Snapshots | ✓

Twenty: Micah

Friday, July 24th, 2015

It was 8pm and Hayes was drunk. Micah regarded her warily from the dining room table as she lay on the floor near the cat, explaining why humans and museums faced constant identity crises and talking about how easy it would be to be a cat in comparison. He wasn't sure why she was drunk but he was willing to bet it had something to do with how harried she'd been all week.

"In conclusion, humans and museums have to constantly adapt to changes in society or risk becoming obsolete and unwanted by people. It's so difficult to be a human or a museum. And you just sleep all day stretched out in the sun like a flower or a lizard. I would kill someone to live a life like that, but that's not how humans work. Well it is, but I would have to sun myself in prison and I don't think I'm cut out for prison. Don't have the constitution for it," she mused. She reached out a careful hand to the temperamental creature but before she could touch it, it shot across the room and jumped into Micah's lap. Hayes sighed dramatically and put her face in her folded arms.

The cat curled into a tight ball and fell promptly asleep. Micah frowned. He didn't even like the animal and yet it had remained steadfastly attached to him. It would sleep in his room or scratch at the door until he let it in, it would follow him from one part of the apartment to the other, and wouldn't let anyone but him touch it. Hayes had resigned herself to staring mournfully at the cat from across the room and telling him to appreciate it more.

"Why doesn't the cat like me?" she asked.

"I'm sure the cat likes you just fine," he assured her, turning his attention back to his work. He didn't want to attract her attention and be the subject of her next drunken ramble.

"Not as much as it likes you."

"That's because I don't like the cat and it's spiting me."

"So if I were to not like the cat it would like me more?"

"Maybe."

She unsteadily got to her feet and wandered over, pulling a chair closer to him and plopping down. "I know why you don't like cats."

"Why's that?" he inquired.

"Because you're a brooding golden retriever," she said, leaning heavily on the table as she studied him. He didn't reply and she took it as encouragement to go on. "You look like you should be the safe option when faced with a decision, but you're unsociable and taciturn and never say what you really mean and that makes it very difficult for people to figure out what you're thinking. And you're blond."

"I..." he paused, trying to pick a point to disagree on. "I say what I mean."

"No you don't."

"I don't say things I don't mean."

"A few days ago you called Jude 'alright' and we both know you don't think that's true."

"I also called him sleazy," he reminded her.

"You give a lot of mixed messages."

"I don't like him," Micah said. "But you do, and I'm not going to talk about what I think of him because you'll get angry with me."

"Your opinion of him is that bad?"

"Do you really want to know?"

Hayes hesitated. "No."

"I didn't think so."

"I have three men in my life and two of them hate each other. What are the odds?"

"Jude doesn't like me?"

"He thinks you're competition for my affection and sees you as a threat."

When she didn't immediately deny it he raised an eyebrow. "Am I?"

She stared at him for a moment too long before shaking her head. "No. Of course not. You're Micah."

"So I am," he said mostly to himself as she got up and went to grab the bottle of whiskey she'd been sipping from.