A Catty Christmas

Chapter 4

The door to Jenny's apartment flew open, the keys rattling in the lock, as Jenny struggled to bring in several large packages. She stacked them haphazardly by the doorway before wrestling her keys out of the lock, closing the door. Using her keys she opened the top box revealing a brand new Christmas themed throw blanket. Wrapping it around herself she reveled in the softness of the blanket burying her face in it for a moment before surveying her apartment, still half buried in the blanket. The emptiness of the space hit her full force. Despite the Christmas decor it wasn't the same without him. She felt her eyes begin to well up with tears. Before they could fall though she sniffed hard, opening the rest of the boxes and began distributing throw blankets throughout the apartment.

"Tom, would you play a movie from my Classic Holidays playlist and put the Christmas jazz playlist on low in the background. Oh and kick on the fireplace." Jenny asked as she continued to bedazzle her place in throw blankets.

"Happy to do so, starting now." The calm male voice with a British accent replied. A Christmas movie began on her smart TV followed by quiet, low jazz music throughout the rest of the apartment. The fireplace flickered to life with a whoosh. She felt the tension start to melt as everything fell perfectly into place. Things were going to be ok. Grabbing her laptop as she popped onto the couch Jenny opened up her social accounts to catch up on everyone else's day.

"Reminder, tonight you're celebrating your two year anniversary at The Capitol." Tom's voice broke in shattering the calm she'd just settled into.

Taking a shuddering breath Jenny clenched her teeth trying to keep things together. "Tom. Cancel all plans with Jack. Cancel tonight. Cancel tomorrow. Cancel Christmas."

Trying to lose herself in something else Jenny kept scrolling. A friends post popped up with a dog and cat in it. Jenny read the cute caption before impulsively navigating to an animal adoption site. She scrolled through the available dogs that were up for adoption, stopping at one every now and then to read the bios before moving on to the available cats. There. For some reason a little grey, striped tabby caught her attention. She read his bio before clicking on the application process.

"This isn't bottoming out, I just finally have time for an animal, and cats are easy. They're practically like a plant. They do everything themselves. Easy." She muttered to herself. But as she reached the end of the application she hesitated, looking around her apartment. There was a lot of stuff a cat could break. Plus what happened if it wasn't as easy as a plant? She didn't know the first thing about taking care of a living thing, that wasn't her. What if it decided to start shredding things and she had to replace her clothes? Or her furniture?

Jenny slammed her laptop shut, hiding it under one of her throw pillows. Jumping up she caught her reflection in the smart mirror behind the sofa. Moving her hair around she tried out a few different hairstyles as she wandered closer to the mirror.

"Tom, activate smart mirror hairstyles."

"Activating hairstyles."

She swiped between different hairstyles, colors before settling on a long lavender with layers. She turned a few different ways admiring the futuristic look as she hummed to herself. Maybe she could convince May to do it with her during their spa day. Something new and adventurous. With a wave of her hand she deactivated the smart mirror. Her dark brown eyes and perfect, straight brown hair was reflected back. Despite how put together she looked she couldn't help but feel an empty ache in the pit of her stomach. Maybe food would help.

She rummaged around the kitchen for her secret stashes of trash food. Filling a small wicker basket to the brim with her secret stashes of junk food she headed back to the couch. Organizing them by genre of food and wrapper color Jenny stared down at the pile of junk food. Not even the junk food looked good. With a sigh she bent over to clean up the garbage from the night before, stuffing tissues and wrappers into the tiny, metal garbage can nearby.

As Jenny was emptying the tiny trash can a stack of pictures fell out landing on top of everything else. Jack stared back at her in a dozen different scenarios. Her heart started to pound as the memories flooded back. Taking him shopping, cooking together in her kitchen, work parties, picnics. She slammed the garbage closed trying to stop the flow of memories as she went from grief to anger.

"How dare you?!" She yelled at the closed cupboard.

Clenching her teeth she ripped open the cupboard door grabbing the pictures and throwing them back in the metal wastebasket as she stormed out onto her balcony where the grill sat. Opening the lid of the grill she set the wastebasket in it grabbing the lighter that hung from the grill. Clicking it on a flame appeared before being blown out by the chill winter breeze. She tried again but it flickered out before she could light the pictures.

Grabbing the wastebasket and lighter she stormed into her kitchen placing it on the stove. As she went to light the pictures she noticed a bottle of his whiskey tucked behind a plant. Jenny grabbed it emptying the contents into the wastebasket before lighting it.

The entire basket went up in a fireball. She screamed, dropping the lighter as she jumped backwards out of the flames' reach, patting her head and face frantically. Rushing around Jenny threw open the door and windows while trying to find the fire extinguisher.

"Where is it? Where is it? Who actually remembers where their fire extinguisher is?" Jenny yelled to herself.

The smoke alarms began chiming and Tom's calm voice stated, "Fire. Fire. Please evacuate to the nearest safe exit. Fire. Fire."

"I get it! I'm trying!" Jenny yelled.

Jenny screamed in surprise as she was suddenly doused in water from the ceiling fire sprinklers. Soaked, Jenny slowly stood up, looking around her apartment. The fire in the kitchen was out, in fact the damage from it didn't look bad. But water still kept pouring out of the sprinklers drenching everything, electronics, magazines, throw blankets, her purse. Clenching her teeth Jenny tried not to let her own waterworks start but after a moment gave up realizing no one would be able to tell anyways.