Hairless Cat, Heartless Friend

The sphinx cat sat on my pillow like a naked alien, its wrinkled skin gathering in suspicious folds. Binx—my seven-year-old brother named him after the cat from Hocus Pocus, apparently missing the memo that this creature looked more like a raw chicken than a magical familiar—stared at me with judgment in its enormous eyes.

"Mom says you have to give him his vitamin gummy," Tyler yelled from downstairs. "He's literally going to die if you don't."

I rolled my eyes so hard it actually hurt. "First of all, cats don't take gummy vitamins. Second, he's not going to die. He's just dramatic."

Everything in this house was dramatic. The cat, my brother, and definitely my phone, which currently displayed 47 unread messages from the group chat that used to be my favorite place on earth.

Three days ago, my best friend Jordan had decided I wasn't enough anymore. Not in a fight way—in a quieter, worse way. She'd found new friends. Cooler friends. Friends who didn't spend their Saturdays watching anime and who actually knew how to do eyeliner without looking like raccoons.

Binx the sphinx cat bumped his hairless head against my hand. His skin felt weirdly soft, like warm suede. I scratched behind his enormous ears and he made this motorboat purring sound that vibrated through my whole body.

"You're ugly as hell," I told him. "But at least you're not fake."

My phone buzzed. Jordan: Movie tonight? The group's going.

My thumbs hovered. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to pretend everything was normal and that my stomach didn't hurt every time I thought about sitting next to someone else while Jordan laughed at their jokes instead of mine.

Binx crawled onto my laptop keyboard and deleted my entire half-written paragraph.

"DUDE."

He looked at me with zero remorse.

I picked him up—his weird body felt like holding a hot water bottle with claws—and carried him downstairs. Tyler was at the kitchen table arranging an entire collection of supplement bottles into a rainbow spectrum.

"What are you doing?"

"The cat needs his vitamins," he said solemnly, pointing to a tiny bottle labeled "Specially Formulated For Hairless Breeds." "And Mom got these new ones for her skin, and these for energy, and these ones taste like cherry—"

"You're literally eight. Why do you care about vitamins?"

"They make you better," he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "That's what they're for. Making things better."

I stared at him. Then at the alien cat on the counter. Then at my phone, still lighting up with messages from people who made me feel like I wasn't enough.

"Sometimes," I said slowly, "things are already fine the way they are."

I texted Jordan back: Can't tonight. Have plans.

I didn't. But I did have a sphinx cat to pet, a little brother to annoy, and suddenly, the urge to rewatch our entire Studio Ghibli collection. Some things didn't need vitamins to be worth keeping around.

Binx purred like a tiny motorboat, and for the first time in days, I didn't feel like something was missing.