The Cat Who Saved My Brain

I was basically a zombie by Friday. Three AP classes, swim practice at 5:30 AM, and my mom suddenly deciding we were moving in with her boyfriend had turned me into the walking dead. My best friend Kai had been blowing me off all week — probably because I'd bailed on their birthday thing last weekend when my anxiety hit peak levels.

So there I was, wandering the neighborhood at midnight like a literal creature of the night, because sleep was cancelled and my brain wouldn't shut up about how everything was different now and nobody cared.

That's when I heard it.

A low, pathetic mewling from behind the 7-Eleven dumpster. I almost kept walking — I had enough problems, thanks — but something made me stop. There, shivering on a flattened cardboard box, was the ugliest cat I'd ever seen. Half an ear, one eye crusted shut, fur that looked like it had seen better decades.

"Dude," I whispered. "You look exactly how I feel."

The cat let out this tiny zombie groan and I swear to god, it was soulmate energy.

I spent the next twenty minutes sitting on gross pavement, earning this cat's trust with the remains of a questionable hot dog I'd found in my backpack. It had probably been there since swim season started in August. The cat — I decided to call them Ghost, because they were barely there — finally let me pick them up. They were nothing but bones and attitude.

"We're both disasters," I told them, and they head-butted my chin like they agreed.

Ghost couldn't come home — my mom's boyfriend was allegedly allergic to everything that breathed — but I made them a bed behind the pool building where I'd be swimming anyway. I started sneaking them actual cat food and water every morning before practice. Ghost became my reason to get up. My reason to exist, honestly.

A month later, I caught Kai watching me feed Ghost from behind the chain-link fence.

"Is that... a cat?" Kai asked.

"His name is Ghost and he's perfect, fight me."

Kai didn't fight me. Instead, they showed up the next day with a cat carrier they'd "borrowed" from their sister and a plan that involved secretly keeping Ghost at Kai's house until graduation.

"We can co-parent," Kai said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You're literally spending all your time here anyway."

I cried. A lot. Kai didn't make fun of me. Ghost purred so hard I thought he'd vibrate apart.

Sometimes you're swimming through darkness and you don't even realize you're drowning until something reaches in and pulls you out. Sometimes that something is a one-eared zombie cat and a friend who never actually stopped being your friend.

I'm still tired. Everything still sucks sometimes. But I'm not a zombie anymore. I'm just a tired swimmer with a weird cat and people who give a damn. That's enough.