This is my first short (short) story of the year. I hope you enjoy it. I couldn’t help but start the year with a cat!

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“They can’t understand you,” her brother said with his hands on his hips. He always stood like that when he was gearing up to lecture her. And it seems like all he did was lecture her. It would have bothered her, except he did it so much that she learned to not listen while looking like she was paying close attention. It served her well.

She nodded, as if she agreed, without breaking eye contact with the orange tabby sitting in on the rock in front of her. His eyes were blue, like the sky on the first clear day after a rain. He still hadn’t blinked. She would have to soon.

“You are too old to be talking to cats. What will the neighbors say?” He shook his head. She could see him out of the corner of his eye. She knew enough not to answer. “They’ll say you are weird. They’ll never be your friend. Don’t you want friends?”

She went still, just as the cat cocked his head to one side as if he heard something new that she did not. It was an old nail he drove into her heart, but it still hurt. She did not give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

He huffed, turned on his heel, and walked away.

“Finally,” the cat said as he blinked. “I thought that horrible human would never leave.”

The girl smiled in a very feline grin and settled down for a lovely conversation.