I remember but I don’t understand. Of course the meat spoiled—I left the fridge door open.

“What color was the rug that day, Olivia?”

It’s not surprising, I guess, after what she’s been through—Lauren has lost it.

Lauren says, “I guess I have, but try anyway?” Weird having someone hear what you’re thinking. I’m not used to it yet.

“Please.” She sounds so sad that I am ashamed of myself.

All right, I say. I will!

I try again and again, but no matter how hard I wish all I can feel is my silky black coat and my four padding paws.

After what seems like forever, Lauren says, “Stop.”

I sit on the stairs with some relief and begin to groom.

“You don’t want to help me.” Tears fill Lauren’s voice.

I do, I say. Oh, Lauren, I want to help more than anything. It’s just—I can’t do it.

“No,” she says quietly. “You don’t want to.” My tail feels funny. Warm, somehow. I twitch it to feel the cool air along its length. But the warm feeling grows. It becomes hot.

“I can stroke you,” Lauren says. “But I can also do this.”

Pain glows red all along my vertebrae. It builds into flames. My tail becomes a red-hot poker. I am crying with it.

Please make it stop, Lauren!

Lauren says, “It doesn’t matter what I do to an imaginary cat.”

Oh, please, it hurts! Pain pulses through my brain, my fur, my bones.

“You think you’re beautiful,” Lauren says in the same, dreamy voice. “He took down the mirrors—you can’t see what you really are—so I’ll tell you. You are small, twisted, wizened. You are half the size you should be. Each one of your ribs stands out like a knife blade. You don’t have many teeth left. Your hair grows in stringy patches on your bald head. As the burns on your face and hands healed, over and over, the scar tissue grew so thick that it twisted your face. It pulled your nose aside, and it grew over your eyes so one of them is almost sealed shut by scars. You think you are stalking around the house on four elegant feet. That’s not what’s happening. You are crawling on your hands and knees, dragging your useless broken feet behind you, like an ugly fish. No wonder you don’t want to live in this body. You helped him make it and then afterward you climbed into his lap and purred. You are pathetic.”

She stops, and says in a different voice, “Oh, Olivia, I’m so sorry.”

I am running, rowing with horror. The aftershock of pain still rolls through me. Her words hurt more.

“Please,” she calls. “I’m sorry. I just get so angry, sometimes.”