Felicia

Rain slicked the pavement as I crouched beneath the awning of a shuttered café, shaking the chill from my hands. That’s when I saw her, thin, gray, and shivering in a cardboard box. A stray cat, with eyes the pale green of bottled sea-glass, watching me as though she had been waiting. I coaxed her out, tucked her beneath my coat, and carried her home. She ate like she hadn’t in days, curled on my couch as though she belonged there. Something about the way she watched me was unsettling. It wasn’t the vacant stare of an animal but something almost… knowing. That night, half-joking and half-lonely, I whispered, “I wish you were human. Someone to talk to. Someone who’d stay.” I fell asleep to her purring at my feet. The next morning, the cat was gone. A pang of disappointment hit, sharp and unreasonable. I searched the alleys on my walk to work, but she was nowhere. Days passed. I convinced myself I had only imagined the strange connection. When I returned home late one evening, I found the lights on. The door unlocked, yet warm with the smell of food. Inside, standing barefoot in my kitchen, wearing one of my work shirts, was a woman with hair the same ash-gray shade as the cat’s fur, eyes glinting the same pale green. My breath caught. The world tilted. For the first time in years, I felt that something impossible. something meant for me, had finally come true. Wordlessly, I stepped closer. She reached out, brushing my hand with fingers warm and real. And her touch carried the same quiet promise as the purr that had lulled me to sleep.