She'd asked him more than once. Keep the window shut. Make sure the cat doesn't get near it. Simple enough request, you'd think, especially when the cat in question is 21 years old and lives on the second floor with no safety net below.
He told her she was worrying over nothing.
She came home from work to find out what nothing had turned into.
He hadn't even clocked it had happened. The cat had already been lying outside for a while by the time she got back. They rushed her to the vet. He cried, apologised, helped scrape together some of the bill. For about two days, he seemed to understand the weight of what had happened.
Then he moved on. Laughing at his phone. Chatting like it was any other week. While she was still in pieces.
What made it land harder, he has two dogs he adores. Takes immaculate care of them. And she couldn't shake the thought: if one of his dogs had been near that window, he would have shut it without being asked twice.
The cat didn't make it. The vets found advanced arthritis, at 21, her body just couldn't cope with the fall. Rather than put her through a long recovery that might not come, she made the call to let her go quietly.
Twenty-one years. That's not a pet, that's a chapter of your life. That's a creature who was there through everything.
She says she doesn't think he meant for it to happen. She's not calling it malicious. She's calling it careless, and selfish, and, maybe worst of all, the kind of thing that shows you who someone actually is when it matters.
Some accidents are just accidents. Some accidents are the answer to a question you didn't know you were asking.
Where do you land on this one?