Chapter 7
254words
On the way home, we passed an alley where I spotted a rain-soaked cardboard box.
Inside lay a newborn kitten, soaked through, eyes barely open, a pathetic ball of wet fur mewling so softly I could barely hear.
I don't know what came over me.
Perhaps its abandoned state reminded me of myself seven years ago.
As if possessed, I ordered the driver to stop and brought it home.
Cradling the kitten, I gently dried it with a towel, bracing for Carlos's inevitable wrath.
He had severe germophobia and genuinely loathed all small, useless creatures, especially noisy ones.
I stood nervously at his study door, clutching that tiny ball of life like a child awaiting punishment.
He looked up at the sound, his gaze moving from his documents to the tiny creature in my arms, then slowly to my protective stance.
He didn't, as I'd expected, order me to throw it out.
He just quietly looked at me.
Then I saw it.
In those normally indifferent eyes flashed a complex emotion I'd never seen before.
It was jealousy.
A possessiveness that wanted to replace the small, weak creature in my arms.
Though it lasted only a moment—so brief I thought I might have imagined it.
But I caught it.
I stood stunned, my heart racing uncontrollably.
For the first time, because of me, he displayed genuine emotion.
Not as a cold Familiar. Not as a gentle brother.
But as Carlos himself.
Most unexpectedly, it was because of a cat.
