What the Cat Saw
Marcus stood before the bathroom mirror at 2 AM, his fingers trembling through thinning hair, watching the man in the glass become someone he didn't recognize. At forty-seven, he'd become the kind of person who counted things: gray hairs, pills in his weekly organizer, years since he'd felt anything like joy.
The cat, a shadow named Silas, watched from the doorway with ancient judgment.
"You too," Marcus whispered. "Even you're looking at me like I'm losing it."
He wasn't wrong. Three weeks of surveillance—half a dozen hidden cameras, keylogger software he'd installed on Elena's laptop, GPS tracker taped beneath her car. Three weeks of watching his wife live a life that didn't include him, hunting for proof she was screwing someone else, finding nothing but her ordinary existence. Coffee with friends. Solo trips to the gym. Late nights working at the office.
The worst part wasn't what he found. It was what he remembered: the bull sessions after midnight in their first apartment, tangled in sheets, trading secrets like currency. We'll never be those people, Elena had said. The ones who stop listening.
He'd become a zombie of his own making—showing up at work, going through motions, dead inside while his heart kept beating. The private investigation firm where he'd spent two decades specialized in catching cheaters. He'd caught thousands of them. Now he'd become the very thing he hunted.
Elena's phone buzzed on her nightstand. A text at 2:15 AM.
Marcus's hand moved before his mind could stop it—grabbing her phone, reading words that hollowed him out completely:
*Your sister asked if you're coming to the hospital. Dad's not doing well. I know you said you couldn't tell Marcus yet, but he deserves to know.*
Silas brushed against his leg, and Marcus crumbled—his back sliding down the wall until he hit the floor, the cat jumping into his lap like it had been waiting all along for him to break.
Three weeks of playing spy, and he'd been hunting ghosts while Elena carried her dying father alone because she was terrified he wouldn't care.
"I'm the bad guy," he said to the cat, and Silas purred like an engine, like forgiveness he hadn't earned.