“Did you get Mittens dropped off at the shelter?” Mom called from the living room.

“Yep. Yea, all taken care of,” Dad said stiffly, glancing at me then back down to the groceries.

I sat staring at nothing. It felt like my hands were melting. Why do they have to sweat so bad?

“You want a cookie, bud?” Dad was eying me critically. It wasn’t said but we now shared a secret that mom can’t know. A secret I don’t want to keep. I just know that if mom finds out, she’ll kill him. Then, he’ll worse than kill me.

“Sure.”

My hands were shaking. My eyes burned. I blinked trying to push back the tears. They seemed to just collect into pools that began spilling over. I crammed the cookie in my mouth and ran to my room.

I lay with my face in my pillow. Tiny shudders interrupted my impression of not existing. Tears were searing as they left but icy when they smeared against my face on the pillow. I sniffled once, twice, damnit all. Snot just oozed down my lip. Can’t afford to have anyone think I’m crying.

I heard footsteps outside my door. Dad or mom? Get it together. I smeared the snot on my sleeve and tried to use the same sleeve to dry my eyes. Stupid. Faint metallic clicking sounded as a hand softly turned the doorknob. “Not dad,” my thoughts screamed. “Please not dad.”

“Bubba, where’s Mittens?”

It was Jimmy. I pretended to be asleep.

“Bubba?”

It was silent for a long time, but eventually I heard his little footsteps heading down the hall. Jimmy can’t know either.

(No time to finish, but I think I did the prompt. The cat never made it to the shelter is the secret 🤐)