze, her hand brushing her mussed chocolate waves from her face.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, my cheeks flushed. “Leaving. Me. Now.”
