Stray Currents

The cat had been watching me for three days. A matted calico with one ear that refused to stand, it perched on the fire escape outside my apartment window like a judgmental gargoyle. I'd named her Oracle in my head, though I'd never put out food. You don't feed strays. You don't get attached.

Then came the night Elena finally called me back after six months of silence.

"I'm getting married," she said, and something in my chest cracked open. "To Michael."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. A sharp, ugly sound that made my cat-visitor twitch her tail. "You're marrying your running partner? The one you swore was just a friend?"

"Sarah, please. It's not like that anymore."

"It never was, was it?" I was pacing my apartment now, running laps between kitchen and living room. "That night you came to my place, crying about how lonely you were—that was after you'd already started sleeping with him."

"I was confused. I needed a friend."

"You needed someone who wouldn't call you out on your bullshit."

The line went dead.

I stood there, phone pressed to my ear, listening to the dial tone like it might tell me something I didn't already know. Outside, lightning cracked the sky open, sudden and violent, throwing my living room into stroboscopic relief. In that flash, I saw the calico still watching me through the rain-slashed glass.

I opened the window.

She didn't run. She stepped inside, shook water from her coat like she'd been invited all along, and began cleaning her paw with methodical precision.

"Well, Oracle," I said, sliding down to sit on the floor while the storm raged beyond my walls. "Looks like it's just us now."

She paused, regarded me with eyes the color of old whiskey, then went back to her grooming. Some creatures know when to leave well enough alone. Some of us have to learn the hard way that sometimes the only thing running from you is the truth itself—and it's the one thing that will eventually catch up.