11:30 Oranges

My parents bought a new sofa. It was a fancy one, bronze structure with a leather cover. The kind you should never buy if you have a cat. They set it down in the empty corner of the balcony and told me to try it out. I hated it. I hated it because it was soft and comfortable and it fits that corner so well. I hated it because it was an attempt to cover up the space where Sodapop once lived.

He was a Ragdoll with a lion’s mane and ocean-blue eyes. While the other cats clawed at my hair, Soda curled up in my lap and purred. He kept me company as I worked and waited for me to come home. When he wanted something, he’d give one clear meow and lead me to it: water, treats, belly rubs. More than anything, there was a consistency in his actions. He knew what he wanted, and I understood him.

That certainty was everything to me. I loved the feeling of “knowing” things, extracting patterns from everything. If I found patterns, I could almost guarantee a positive result. If I studied hard, I’d ace the test. If I did what other people wanted, they would be friends with me. Sodapop’s consistency in actions became a huge reason why I so firmly believed in these self-perceived patterns. They weren’t always correct, but they worked. For the most part, it made the world seem understandable—even predictable.

But that same pattern-seeking mindset led to one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made.

Soda had been hospitalized after a major accident. He survived three surgeries, barely. When it was time to bring him home, I hesitated. Letting him stay at the vets’ would be the best option; I trust the professionals. Plus, he hadn’t fully recovered yet, and the vet only noticed that another surgery was needed because they were keeping a close eye on him. They had saved him from the brink of death twice.

Two days later, in the vet’s office full of barking dogs and fluorescent lights, I watched the zigzag on the monitor flatten. It was heart failure. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. I placed my palm on Sodapop’s stiffening back and listened to the people laughing in the next room, then to the quiet that filled my chest.

People said, “You did all you could. The rest was fate.” I wasn’t mourning fate. It was the fact that I chose to wait. In a desperate attempt to protect him through patterns, I forgot that presence matters more than any prediction. Sodapop died. There was no denying the fact that his selection of chicken-and-tuna flavoured treats was given to strays; his toys were dug up from under the sofa and forever placed on a shelf; his water fountain and bowls were replaced by that bronze and leather sofa. It was over.

I don’t hate that sofa anymore. In fact, I’ve grown to like it. It reminds me of the time I spent sitting cross-legged in that corner of the balcony, laughing, as Sodapop ran after a laser pointer, and of the hours I spent sitting on the leather sofa, cutting feathers out of cardstock to use on my projects.

My passion projects became a lot more spontaneous than they used to be. I learned how to code in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript because, for a week, building my own website was all I wanted to do. And after that week, I had a functioning website. I wanted to have cheesecake, so I spent hours baking cheesecakes, only to show up at school the next day with a box of cake slices and give them all to my friends. I allowed myself to do things simply because they felt right, without feeling guilty when things didn’t go as I had predicted.

The old memories of time spent with Sodapop didn’t get overridden by new ones; instead, they stand separately, all instances of the presence I've grown to love. That is the constant Sodapop left behind and the one I hold with me moving forward.