Confessions and Other Storms

Author's Note
Hi! I'm Cypresswind, and this is my first oneshot on this wiki. It was originally posted on BlogClan (Kate Cary's blog) as a submission for Foxstep's oneshot contest. Since the contest required the fanfics to be about romance, this oneshot follows a she-cat and her tumultuous love life. Reviews and constructive criticism are very much appreciated. Enjoy!

Confessions and Other Storms
You're not in this camp with me and I just thought I would say so. I study the ground and the deputy cuffs my ear, tells me to pay attention. To focus, which I don't. I don't focus on him or you or the splinter in my paw. I focus on the cute kittypet from when I was an apprentice. I focus on the tom with the hole for the mouth, who told me if I was so bent on dying, I might as well have kits with him first.

Like a ghost, I have no body, drifting from mate to mate, lost. I always say yes, say shut up and love me already, say don't leave me but they're already gone. Stuck in a perpetual romance, I try to I convince my latest love I am more than sparkle and flash, but all that comes out is a dead fox cub. Love, leave, repeat.

When I find you, you are batting at heather, honeybee eyes squinted in concentration. I already know the words you're about to say. Babe, I have this script memorized. You say: it's not me, but you. You have a mate. You're straight. You're to old for me. I nod along, complete numbness in my throat. You also tell me you are pregnant, which surprises me the most. You admit the kit's aren't your mates, meaning I was not the only affair you had going on. You instantly become more interesting.

You start to walk away and I don't stop you. Besides, in the Clans, adultery is considered worse than murder. You would be safer in the Twolegplace or somewhere far away, in the arms of a stranger. I only want what's best for you.

That night, I dream. Dream of everyone I have ever loved. Dream of blindness. Dream of lions. Dream of snow. When I toss and turn, my stomach sloshes. Heartbreak is the best way to grow up. I first had my heart broken when I was eight moons on the eve of a blizzard. I crawled into the gorse, wrapped the grey sky around me, and stopped being young.

I idolized my third mate. She was the unbreakable type, the strong girl. Raised on yarrow and slicked with rosemary, she could drown out her grief with a biting laugh. She held her strength in her sternum, and when you put it that way, her death makes sense.

(A tree crushed her ribcage. I guess even the brave have to die at some point.)

I wake up and the crow I eat is full of maggots. They leave a sour taste in my mouth. I may have swallowed a few, by accident. Maybe the maggots will eat me from the inside out, squirming masses of consumption. Maybe they will mature and become flies, buzzing around in the spaces between my veins. I almost smile. Rain starts to fall.

This is the quiet part. The part I shouldn't tell anyone. I miss them. All of them. The cats who left me in some shape or form. I miss their tooth stains, their ankle bones. I wish them soft lives—wet sand and smudged tides. I wish them orchids. I wish them lilies. I wish them the world that was never mine. I wish them wanting. I wish them honeysuckle. I wish them that fluttery breeze, that weightlessness, that everything that I could not fulfill.

Dear Loves,

I am sorry.