His trust in me—and maybe even in Timmy—is palpable, but his body language screams confusion and fear.
Timmy doesn’t stop. He’s already out the door, tugging Sabre along with him.
“Timmy, please! Don’t do this!” I cry, rushing after him. I grab at Timmy’s hand, gripping the leash tightly. “Give him to me!”
There isnoway my drunk and goodness-knows-what-else fiancé is taking my teenage cat on a walk at 2AM over to the tents where people are doing and selling drugs.
There’s no way he’s taking him outside,period.
We’ve had this conversation before, and he’s agreed that he’ll never take Sabre outside in the dark. But when I said that, I meant right after the sun goes down. Never in my wildest nightmares did I dream he’d try to take him out at this hour.
I run to the door. “Please don’t do this! It’s 2AM! You know he can't go outside in the dark.”
Timmy yanks Sabre further out the door.
“Relax,” he says, his tone infuriatingly casual. “It’s just a walk.”
“No, it’s not ‘just a walk’!”My voice cracks, a sob rising in my throat. “It’s the middle of the night! You can’t take him out there—it’s not safe for him!”
I panic.
I grab at Timmy’s hand which is tightly secured around Sabre’s leash, and I pull on it, attempting to yank the leash away from him.
Sabre lets out a small, distressed meow, caught in the middle of this chaotic tug-of-war.
My rage boils over.
“Let him go!”I shout, bending Timmy’s fingers back, forcing him to release the leash.
“Ow! My fingers!”he yells, recoiling as if I’ve burned him.“You bent them on purpose!”
Suddenly, he shoves me.Hard.
I hit the cold tile floor with a jarring thud, pain shooting through my hip and neck. I curl into myself instinctively, clutching Sabre’s leash close to my chest.
“What is wrong with you?” I gasp, my voice trembling.
Timmy’s face contorts into an expression of mock hurt.“You’re abusive!”he snaps, pointing at me like a prosecutor delivering a damning verdict.“You hurt me! You’re always hurting me!”
My head spins. The audacity, the gaslighting—it’s overwhelming.
“I was getting Sabre away from you because you were trying to take him outside in the middle of the night!”
He glares at me. “No. You were trying to hurt me. You hurt my fingers on purpose! I wasn’t even doing anything wrong. You’resoabusive.”
I know that look on his face. It’s the one he gets when he’s planning something vindictive, something cruel.
Somethingvery bad for me.
I can’t take the risk. Not for me, and certainly not for Sabre.
I grab my phone and dial 911.
By the time the cops arrive, Timmy is long gone, having predictably retreated to the encampment across the way.
“You have an accent,” one officer says. “What do you do for work?”
“Um… I write books,” I reply.