We were barely fifteen, and our friendship was still new and unformed, but I knew her well enough to understand that her affection for the Williamses’ ancient cat, Moot, ran deep, even if it was not readily apparent to observers. She would make a show of grumbling about how much he shed, how his sharp claws tore holes in her comforter, but if he wasn’t at the foot of her bed when it came time to sleep, she would fetch him.

“He’ll cry at the door,” she reasoned. But she scratched behind Moot’s ears affectionately when she thought I wasn’t looking.

It was one of those days with a cold snap in the air when Moot slipped out past Mr. Williams’s legs and scampered off into the wilds of the neighborhood. Nobody worried much until that evening, when it was time for me to go home and Moot still hadn’t returned.

“He’ll come back,” Mr. Williams said. “He always does.”

But Moot didn’t. Not that night or the night after.

Jenna wouldn’t admit that she was worried, but on the third night, instead of hyperfocusing on her Romeo and Juliet essay, she kept looking out the window, her brows furrowed.

“Jenna?”

“Yeah?” She didn’t look away from the window. She probably didn’t even realize she was doing it.

“Let’s take a walk,” I said. “It’s nice out.”

Snapping out of it, Jenna glanced at me. “It’s fifty degrees,” she said, but she was already pulling her sweatshirt on over her head.

After a few minutes of walking, Jenna and I gave up the pretense and used the flashlight on Jenna’s phone to scan under trees and behind cars, hoping to capture in its beam a chubby, graying tabby with glowing green eyes.

An hour later, by some miracle—or curse—we found Moot’s raggedy collar with the dented silver bell that no longer jingled, beside a bush in the neighborhood park. Even in the dim light I could see it was streaked with blood and a few too many strands of Moot’s fur.

“Coyotes,” Jenna said.

I fought back tears at the sight of the pathetic, hollowed-out collar.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

“He was old,” Jenna said, her voice a dull monotone. And then, quoting the Frost poem we had read in English class that week, “‘Nothing gold can stay.’”

That night I broke our rule and announced I was staying over on a school night. Jenna fought against it—I’m fine, I’m fine, she said—but I wore her down.

I woke in the dead of night to the sound of the window opening and the cold air chasing away the snug coziness of Jenna’s room.

“What are you doing?” I asked, blearily pushing myself up from her bed.