Cold Kiss

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    Robin winces when I look back at her. “I was shaking it, you know? To get him to come? And I was calling him and shaking it, and calling him, and … suddenly all this food started pouring out of it.”
    It’s really coming, then, the moment when Robin can do the things I can do, and Mom can do, and for a second jealousy stabs at me. At least she has an idea it will happen to her, unlike me.
    But that’s something to deal with later. For now, we have to find the dumb cat.
    “You checked the whole house?” I ask her, going back into the front hall to grab my jacket. “Closets, drawers, basement, everywhere?”
    “Everywhere.” She’s practically vibrating with panic, and I don’t blame her. The number of places a twelve-pound cat can hide is huge.
    “He has to be outside, then. Come on.”
    She grabs a sweatshirt and follows me through the back door, already calling for him as she yanks it over her head. It’s nearly dusk, the backyard crouching in the shadow of the scarred elm tree beside the garage.
    “You check in there,” I tell her, and squint into the gathering dark of the lawn, the space under the back steps, the scraggly bushes along the wall.
    Robin knocks something over in the garage, and she comes out muttering and brushing off her sleeves. “If he’s in there, he’s somewhere I can’t see. We need light. ”
    The word is barely out of her mouth when a buttery glow follows the path of her outstretched hand. Her eyes widen, and I stumble backward a foot, but there’s no time to comment on it because the light has fallen on a trampled path pressed into the dying grass.
    Heading straight toward the corner of the yard, and Mrs. Petrelli’s garage.
    Robin’s on her way before I can say anything, the yellow light wobbling in front of her. It’s pretty clear that the path is too wide for a cat to have made, but she doesn’t see that in her panic.
    “Robin, slow down.” I jog after her. “You might, um, scare him if he’s back here.”
    “Mr. Purrfect,” she calls, ignoring me. “C’mere, boy. Come on now, I’ve got dinner for you, boy.” She’s already at the break in the hedge, waving her hand to cast the light through the scraggly leaves.
    And there, just on the other side of the hedge, is the cat, six feet from Mrs. Petrelli’s garage, with a crumpled piece of paper in his mouth. His yellow eyes gleam hot when Robin’s light bounces over his face.
    “There you are!” The light disappears as she rushes toward him, pushing through the leaves and dropping onto the grass with her hands outstretched. “Come here, boy.”
    I know it’s not possible—if my heart really stopped, I would pass out, keel over, lose consciousness. But it feels that way as the stupid animal opens its mouth to mewl at her, dropping the paper on the ground at her knees.
    All I can think is wind, but it’s too late. Before the stiff breeze slaps at us, she picks up the paper and spreads it open. “What’s this?” she says, petting the cat as he rubs against her thigh. His fur is standing partly on end, and I don’t know if he’s freaked out because of the wind or something else.
    Like my dead boyfriend.
    “Wren,” Robin says as I stand there with my mouth open like an idiot. “It looks like one of Danny’s.”
    The wrinkled page on her knees bears a cartoon sketch of a girl who looks just like me, in skinny black jeans and Docs, dark hair sticking out every which way, only half caught up in barrettes, and a bright red slash creating a smirk.
    It is me, of course. And Robin would know—her favorite game was to get Danny to draw funny pictures for her, of me, of the cat, of himself, even of her. She still has a couple of them pinned to the wall over her desk, all signed with Danny’s scribbled initials.
    She loved him, too, and he treated her better than most boyfriends would treat someone’s annoying little sister, because Danny was always willing to make someone smile.
    None of that matters right now, though. I lean forward and snatch the paper off her lap. “Get the cat, come on. It’s freezing.”
    “Where do you think he got that?” She stands up, Mr. Purrfect cradled in her arms and her voice muffled since she’s speaking into his fur.
    “I threw some stuff out the other day,” I tell her, and glance back over my shoulder as we make our way across the yard. “It must have blown out of the trash.”
    She blinks, and even in the semidarkness I can read the betrayal on her