Alec

After looking around for about fifteen minutes, the little rascal showed up

“Where’ve you been, Cy?” Alec crouched down to pet Cyclone, who was busy licking his lips happily. Alec frowned, had he been eating something somewhere? Once he finished the food he already had in his mouth, Cyclone immediately started bouncing around the room while whining for more.

“That better have not been a rat.” Alec muttered as he walked after the cat. As he walked into the kitchen he began to make an elaborate latte to begin the productive segment of his day. He always tried to have parts of the day that were always the same to be able to have structure built into his life. It made him have to take small breaks and drink some caffeine while he was at it.

Before he had been hired by the company that Eve had inherited, he had been a barista for a few years despite the fact was probably too young to be legally hired. It wasn’t a well paid job, but it was one of his favorites. The smell of coffee grounds in a small, warmly lit café at golden hour with a perfectly crisp bagel and cream cheese. His mouth watered at the thought. He missed the job, but he knew that this one would be a better way to remember Eve.

Alec hummed to himself happily as he walked with his large mug of coffee to his desk. He opened his laptop and started working, one hand taking notes and the other petting the cat that had invited herself onto his lap. Before Eve had begun to collect cats, he wasn’t a huge fan of them, but over time he grew fond of the hungry fluff balls of energy. Even now, without Eveline, he found their presence comforting for his grieving heart.

After a few hours of work, Alec noticed a floral pink book sitting in the corner of the room; Eve loved flowers and pink. He blinked a few times and got up to take a look at it. He picked it up and sat back down, a different cat immediately taking over his lap again. The cover of the notebook had “Eveline” carefully written on it in Eve’s pretty, swirly handwriting. After a moment of contemplation and pulling himself together, Alec opened it; he then realized that it was a journal.

“I turned twenty today, I had the birthday party of my dreams... But when I came home to the mansion I grew up in.. It was so dark and lonely. I’ve started considering getting a pet or two, this manor feels much too big to live in alone. 

Alec was at my party this year too, I almost asked him out, but I was too cowardly to actually do it; I think I’ll be single forever if it’s up to me to ask a man out.”

Alec chuckled, Eve had always been the type to write her thoughts down, sadly she refused to let him read her journals. She claimed that they were either too private or too embarrassing. He suddenly paused,

“Wait, but if she was too cowardly to ask me… Then what made her get the courage to ask me out later that year..?” Alec flipped through to find a page that was closer to the date that she asked him on a date.

“Ross told me-”

Alec paused reading and frowned at the name, “Back up- Who’s Ross??” He flipped back some, thoroughly confused.

“I had the strangest experience today, I was feeding my cat and a man suddenly appeared out of thin air. I almost pepper sprayed him in the face, but he yelped and took a step back before I could. He seemed as freaked out as I was.

A few minutes later he evaporated and was gone. I thought I was seeing things at first, but my cat got scared too. Was that man actually real? Or am I just too tired and need to go to bed?”

“Is that man the supposed Ross?” Alec frowned, “She never mentioned any of this to me..” He skipped a few pages.

”Ross appeared again, it seems that he’s actually not a figment of my imagination, we’ve started to talk lately. He seems really lonely so I want to become his friend.”

“That sounds like a bad idea…” Alec commented, he suddenly heard a loud scraping sound upstairs. He gingerly lifted the cat off of his lap, put the journal down, and got up. He went up several sets of stairs before finding the floor that the sound was coming from. Alec opened the door, it slowly creaked open as he did so. He stepped inside, coughing as a bit of dust that had settled on the top of the door wafted into his lungs. He glanced around, no cats seemed to be in the room. He suddenly heard another sound and flinched, he closed the door behind him and started looking more thoroughly. The room was entirely empty save for a couple of empty boxes stacked in the corner, no places for a cat to hide.