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I drag myself through the front door of my apartment at six a.m. the following week, exhausted and bleary-eyed. My vision still sparks with multicolored strobes, and my feet ache from long nights prancing around onstage in stupidly high heels.

Sighing with burnout, I reach down to unbuckle my bejeweled stilettos. I’m mid-bend when I catch a black lump in my periphery, perched on my countertop, causing me to jolt to an upright position and whip my head to the right.

There’s a cat in my kitchen.

Staring at me.

I stare back, offering two slow blinks.

Mrrooww.

The animal looks far less lost than I am.

Also…I don’t have a cat.

“How did you get in here?” I ask like I’m expecting an answer.

Anxiety is a constant companion at home, keeping me awake most nights with a kitchen knife tucked under my pillow, bracing for the imagined sound of armed intruders, burglars, or serial killers breaking through the door. I was taken from the one place meant to feel safe, leaving it more exposed and vulnerable than anywhere else.

Surprisingly, feline break-ins never crossed my mind.

I puff my cheeks and blow out a breath, frowning at the cat as its tail swishes from left to right, clearing crumbs off the countertop. “C’mon, let’s get you home. You have a better chance of survival with…anybody else.” Sauntering forward, I approach the mystery cat and glance down at the red collar around its neck: Mr. Binkers.

Mr. Binkers licks his paw, telling me he’s already right at home. I sigh. Evicting my newest roommate might be more challenging than anticipated. Despite my fatigue, I muster up the energy to coax him toward the open door and into the hallway. “Let’s go, kitty-kitty. Shoo. Adios.” I make some meowing noises and clap my hands, hopping up and down to garner excitement.

Yay, the hallway! How fun!

Judging by the deadpan look I receive, Mr. Binkers thinks I’m a moron.

My shoulders sag. “Fine,” I huff in defeat. “Sleep on my counters. Maybe they’ll finally get some use.” That is, outside of my monthly baking spectacles for the West Los Angeles Police Department. Most nights it’s pantry staples and frozen dinners.

I kick off my heels and peel the faux-leather skirt from my hips. It flutters to the cream-and-silver carpeting as I hang my purse on a wall hook, then pad into the kitchen to pull a box of frosted blueberry Pop-Tarts from the cabinet. I give Mr. Binkers a wary side-eye when I take a bite, the stale, sugary crumbs a sad substitute for true sweetness.

Mrrooww.

My nose scrunches. I break off a piece of crust, setting it on the counter beside the cat. “Bon appétit.”

The remainder of the pastry dangles between my teeth as I make my way over to the loveseat, wearing only my panties and a camisole, and plop down. The piece of furniture is the color of actual vomit—a rusty, off-putting shade of orange that never made the color-spectrum cut—but it was a hand-me-down from my childhood that Mom was going to toss in a dumpster.

I took it with me, needing the familiarity. A reminder of home.

My gaze skates over to the far wall, landing on the ten-gallon terrarium that houses my pet tarantula, Festus McGarrity IV. I pop up from the cushion to check on him, peering inside the glass enclosure and the miniature world inside. Plants, rocks, and branches are carefully arranged, mimicking the spider’s native environment. He skitters across the bottom as a heat lamp provides a gentle warmth. Then I trudge back toward the loveseat and drop back down to my butt, closing my eyes and shoving the remainder of the Pop-Tart into my mouth. It sticks to the back of my throat like a wad of bubblegum.

This is my life now: random cats, stale pastries, a stripper stage, and PTSD.

As I shove my hand between the cushions in search of the television remote, I hear something coming from the adjacent apartment. Voices. Conversation seeps through the wall that separates me from one of the neighbors. I make out a low, gravelly tone paired with a woman’s phlegmy cough, but I can’t decipher any words.

I try to tune out the distorted dialogue on the other side of the wall because it reminds me of a different wall: a sheet of white chipped by my fingernails and stained with my tears, too thick and sound to burst through with frail fists, books, or gowns made of lace.

