Yesterday’s movie had my head all jumbled up. It simply wouldn’t go away, the story it portrayed. It made me think a lot about my relationship with Abby.

For example, after the two main characters… made love, they shared a promise of love and always being together. That was something Abby and I couldn’t do, not because we didn’t believe in that, but because, I think, Abby would hate to “chain” me to her like that. Little did she know I already did that promise to myself multiple times already, but as long as I kept it a secret, she wouldn’t be burdened by it.

The characters also didn’t behave in a way I could agree with. I liked the story a lot, but still, I disagreed with the characters. I guess that just goes to show how good of a director the creator is? Anyway, I could understand why they did it, there not being any support from their families except the brother, but I still thought they should have just eloped instead of going through so many lies. We weren’t doing that, but… we weren’t exactly being transparent either. None of us has confessed too, so it all boils down to it. I still wouldn’t do it yet though.

The final part that was sticking out was the father. How he was super glad about the engagement, but then felt betrayed by all the people he loved before realising and coming to terms with the reason why and finally accepting his daughter for whom she was. Sadly, the tractor he used to work the fields run him over and he never got to tell his family how he now felt.

I need to tell dad.

We were accepted by both our parents, but my dad was yet to be told by me about my feelings for Abby. It just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he didn’t hear it from me yet, that he’d be told after I told her father, and it wasn’t fair for him or Abby that I was already acting like I was dating her without his blessing and having confessed to her.

No, first I’d talk with him, then I’d confess to Abby, and then we’d tell them at the same time about our relationship during one of our… family diners, I suppose is what I’d call them.

“Ah! I’m gonna be late!” I gasped out of my light sleep as I suddenly remembered I had to go to work.

“No you don’t, silly,” Abby moaned as she rubbed her face on my chest. “It’s been days since you quit and it’s not even eight in the morning. Rest.”

“Oh… Y-yeah… now that you mention it.”

At the start of the holiday, I’d jolt awake thinking I was late to school. Now that I was over that, would I have to deal with this? My damned brain simply didn’t know to relax, did it?

“Knock, knock, kock.”

“Yes?” Abby asked.

Nobody answered from the other side of the door.

Abby looked at me, her yes asking for confirmation about the knocking, something I gave her with “I heard it too”.

“Knock, knock, knock.”

“Is it Oliver?” Abby wondered out loud.

I found it very hard to be such case. “Cats don’t knock,” I told her. Scratching, yes, but those weren’t that, it was clear as day it had to be someone on the other side using their knuckles on the wood.

Abby grunted as she stood up after the third time, tossing me my shirt and putting her—which also happened to be one of mine—on before opening.

She was looking forward when she opened the door, but quickly both our eyes were cast down when we heard Oliver meowing his thanks as he walked inside.

“Well… I guess our cat does,” I concluded.

He was purring at full throttle as he collapse on the floor, looking like he was smiling with his eyes ready to sleep.

“Are we sure this is a cat and not a person turned into one?”

At this point I was willing to take her joke as a fact.

“Hey, babe?” Abby called out while we were preparing our lunch. She showed me her phone, there being a message from Mathilda on display. She was asking if we were willing to watch some more movies of that director.

“…I’ll need some time to recover, but ok.”

“Really?” she asked, sounding exaggeratedly surprised.

“What? It was a good movie.”

“No, I’m surprised you’re so willing to hang-out with her again.”

“Oh. Well… it’s to watch a movie, so I don’t have to worry about holding a conversation.”

“Hmph, had I known that before.”

“…Are you jealous?”

Without skipping a beat, she leaned on me and gave me a very impish smile. “If I say yes, what will you do to make up for it?” was her challenge.

I had my hands dirty, but I still gave her a very tight squeeze and a nice smooch on her soft cheek. I hit the spot just right judging by the happy noise she let out. Then came Oliver asking for his share.

“Haah, yes, yes. Give me a moment,” I told him to at least silence his constant pleads. This was a common occurrence in the house.

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Abby laughed while she went back to work, me washing and drying my hands with him rubbing his body all over my ankles as he impatiently awaited his turn.

“There. Is that enough?” I asked after a fair while of me rubbing his head and chin.

His answer was to grab my hand with his mouth and pull it towards him. It was funny how he didn’t put any force into the bite. It was particularly funny how he hugged my hand while I gave his fluffy, black-spotted white belly a nice rub. I felt his claws, but not once did I feel like he’d scratch me. Spoiled and needy as he was, he was still a very good boy.

“Now I feel like getting one too,” Abby chuckled.

“Tsk, would you two give me a break?”

“What about after lunch?”

“…Fine.”

“Hehe, yay!”

Her phone rang a second time, but this time it was from my dad asking if it was still a good time for having extra food made. William was invited to joining us.

“Oh, your dad wants to eat with us? Sure. We were making extra any… wait, why is he texting you instead of me?”

“Because you like peace and quiet and since I’m with you, I get to choose the right time? Something like that?”

Fair enough, I suppose. I rolled my eyes anytime I received a text that wasn’t from her. How did I know when it was and when it wasn’t? Because she was with me all the time.

Come to think of it… she hasn’t slept alone once since the holidays started.

Maybe she didn’t feel like she needed to? That’d be great. Therapy has been going well, and her sleep diary also showed a lot of improvement.

"..."

That got me in a funny mood.

“Hehe, what’s gotten into you?” she asked as I clung to her again, my lips tickling her neck. She tasted sweet as usual, but also, a bit salty.

“I just felt like it.”

