Here goes nothing, I thought, holding out a piece of sushi. She parked herself right next to me, her ears perked, her blue eyes shining and fixed on my food. As soon as I sat down to eat my tuna roll, the cat came running up. One night, I ordered takeout sushi from my usual place. I was sure it was stress, but I didn’t know what else I could do. She totally turned her nose up at dry food. I’d had her for a week and she hadn’t had more than a few bites of wet food. There was one big problem: The cat-I hadn’t decided on a name yet-wasn’t eating. There was something about focusing on her that quieted my anxiety. Day by day, she got more relaxed around me. I had to prove to her that I wouldn’t hurt her. So every day, after I came home from class, I would bundle her in a blanket so she couldn’t scratch me or run away, and I’d hold her in my lap. She also needed to get used to human touch-and me. Then I gave her free rein of the apartment. I read up on how to socialize a feral kitten. The most important thing, one of the shelter staffers had told me, was slowly acclimating her to life indoors. I stopped by a pet store on the way home to pick up some essentials. The shelter had given me some cat food, but I had nothing else. I didn’t know the first thing about cat care. The thing is, I’d never had a cat before, never mind a feral cat. They didn’t mind, but they made it clear that the cat was my responsibility. I called my roommates from the car, my new pet in a carrier on the passenger seat. I filled out the paperwork to adopt her right then and there. I could tell she was terrified, but even so, she started purring loudly. The staffer agreed and let me use the visitation room. I asked if I could spend some one-on-one time with her. Did I even have time for a cat? Still, I couldn’t walk away from this kitten. Between school and working as a photographer, I had a packed schedule. Unless…īut I hadn’t come here to adopt a pet! I lived in an apartment with two roommates. It didn’t seem right that it would all end for her in three days. She had survived several months outdoors, in what was shaping up to be one of the coldest Colorado winters in years. I couldn’t imagine what she’d been through. The whole time we’d been talking, the kitten had been curled up in the back of the kennel, watching me with her wide and wary blue eyes. The cats that couldn’t be adopted would be put down. “We need to make room for new animals.” She was avoiding saying it outright, but I knew what that meant. “Some end up working on farms as mousers, but the rest…” She hesitated. “What happens after five months?” I asked. The information card clipped to the cat’s kennel had her age on it.
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