Christmas, Begin Again

Three days before Christmas, and my studio apartment smelled like instant ramen and broken dreams.

I was curled up on my secondhand couch, scrolling through Instagram with the kind of mindless desperation that only comes from avoiding your own thoughts. The tiny space heater beside me wheezed and sputtered, barely keeping the December chill at bay.

My rent was due in four days, and my bank account had exactly $47.32 left after I'd transferred everything else to Eddie last week.

Because my Eddie was struggling with family business, and I, as his girlfriend, should of course offer him help.

Even if the money I sent him wasn’t much, at least it made him understand that I was always with him, and that together we could overcome whatever trouble lied ahead.

After scrolling for a while, I suddenly paused on a photo of someone's pet under a Christmas tree, all golden lights and perfect ornaments, and felt that familiar ache in my chest.

Three months. Marshmallow, my little cat, had gone missing for three months now, and every time I saw a white cat on my feed, my heart still lurched with desperate hope.

My thumb kept scrolling.

And then it stopped.

Sophie Warren's Instagram story glowed on my screen like a slap to the face. Sophie—Eddie's "old friend" from his social circle, the influencer with two million followers and a smile that never reached her eyes. Sophie, who'd once looked at my thrift-store dress at a campus party and asked if I'd gotten it from a "vintage charity auction."

But I wasn't looking at Sophie.

I was looking at the cat in her arms.

White fur. Pink nose. That distinctive patch of cream behind the left ear that looked like a tiny cloud.

Marshmallow.

My Marshmallow.

The phone nearly slipped from my fingers. I sat up so fast my head spun, pressing my face closer to the screen as if I could somehow climb through it.

"Loving my new baby," Sophie's caption read, with a string of heart emojis. "She's absolutely PURR-fect for content creation!"

My chest tightened until I couldn't breathe. Three months ago, Marshmallow had vanished from my apartment while Eddie was cat-sitting. He'd been devastated—or so he'd seemed. He'd helped me put up flyers. He'd held me while I cried.

And now my cat was in Sophie Warren's penthouse.

I called Eddie before I could think. My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped the phone twice.

"Hey, babe." His voice was warm, casual. "What's up?"

"Why is Marshmallow with Sophie?"

Silence. Just long enough for my stomach to drop.

"What are you talking about?" He laughed, but it sounded wrong. Hollow. "Mikey, you're not making sense."

"I just saw her Instagram story. That's my cat, Eddie. That's Marshmallow. Why does Sophie have my cat?"

More silence. I could hear him breathing, could almost see him running his hand through his perfect golden hair the way he did when he was thinking.

"Oh, that." Another laugh. "Babe, Sophie found a stray that looked similar. She asked me about it because she knew you'd lost Marshmallow. It's not the same cat."

"Eddie." My voice cracked. "I would know my own cat anywhere. The patch behind her ear—"

"Mikey." His tone shifted, became soothing. Patronizing. "You're stressed. The holidays, money stuff—I get it. But you're seeing things that aren't there. Sophie's cat is from a breeder."

"Then give me her address. I'll go see for myself."

"I can't just give out Sophie's address. That's a privacy thing, babe. You understand."

I didn't understand. I didn't understand anything anymore.

"Eddie, please—"

"Look, I have to go. My dad's calling about the business stuff. I'll talk to you later, okay? Try to get some rest."

The line went dead.

I stared at my phone, then back at Sophie's story. Marshmallow's eyes—those familiar green eyes—stared back at me through the screen. She looked thinner. Duller somehow, like someone had dimmed her light.

My hands stopped shaking. Something cold and determined settled into my bones.

It took me two hours of digging through Sophie's tagged locations, cross-referencing building lobbies visible in her photos, and stalking her followers' comments before I found it. The Azure Heights building. Penthouse 4A.

I didn't have money for an Uber. I took three buses.

The lobby was all marble and money, the kind of place that made my secondhand coat feel like a costume. The doorman looked at me like I was something stuck to his shoe.

"I'm here for Sophie Warren," I said. "She's expecting me."

The lie tasted bitter, but it worked.

Sophie's door was white with gold accents. I knocked.

When it opened, Sophie's face cycled through surprise, confusion, and finally, a cruel kind of amusement.

"Snake-print girl," she said. "What a surprise."

I pushed past her.

The penthouse was everything my apartment wasn't—gleaming surfaces, designer furniture, a Christmas tree that probably cost more than my yearly rent.

And there, huddled in the corner of a pristine white couch, was Marshmallow.

My heart shattered.

She was thin. Too thin. Her fur, once fluffy and bright, lay flat and matted in patches. But worse—so much worse—were the shaved sections around her ears and eyes. Surgical scars, pink and angry, marred her perfect face.

"What did you do to her?" The words came out as a whisper. A prayer. A scream.

Sophie examined her nails. "She needed some work. Her eyes weren't photographing well, and her ear shape was all wrong for my aesthetic."

"You—" I couldn't finish. Couldn't process.

I crossed the room and gathered Marshmallow into my arms. She was so light. So fragile. She let out the smallest, most broken meow I'd ever heard.

"I'm taking her back," I said.

Sophie's smile didn't waver. "Eddie gave her to me. She's mine now."

The words hit me like ice water.

Eddie gave her to me.

Eddie.

Gave.

Her.

I looked down at Marshmallow's scarred face, at her dull eyes that used to sparkle when I came home from class. At what had been done to her in the name of "content."

And something inside me, something that had been bending for three years, finally snapped.