Five Years and Still Second Best

I didn't have the patience to argue with her.

If Snowball wasn't in the hallway or the elevator, she had to have gone down the stairs.

I posted a lost-cat notice in the building group chat and headed for the stairwell.

Thirteen floors. I went down one at a time, searching each landing, even the windowsills.

Frantic, breathless.

My legs went so numb I could barely feel them.

More than once my vision blurred and I almost missed a step and went tumbling down.

Two hours, and not a sign of Snowball in the whole building.

There were still five floors above the thirteenth I hadn't checked.

I pressed the elevator button, and that was when the message came.

I woke the screen, and for one beat my heart lost its rhythm.

I dragged myself outside.

Snowball was lying by the swings in the little park.

When I was upset, I always brought her here and rocked on the swing with her in my arms.

The swing creaking softly back and forth.

Snowball curled against me, purring.

Now she slept here, and she would never wake.

I said nothing. I picked her up.

Snowball was gone. The animal hospital helped me arrange a cremation service.

I sat there in the clinic, hollow, and two hours later I went home.

Three in the morning. Austin was already asleep.

The living room was dark, the suitcase standing alone in it.

The newest message on my phone was the one he'd sent two hours earlier.

【Packing to go where? And where's Snowball? Nora, do you really have to make a scene out of nothing?】

I took the suitcase and left.

I checked into a hotel and didn't sleep all night.

The next day, Snowball came back to me in a small urn.

The days after that, I just lay in the hotel room, staring at nothing.

The phone lit up again and again.

Austin's messages, his calls. I ignored all of them.

The day I checked out, I mailed Skylar the wedding ring I'd long since taken off.

Along with it, a photograph.

Underneath the photo, I'd written a single line by hand, stroke by stroke.

Before I boarded the plane.

The last unread message was, again, from Austin.

I still didn't open it.

The SIM card went into the trash.

Just more garbage I didn't want anymore—along with my five years with him.

……

Nora hadn't come home for days.

No replies. No answered calls.

Austin didn't understand why she had to make such a scene over nothing.

He didn't intend to chase it. She'd come around on her own in a few days, the way she always did.

He saw no reason this time would be any different.

Besides, he didn't have time for her.

There was a little get-together at Skylar's place tonight.

He was busy shopping for groceries.

By evening, Skylar's home was warm and full of noise.

Her fiancé was there too.

Skylar bit her lip, a faint hurt in her eyes.

"Austin, why didn't Nora come with you?"

"Is she still upset with me? But I really didn't—"

The doorbell rang.

A delivery.

A medium-sized package, marked FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE.

Skylar took it, puzzled.

"Who sent me something?"

"The sender… is Nora?"