Shawn sat on the floor of his bathroom, knees to his chest, a small dapple-gray kitten in his arms. The lights were off, and he counted this as the fourth night he’d spent there, staring with cloudy, tear-filled eyes at the floor. His only friend was gone.

Gone…

The word felt bitter and foreign on his tongue, and he tried to rid himself of it. But he’d end up hunching forwards and holding Doe’s kitten to his chest and sobbing instead.

Doe hadn’t just been a friend. No, he’d been so much more. And now that he was gone. There was nothing left for the scholar. Ivy had been lost on their many travels. Shawn had wept when she gave into the effects of poison. And…Doe had been there, holding him. But now he was alone again.

Shawn took a deep breath, running his hand along the kitten’s back, thinking.

And within minutes, he was hunched over with the animal he’d sworn never to allow near him, crying again for his lost love.