Four Of A Kind

Chapter 58: [2.31] A Cat in Human Form

Time passed. The sun shifted. My essay took shape under my fingers, building momentum with each paragraph. Sabrina’s warmth remained constant against my side, a comfortable pressure that I’d stopped noticing consciously.

I was deep in thought, typing out the conclusion, when I felt it.

A subtle weight against my shoulder.

I glanced over.

Sabrina’s head had lulled to the side. Her book had slipped from her fingers, resting on her stomach. Her eyes were closed, her breathing slow and even.

She’d fallen asleep.

On me.

Her wine-red hair brushed against my neck, soft as silk. Her head nestled into the curve of my shoulder like it belonged there. I could feel the gentle puff of her breath, warm and rhythmic against my collar.

I froze.

Moving would wake her. The beanbag was too soft, too responsive to weight distribution. Any shift in my position would send ripples through the leather and disturb her.

My arm was already starting to go numb where she’d pinned it against the beanbag’s side.

The bell signaling the end of the period would ring in… I checked my laptop clock. Ten minutes.

My essay needed a conclusion.

My arm was losing circulation.

A Valentine sister was using me as a pillow in a semi-public space where any passing student could see us.

I looked at the sleeping girl, then back at my laptop screen. The cursor blinked patiently, waiting for input.

My contract does not cover “acting as a human pillow.”

I carefully, slowly, shifted my laptop to a better angle. Tested the keyboard’s position. Found that I could still type with one hand if I angled my wrist just right.

But I have a feeling the terms are negotiable.

My right arm was definitely dead. The pins and needles had graduated to full numbness. Sabrina’s head grew heavier as she relaxed further into sleep, trusting my body to support her weight without conscious thought.

Trust.

After seventeen days of testing me, watching me, reading me like one of her books—she’d decided I was safe enough to sleep on.

When was the last time someone trusted me like this?

Iris, obviously. But that was different. That was family. That was obligation wrapped in love.

This was a girl I’d known for less than a month, falling asleep on me in a library nook like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I typed out the final sentences of my essay one-handed.

Gatsby’s pursuit of the green light was never truly about Daisy. It was about the promise of becoming someone worthy of the light itself. The tragedy wasn’t that he couldn’t reach Daisy across the water.

The tragedy was simpler. In stretching his arms toward that impossible glow, he forgot to look down at his own hands. He forgot what they’d built, what they’d survived, what made them remarkable before he decided remarkable wasn’t enough.

He chased a symbol until the symbol consumed the man.

The green light didn’t kill Gatsby. His conviction that he needed it to be complete did.

Fitzgerald understood something most people miss: the American Dream isn’t about achieving wealth or status. It’s about the hollow space that remains when you realize achievement was never going to fill the void you were running from.

Gatsby died reaching for a dock across the bay. But he’d stopped living years earlier, the moment he decided Jay Gatz wasn’t worth keeping.

Not my best work. Hard to achieve literary excellence when half your body is serving as a mattress.

But Sabrina’s idea elevated the whole thing. Ms. Vance would probably give it an A just for the thesis.

Three minutes until the bell.

Sabrina shifted in her sleep. Her hand moved from her lap to rest against my chest, fingers curling slightly into the fabric of my uniform shirt. Her face turned further into my shoulder, hiding from the light.

She’s a cat, I realized. An actual cat in human form. She found a warm spot and now she’s claiming it as her territory.

My laptop battery showed twelve percent. My arm showed zero percent. The clock showed two minutes.

Options:

One: Wake her up gently. Explain that the period is ending. Act like a normal, professional assistant who maintains appropriate boundaries.

Two: Let her sleep. Miss the first five minutes of my next class. Lose feeling in my arm permanently.

Three: Somehow extract myself without waking her. Achieve ninja-level stealth in a leather beanbag chair. Highly unlikely.

The bell rang.

Sabrina’s eyes opened instantly.

She didn’t jolt awake or startle like a normal person would. Her purple eyes simply appeared, focusing on nothing for a long moment before tracking sideways to meet mine.

We stared at each other.

Her head was still on my shoulder. Her hand was still on my chest. Our thighs were still pressed together from hip to knee.

“The bell rang,” I said.

“Mm.”

She didn’t move.

“Class is starting.”

“Mm.”

Still nothing.

“My arm is completely numb.”

“That sounds like a personal problem.”

“It’s your head’s problem. Your head is the reason my arm died.”

“My head is very comfortable where it is.”

“Sabrina.”

“Isaiah.”

The way she said my name, all low and sleep-rough, sent something strange through my chest. I ignored it.

“People are going to see us.”

“People see things all the time. Most of them aren’t important.”

“A Valentine sister using the scholarship student as a pillow might qualify as important.”

She considered this. Her eyes, still half-lidded, studied my face with that unsettling focus she’d displayed earlier.

“You didn’t move.”

“What?”

“While I slept. You didn’t move. You could have woken me. You stayed.”

I didn’t have a response to that.

Sabrina finally lifted her head. The sudden absence of warmth against my shoulder felt wrong. She stretched, catlike, and retrieved her fallen book from where it had slipped.

“Your essay is better now.” She stood, smoothing her skirt. “Less boring.”

“High praise.”

“It is.”

She walked toward the stairs without looking back. At the edge of the stacks, she paused.

“We should do this at the house someday.”

Then she was gone.