I sold the house two months later. I did not want to live on a street where the concrete had been that hot, where fourteen people had stood in a backyard listening to classic rock while I lay outside unable to move.
I found a small apartment in Newport, twelve minutes from Noel. One bedroom, a kitchen with enough counter space to work in, a window that catches afternoon sun. I went back to work at the clinic. Same commute, same invoices, same golden retriever dental claims. I make my own tea now. Some evenings I skip it entirely, just because I can, just to exercise the simple uncomplicated freedom of choosing not to.
I adopted a cat from the clinic, an orange tabby who had lost his left eye to an infection before he was rescued. I named him Verdict. I know it is a little obvious. I know it is the kind of name that makes people smile and shake their head simultaneously. I do not care. He sits in my lap every evening in that apartment in Newport and purrs with the dedication of a small engine, and he does not know his name or what it refers to or what it cost me to arrive in a place quiet enough to hold a purring cat at the end of the day. He only knows that someone chose him, which is, when you reduce it to its simplest form, the thing that matters most to any creature that has spent time being unchosen.
