Mom has given up. I know she has because she’s gone back to spending all her time with Aunt Haley, and I don’t see her at home anymore. I don’t see her returning late at night, coat and flashlight in hand.

It’s day fifteen since Butters went missing. Sometimes, I think I hear him meowing outside my window, but every time I look, he’s never there. I stop often on my way to school thinking I see him in bushes, on the side of the road.

I made fliers and posted them all around the neighborhood. I called all the local shelters. I knocked on people’s doors and got pitying shakes of the head from everyone. A few offered condolences. And a few tell me that since he’s a cat, he probably went off to die. That doesn’t reassure me. That doesn’t console me. It makes me angrier.

I want to yell at them, to rant and rave and to tell them to think before they speak. I want to curse at them and scream that it’s not fair.

It’s not fair. It’s not. But if life was fair, Ruby would still be alive, and Butters wouldn’t have gone missing. My family would care. I would be happy.

Instead, I voice my thanks and I continue searching.

It’s another humid day, but at least it isn’t raining. It’s been raining practically all week. I miss Butters hogging my pillow. I miss him purring when I feed him. Him greeting me at the door when I come home. I miss him.

I should give up.

Fifteen days. If he was going to return, he would’ve by now. I should give up, but I don’t know how to.

The glint is what catches my eye as I’m walking down a side street that I’ve walked many times already. The glint of metal. I’m not sure why I move closer.

It’s almost as if some sick curiosity pulls me forward. At first, it looks like it’s a coin in the mud, but as I get closer it takes shape. The mud has a head… and legs.

It doesn’t have a smell, or maybe I can’t smell it, but after a moment my brain makes sense of what I’m seeing. I recognize the metal and what it’s attached to.

It’s not an it.

I sink to my knees in the mud as the realization fully hits me.

Dead.

Fifteen days missing.

I wish I hadn’t found him now. I wish I’d given up, stopped looking and waited. I wish a lot of things in that moment. But none of that matters.

I scream.

I scream loud enough that the neighbors might call the cops on me. I wish I could say that I don’t realize it’s me screaming. But I’m fully aware of the way my voice rips through my throat. This raw and primal sound I didn’t know I could ever make.

I’m aware of tears mixing with snot as they fall down my face. I’m aware of the feeling of cold mud as it sinks into the knees of my jeans, most likely staining them.

Has the rain kept away everything that would’ve eaten him? Maybe he hasn’t even been dead long since there’s no sign of maggots or flies. And that makes it worse, somehow, that I might have just been a day or even a few hours too late.

He’s covered in mud and his eyes stare blankly ahead. His body is cold and stiff, but I bury my face into his muddy fur anyway, and I continue to scream.

It’s not pretty. It doesn’t look peaceful. It’s mud and probably blood and the wet squelch of decomposing fur.

Death is ugly. Uncomfortable. A little gross.

I probably resemble a maniac, holding a dead cat on the side of the road and screaming in broad daylight. It feels wrong that it’s daylight. Shouldn’t bad things only happen in the dark?

I desperately check for a pulse, for a sign of life. Holding my breath, I trick myself into thinking the heartbeat in my hands is his.

But it’s not.

I already know.

He’s gone.

Dead.

He doesn’t feel broken, I don’t think he was hit, but I have no idea how he died. I have no idea why he died.

Haven’t I been through enough?

Haven’t I lost enough?

And maybe that’s part of it. I’m not crying for just Butters; I’m crying for Ruby too. I didn’t cry when I got the news. I didn’t cry at her funeral. I’ve been sleepwalking since I found out she was dead, and this has woken me up.

I cannot even pretend to be in denial now.

Losing Butters is losing Ruby again.

Dead.

I’m not sure I believe in a God. My parents have never really been religious or spiritual or whatever you might call it. We’re the types that only go to church on holidays, but at the moment, I want to curse whatever God or Gods might exist.

And… I hope there is a God out there. That the pastors I’ve listened to are right. I hope that God suffers with me. I hope they hear my pain. I want them to know I hate them, for letting me live through this.

I’m not sure why the thought brings comfort, but it does, if only a little. That somewhere, out there in the infinite sky, there might be a God that is listening. Maybe even a God that cares.

Eventually, my screams turn raspy.

My body aches as if I’ve been running for miles. I’m covered in mud, and snot, and tears, and other more questionable things.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but I’m probably lucky that no one called the cops on me. I’m lucky that no one seems to be around. The sun is setting, and the humidity is turning to cold.

I welcome that cold. The biting sting to my face as the wind picks up. My legs are so numb from where I’ve been sitting on them that I nearly fall over when I stand.

I’m floating.

I’m here and I’m not here at the same time.

A part of me is aware of removing my jacket, wiping the gunk off my face, and wrapping Butters in the material. A part of me is aware of heading towards home because that’s the only thing I can do now.

I have to stand up. I have to move. Whether it’s forward or backwards, I’m not even sure.

Another part of me is vaguely aware of the sounds of crickets, the sound of cars on pavement in the distance. Of the drizzle of rain. The sound of laughter from someone’s backyard as I pass.

But I am vapor.

I am no longer stone; I’ve shattered into a million pieces. So many broken bits that I’m not sure I’ll ever be whole again.

Insubstantial, numb, a ghost carrying a dead cat to an empty home.

But that’s preferable to the gnawing pain in my gut. I think that I cried too much. I cried too hard for too long. My throat is raw, that lump making way for razorblades as I swallow. My stomach muscles are sore, my nose stuffy, and my eyes sting. And there’s this feeling of hollowness in my chest.

A void, a distinct lack of… something. As if someone has carved all those parts away to leave me an empty shell.

I feel the slow beat of my heart and I curse it for continuing on when this… this has killed me. Surely, there is no way I can survive this.

And there’s guilt there, too.

I failed Butters. I’m the reason he’s dead. I wasn’t there. I didn’t find him. I didn’t realize soon enough that he was missing.

And I failed Ruby, too, in a lot of ways.

What will I do now? Where do I go from here?

I’m so sorry, Butters. I’m so sorry, Ruby.

It hurts to move. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to think.

Ruby is dead.

Butters is dead.

Dead.

I am not okay.