“Hmm? That so, huh?”

“Yeah. That so.”

She giggled some more while covering my hands with hers. And while this was very nice, she reminded me we needed to cook and that Oliver would get jealous again if I played with her too much.

We’d have to continue this later.

“Oliver, don’t fill William’s pants with fur!” I scolded when he began rubbing himself all over William’s ankles.

“It’s all right Violet, these need to get washed anyway,” he assured me as he picked Oliver up, effectively making him disappear in his hands. “And speaking of which, thanks for having done the laundry the other day. It saved me a trip just for that.”

With how much time I spent at his place and how much Abby helped me around my house, it was only fair I also helped around his place.

Abby approached her dad with a wide smile, pointing at the kitten while bragging about keeping up with her word about taking good care of him.

“I’d say you might be taking good care of him a bit too much,” he said in response, showing the belly he was rubbing with a single finger, Oliver looking very delighted by it with his semi-closed eyes and full-on purring.

“H-he’s not fat! He’s extra fluffy!”

That certainly was one way of putting it that only Abby could come up with.

After lunch, the grown-ups went about their business, and so did we. No, we didn’t get to flirting and skinship, it was too hot and we were too full for that. Instead, we took a nap—because sleeping is the fast-forward of the real world—and after that, we got ready for our usual walk.

“Hat?”

“Check,” I confirmed as I tapped it on top of my head.

“Sunscreen?”

“Check,” I said as I offered my hand for her to sniff.

“Cute girl to walk with?”

“Double check,” I said as I took her hand.

“Hehe.”

These interactions never got old, somehow.

Personally, it was these simple and quite silly goofing around that were the best shows of our mutual love. Something that was reserved for just the two of us. Even if we’d get a bit too lost in our own world and share it with anyone who had eyes and ears.

“Hmm? Oh, we are here.”

“Here where?”

I looked at Abby and back to the building on the other side of the street. To an apartment on the forth floor out of six to be more precise.

“This is where my grandmother lived before she passed away.”

“Hmm, that so, huh?” she hummed as she accompanied my gaze. “Who lives there now? One of your relatives?”

“No, she left it for the church.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

I wish I was. It was a nice place, a lot closer to the town centre and school, unlike were Abby and I lived. The place was also a lot more recent and as a result, better isolated. My grandmother really had picked a nice place to live after having sold her previous house, she having grown tired of living in such a huge place all alone.

Not that the apartment was small, oh no, it was quite spacious actually. Three bedrooms, two of them with their own bathrooms, a common one for guests, a nicely sized kitchen and a living room where she’d comfortably gather her church friends to talk and gossip in her religious sessions. Those were never no less than six or eight people. I lost count how many times I served tea during said meetings.

“So, she used you as a maid then?”

“Hmm… I guess you can say that, but it was her teaching me to be homey.”

“Ah, I see… Well… I guess she succeeded in that.”

Yup, I guess she did. Kinda made me wonder what else I could attribute to her teachings. Well, there was the cooking, cleaning, punctuality and my fussing over messing up.

“Essentially, would you say she was educating you to be a housewife?”

“Yup, that’s exactly it.”

“…Would you like to have been raised differently?”

Her question carried a lot of weight. She was asking me that and clearly thinking I might have some regrets over it like she might have.

From playing around to such a serious talk…

I don’t think it was a bad way to have been raised. I mean, sure, a lot of it is ingrained in me, but I can just work and change the aspects I don’t like or don’t wish to follow. I was already partially doing that by dating-but-not-yet-dating Abby. And if I hadn’t been raised like I was, would I have been so supportive of her as I had been and continue to be? Not with my do-not-bother-me personally, I wouldn’t.

Even if I didn’t see eye to eye with grandma, I have to say, I think she did a good job with me.

“She didn’t have it easy anyway.”

“Because of you mum?”

“That too, but I was thinking about me being born out of wedlock.”

“Right, your parents never got married.”

“I think that was a great source of internal conflict for her.”

“…Specially because you look so much like your mum.”

She had been a strict woman, and in a way, she felt a bit of shame due to my coming into existence, but it was as Abby said, I looked a lot like my mum. That couldn’t have been easy for her.

I believe she still loved me, but between her love and her religious dogmas and ideals… in the end she chose the latter by leaving everything she had to the church.

“I don’t resent her for it, but…”

“…It still hurts?”

…I guess that was it, yeah. It hurts a little to be denied recognition like that. I didn’t want the apartment, or the gold grandma had, nor what she had in the bank. In the end, I think I just wanted for her to say… I don’t know…”

“Didn’t you two talk before she died?”

“No. She died of a stroke in her sleep. One minute she was sleeping, the other, she was at the pearly gates talking with S. Peter without even knowing how she got there.”

Abby hugged my arm and rested her head on my shoulder to offer me some comfort as we kept walking in silence.

It had been a while since I last shared so much about me. I wished it had been something a bit lighter. Abby was very sensitive to these kinds of things after all.

“Well,” she said as she suddenly hopped in front of me, leaning slightly forward with one leg extended and only making contact with the heel on the ground and hands behind her back. “I for one give thanks for you existing and being the way you are.”

“Pfft, fufu. I’m sure you do.”

And just like that, the previous mood had returned.

What mattered the feelings and ideals of the dead? There’s a lot of me that I got from her, but I was me, and I was alive and that was what mattered. I’d live the best life I could according to my own ideals. And if Abby was there too, all the better.

The hot summer sun shone above us, but Abby’s smile shined the brightest.