kitten ♡ [muke]

7 - don't be sad lukey

Michael was still asleep when Karen got home. She sat down her things, put them up, and made her way to the living room to check on Luke and Michael. She opened her mouth to speak when she noticed Luke's red and puffy tear-stained face.

Her brow furrowed in worry as she mom-walked over and sat down beside Luke, who was still holding Michael.

"Luke honey, what's wrong?", she asked in a hushed tone, not wanting to wake the sleeping boy.

"Michael told me about the incident.", Luke mumbled back, more tears rolling down his face.

---

Luke and Karen sat at the coffee table across from each other, with hot tea and pastries.

Luke had taken Mikey up to bed for his nap time, so Karen could tell Luke what had happened.

He sat across from her patiently as she collected her thoughts, thinking of all of the sick possibilities of what could have happened. Just as he began to worry too much, Karen spoke.

"Ashton moved into the neighborhood when Michael was only 5. Ashton was a peculiar boy, but Michael seemed to like him alot. They played together everyday. The two of them became quite good friends actually. They liked to play kittens...", she smiled a bit, looking off as if she was remembering something. But then her smile fell.

"Did anything about Ashton seem disturbing?", I asked her, worry lacing my voice.

"He seemed normal. Except they never played anything other than kittens. Ashton acted like a kitten all the time, wherever he went. I just assumed he had a vivid imagination," she took a sip of her tea.

"But I found out later that wasn't the case. I assume the part Michael told you is where we're coming to in the story. One day I made the mistake of letting them play at Ashton's. They'd never played there before, but I assumed it would be alright because I could see the tree they were playing in from the window.", she paused for a moment.

"Why didn't they ever play at Ashton's?", I questioned, thoughts coming together in my mind.

"Ashton's mother wasn't very... Motherly. She tended to disappear for hours at a time; which is when Michael and Ashton would play. But if Ashton wasn't home before she was, she would come into the house yelling looking for him, and would drag him by the arm all the way back to the house. I really don't know what happened after that....", her face saddened, Luke could see the sorrow in her eyes.

"But anyhow... I turned away for a moment to put some dishes in the sink, and when I turned back around I saw Ashton's mother stumbling out of the house yelling at the boys. I immediately took off trying to get there in time but it was too late... She'd grabbed Ashton out of the tree and yanked him to the ground. Michael fell with him.", at that point her voice broke and she began to cry.

Luke couldn't breathe and he felt his eyes well up with tears. "W-what happened then?", he asked breathlessly, the tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

"We rushed him to the hospital. The doctors thought it would be a simple concussion but something happened when Michael hit his head... No one could figure what had happened. The doctors said he would be stuck in his kitten state forever, or until something in his brain snapped back to normal.", she sobbed again.

Luke felt the tears roll down his face. "What about Ashton?"

"Police investigated what had happened and came to find out that Ashton's mother had been abusing him. She was an alcoholic and his father was never there.... Something had happened to Ashton too, but they disclosed that information.. They took him away and took his mother to jail. The dad sold the house and we never heard from any of them again."

Luke sat there in silence for several moments processing everything Karen had just told him.

How could this happen? How could anyone ever hurt his Mikey? Suddenly Luke felt so angry. He just sat there with his head in his hands, crying.

"Luke I know you care about Michael. I see the way you look at him... I'm just not sure if Mikey knows or understands that.", she said sadly, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder.

"I wish he could.", Luke croaked, looking up at Karen with his pretty blue eyes, full of tears.

"Maybe someday he will honey.", she gave his hand a squeeze.

"But until then all you can do is love and care for him and just be here. That's what he would want.", she said softly.

"And it makes me happy to see Michael with someone that makes him so happy.", she added, patting Luke's knee and sitting up, wiping the make-up from under her eyes.

"I just don't know how anybody could do anything so awful to such a wonderful person.", he said quietly, resting his chin on his fist, "It makes me so sad." He put his head in his hands again.

Just then Luke heard an innocent sleepy voice. "Please don't be sad Lukey.", as Michael wrapped his arms around Luke's waist, resting his head on his back.

.......