Once, I tried to shimmy the porcelain sink from the wall, but my strength was pathetically nonexistent, and it wouldn’t budge. Sometimes I daydream about yanking it free, hammering it into the sterile barrier, and gouging a hole big enough for me to climb through.

It wouldn’t have been freedom…but it would’ve led me to him.

And that feels like the same thing.

Something flutters in my chest when the voices grow louder.

I always think I hear him whispering in my ear. He’s a shadow, a ghost—a faceless haunting made tangible by my own guilt and grief.

I lose myself in his past words, in the timbre of his voice. I imagine coffee-brown eyes I never got to see with my own. He often haunts me during my quiet moments when I’m stewing in a reality so different from the one I envisioned, if I ever made it out of that place.

I don’t think he’d be proud of me.

He’d be crushingly disappointed, I’m sure.

My mind races back to last week, recalling the man watching me dance. Smoking a cigarette as his stare unraveled me. Dark hair, dark eyes. Voiceless and volatile.

I haven’t seen him since.

That night, as I laid in bed with a little blue pick clutched inside my hand, I wondered if it could have been him —Isaac. My instincts had pinged like cold kisses on the back of my neck.

But I scrubbed the notion from my mind.

It was a stretch.

My Isaac would never disappear for a year, only to track me down and say nothing.

My Isaac would never allow me to believe he was dead after everything we went through together.

My Isaac would never be that cruel.

There are millions of dark-haired, attractive men in the world. I’ve seen them; I’ve considered them. I’ve always been heartbreakingly wrong.

The sooner I come to terms with his loss, the sooner I can stop looking over my shoulder, stop seeing him on crowded streets, stop wondering, yearning, and questioning every stranger’s face.

He’s gone, Everly.

As I scrub away the goosebumps on my arms, I reach for my cell phone when the metallic ding of a notification echoes through the quaint apartment. My gaze settles on a new text message, and my stomach pitches. My insides shrivel like quick-dying blooms, their colors zapped to gray.

I blink at the name and hold my breath.

Allison

I miss you so much. Please come home.

Collapsing backward on the loveseat, I reread the text message half-a-dozen times as I fight back tears.

Allison’s icon shines back at me, an image of the two of us with ear-to-ear smiles, our cheeks smashed together, arms tangled. I never had the heart to change it. Memories from a long-ago day at the theme park flash through my mind like a geyser of sun-kissed laughter, music, and unbreakable friendship.

Or so I thought.

I peruse through more missed texts, a few from my mother with her daily words of wisdom. She’s my human fortune cookie.

Mom

We must let go of the life we planned and live in the one given to us.

Mom

When life gives you lemons, make a Tequila Sour. Or three.

Mom

There are no bad days. Only lessons learned.

A smile touches my lips as I send back a few heart emojis.

I keep scrolling and land on another text, sent last night around nine p.m.

I freeze.

My throat clogs with grit.

Jasper

Can we talk? Please. It’s important.

He’s never texted me that before.

Generally, it’s always been a long string of apologies and guilt-ridden pleas for forgiveness. Every text I’ve ignored, every word I’ve banished from my mind. There’s no point in engaging—we’re divorced, and he’s with Allison. I collected the money owed to me in the divorce, moved nearly four hundred miles away, and picked up the pieces of my shattered life, aching to start anew.

I have no place in their world anymore.

My thumb hovers over the keypad as I debate my next move. Curiosity pokes me. Indecision weaves a barbed knot inside my chest.

Can we talk?

Please.

It’s important.

Closing my eyes, I turn off the screen and toss the phone beside me. I reach for a blanket and curl up on the loveseat, allowing exhaustion to take me under, while hoping sweet dreams find me.

The most important thing right now is getting through another day.

When I wake up three hours later, drowsy and hungry, I peer into the kitchen, searching for my new furry companion.

But he’s not there.

Mr. Binkers is gone.