Chapter 1

My boyfriend was allergic to cat hair.

When he was seven, his stepmother deliberately locked him in a room with a feral cat until he was covered in scratches and hives and had to be rushed to the hospital.

After that, Cameron Sutton hated anything that had to do with cats.

But I had an orange cat named Biscuit, six years mine, family to me.

Once, I only brushed against Biscuit's fur by accident.

Cameron wouldn't touch me for a whole week, and told me to keep my distance from Biscuit.

My best friend blamed me too:

"Don't make trouble. You're not really going to hurt your boyfriend over some alley cat, are you?"

Guilty, I moved Biscuit out and kept him somewhere else on his own.

Until the day of the typhoon. Early morning.

Biscuit had a sudden heart attack. I couldn't get a car, and in tears I begged my boyfriend to help me get him to a clinic.

"Cameron, I promise I'll keep Biscuit in his carrier..."

But he said, "Sorry, Charity Fox, I'm busy with work. And just thinking about a cat being there, I can't drive."

I called my best friend, who used to work as a vet, for help. Busy tone.

I ran out into the rain, Biscuit in my arms, running as hard as I could toward the animal clinic.

But I was still too late.

The last thing I expected was to see my best friend and Cameron Sutton standing at the door.

Cameron was holding a few filthy stray cats.

"Thank you, Iris Swanson, and Cameron, for coming out in the middle of the night for our stray-cat rescue drive when you're both so busy."

A girl who looked like a college student gazed up at him, grateful and full of admiration.

His arms were covered in rashes and bloody scratch marks, and he didn't care in the slightest.

He dewormed the kittens with practiced ease and said gently:

"As long as I can help you save them."

Beside him, my best friend teased with a laugh:

"What can we do? Cameron heard you crying and his heart just broke."

The little kittens mewed and mewed.

But in my arms Biscuit had stopped breathing, going slowly cold, stiff.

So it turned out the one people couldn't stand was never Biscuit. It was me.

Then I choose to let go.

1.

On my phone, the chat between me and my best friend stopped an hour ago.

"Iris, you work at the same company as Cameron. Did you see him tonight?"

"Biscuit is sick, but I don't know where Cameron is, and I can't get through to you either."

Her reply was:

"We're all working overtime, we're swamped. Can you please stop being so paranoid."

"Is one little alley cat really worth getting this worked up over?"

And now, the two people who said they were busy were on the street, rescuing strays.

I stood there in my pajamas and slippers, soaked through.

Wretched, I watched them through the clinic's glass window.

Iris fed a cat and joked with the girl next to her:

"Skye Chandler, only you could spot a few strays on the roadside and get the CEO of Nexus Tech himself to come running with one phone call."

"I've pretty much been the witness to you two these last few years. When you get married, don't forget to send me some wedding candy."

The girl's cheeks flushed pink.

Then her eyes suddenly lit up:

"Cameron, one of them is a little ragdoll. I want to adopt it."

Cameron picked up the little ragdoll.

His expensive shirt was shredded in seconds.

But he wasn't the least bit angry.

He kissed the girl's forehead, doting,

and agreed without hesitation.

"Of course, Skye. How can you be so kind."

"Don't worry, I'll take it home with me later. From now on I'll do the litter box. I'll take good care of our little cat."

He was smiling, happy, not a trace of reluctance in it.

So it turned out Cameron Sutton, who hated cats most and was a germaphobe,

could offer to keep a cat and scoop its litter for the person he loved.

Only that person wasn't me.

In that moment, I suddenly regretted all the years I'd wronged Biscuit for his sake.

A cat's life is so short.

How could I have left him all alone in that apartment.

Thinking of him crying at the camera over and over, tireless.

Thinking of the way he lay so obediently by the door, waiting for me to come see him.

My heart clenched hard.

Biscuit was my family. My mother bought him for me before she died.

That day, she stroked my head with her withered hand and looked at me, unwilling to let go:

"My Charity has loved cats since she was little. From now on, let this little one keep you company for me."

The rain was heavy that night. I lost my mother.

Today, six years later, in another downpour,

I lost Biscuit. I lost the Cameron Sutton I loved most, and I lost my best friend.

Touching Biscuit's cold, matted fur, my tears fell without a sound.