Chapter 1
It was 2:47 A.M.
Scratch
She rolled over in bed, holding the pillow tighter to her ear. It usually didn’t come this early. She wondered how it even came at all. How does a cat slip into their high security house? More importantly, why is she the only one in her family who seems to be aware of the cat’s existence?
Meow
As annoyed as Lena tried to be with the (maybe not so unwelcome) intruder, the small mews always did it for her. She hopped out of bed, (maybe not as begrudgingly as one might think,) and opened her bedroom door. A slight crack is all it took for the gray tabby to shoot past Lena’s legs and straight onto her bed, where he curled up and started purring almost instantly. Lena sighed, just a little bit. It wasn’t an unhappy sigh, really, honestly. It filled the air with contentedness. Maybe she liked mystery cat more than she let on. And in all honestly, he (she just assumed his gender) wasn’t really that much of a mystery. Lena was a solid 87% sure that he was her neighbor's cat.
The neighbors.
Lena was fond of her neighbors. She didn’t know them all too well, but they were a nice family. Caring parents, two girls. They all seemed to love each other. In a way, maybe in a way that she wasn’t fully aware of, it made Lena’s heart ache. Her life wasn’t all that bad, granted they were actually very wealthy. But Lena cared little for wealth. She couldn’t bring herself to care much for anything. When she was adopted by the Luthors, she had a heart far too big, far too big for the nature of her new family. Her father had little regard for her. He never did anything wrong, but it’s not as if he did anything right either. Her mother was almost the same way, except she intervened. She taught Lena how to succeed. How to be ambitious. How to achieve. Not how to love, not how to care. The only one who seemed to take to her was her adopted brother. Lex was like Lena’s rock. But her rock is gone. Upheaved and crushed. Gone. Not for good, no, but for long enough. Long enough to make Lena forget...forget what it’s like to grow attached to something...to someone.
But when she looked at this cat, it’s almost as if she could feel something shift inside her. Maybe her brain (or her heart) was desperate (how else would a stranger cat change her feelings?) With the cat purring softly in the middle of her bed, (king sized, plenty of room for the both of them,) she couldn’t help but feel...warm. When she gently kissed the top of his head, she thought of her neighbors. She smiled to herself, thinking about how they probably kissed the top of his little head every day. They probably showed him how much he was loved, and Lena couldn’t help but wish that she was loved by someone, (anyone,) but hey, at least this (13%) mystery cat showed up without fail in the early hours of the morning to pay attention to her, which is more than she could say about anyone else.