Dear Universe, Up Yours!

Chapter 19

Gerard and I had been back into the town, taking a walk on the sidewalk while the cat has been continuing to follow us from behind. I enjoyed its presence as much as I indulged in Gerard's, actually. And every time I'd speak to Gerard, I'd always feel such bliss. Hearing his voice and speaking to me had always gave an effect on me, even though it was the most basic thing a human being would do to another. Maybe I've been realizing that since the beginning, all this lack of communication with anybody at all, then finally talking with Gerard has made me desperate for more talk. The fact that it's so simple makes me feel so idiotic. And I don't even want to talk to anybody but Gerard either. Everything's confusing. I can't even understand myself.

I didn't want to become agitated by thoughts again, so I decided to speak with Gerard. "So do you think we should name him?" I asked, looking back at the cat and then at him as we walked together side by side.

"Well, what you said, he's serendipitous. I feel that he's too... special to have a name, y'know?" he grinned, turning his head to look at me. "I mean, that's how things work sometimes. Like you don't know how to explain something so you don't know which words to use."

He was right about that. It actually perfectly described most of the feelings I had. I looked back at the small cat again, who was still following us with its tail moving back and forth smoothly, small paws hitting the pavement gently. I turned back to Gerard, replying with "Yeah."

It was a short walk and we didn't really know where we were going. Maybe it was just to look around and be outside for a while. We haven't even checked out of the motel yet, so I knew with Gerard's morals that we weren't going to exactly go away completely.

Walking beside Gerard, I felt the back of our hands brush against each other until he finally grabbed mine delicately. This was an unexpected move and instead, I tried to look away, flustered, to my left or back at the cat, who looked up at me, into my eyes, but proceeded to hold his hand back tight.

Moving my head frontwards, I looked down to see the cat walking faster, through in between Gerard and I until it came walking in front of us. Confused, we decided to follow the cat, as it had made different turns at the corners of the sidewalk, and walked faster, almost like a run.

Then, it seemed to disappear behind a tattered banner attached to a metal wire fence. Mine and Gerard's hands had separated as we reached down towards the fence to observe, moving the corner of the banner to reveal a hole in the fence. Gerard, unexpectedly, crawled through the hole and I had but no choice to follow.

Standing up after I had come in, it was some sort of construction site. Abandoned, most likely as well. There was only a structure that had wooden frames and a few unfinished walls. There was some scaffolding here and there, but it wasn't too tall. It kind of felt dark and eerie, even though it had been the early morning. I just felt some bad feeling in my chest, and my stomach had just felt worse.

My mind had shaken off only the thoughts, but not the entire feeling once I heard Gerard's voice ring through the atmosphere.

"Where'd he go?" he asked, walking around the area, which made me feel uneasy. Oh right, the cat.

"I'm not sure," I asked, but I didn't really want to move more inwards. "I'm tired," I mentioned, feeling my head hurt.

"You okay?" he asked, walking up to me in concern.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm... I'm just tired." I said, trying to move my mind away from this bad feeling. "What are we going to do about the cat? We just found him and now he's just... lost."

"Well... Again, he's a stray. Maybe he wants to be somewhere else, and that's fine. They belong to be free." Gerard told me, moving some hair from out of his face.