A Good Cause

“Please?”

It took no time to type, yet each letter still stung. None admitted it, but I knew every person I’d contacted today relished my shame. They probably knew it too as soon as my name reemerged in their inbox—that the real world had finally drowned my unblemished ideals, and all it took was my cat Muning urinating blood. 

No one had said it, but we all knew it was my karma.

“I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

It was all I could offer, penniless and friendless. Yet today also brought out the optimist I’d always suppressed, my chest pounding with hope as the dots wriggled to life on an old friend’s side of the chat room. 

<Oh so now we’re friends again?>

That hope clogged my throat. Burned my collar up. Elsewhere inside me was the urge to swear and point out all the times I’d been there for her, but my trembling thumbs could only muster polite desperation.

The worst part was how the term used to mean the world to me. Friends. What we found ourselves becoming in her lowest and loneliest. It was what she’d embodied since the night it finally sunk in that my soulmate got married with someone else. She was my strongest crutch and my steadiest pillar, the exact kind of friend she probably thought I should have been when she was pushing me later to buy three more cheap dresses to help her reach her monthly quota. 

That wasn’t nice of her, I replied instead. Like she was twisting our friendship into a business arrangement. I’d also just moved houses too, so even if I wanted, I still couldn’t afford more than the two pieces I already bought from her as a favor. And then to demand I buy more? I loved her, but I said that was unreasonable.

<You’re a bitch.>

I read and reread her response for weeks afterwards. It proved too hurtful to address or dislodge, so we just let it rot there in the cobwebs of that digital corner of our life where it festered then fossilized. And today, suffering anew all the wounds everyone had been reopening made me realize that she might actually have been right. 

So, jaws clenched, heart gutted, I winced as my hesitant fingers danced atop my screen again:

“Can you forgive me?”

It didn’t matter in the end. Her icon had gone solid. Unclickable. The bitch had blocked me.

I pursed my lips. There was a time I thought this was a badge of honor. An affirmation of standing my ground and getting ostracized for it by the liars, the narcissists, and the backstabbers that I’d regretfully been basing my self-worth on. The high ground had since felt like a home, a fortress that I would die for. My mama had her faults, but she raised no softie, I told myself with each bridge that went up in smoke.

Yet the veterinarian confirming the price of the operation that Muning needed as soon as possible—and seeing her sedated face in peaceful slumber for the first time in days—reminded me that the highest grounds bore no fruit. 

So, still mired in delusions, I continued my journey down my friends list, remembering which ones owed me, which ones might reciprocate. I typed, then deleted. I reconsidered. I swallowed my pride.

“Hey, how are you?”

I had tons of fun with this guy back in college. We were two of the only gamers in our classroom of bookworms. We played battle royales after classes, then raided people’s bases on weekends. I thought we’d be perennial rivals in each other’s leaderboards, but, well, he thought he was ascending a different kind of ladder. After a while, I just laughed his antics off. I grinned. Smiled. Nodded. Looked away. Made excuses.

“I’m sorry I ghosted you.”

I really was not.

What else were you supposed to say when people chose to hear what they only wanted? I never thought our mutual hobby would ever be a burden, but eventually the fun started feeling like a scheme.

Still he was a nice guy for the most part. His pushiness didn’t deserve a slap or a scolding, so I just did what I felt spared us both: I drifted away.

If only I could make him see things from my side. But even if not, maybe we could still look back on better times, when our worst fears were exceeding our computer shop hours rather than missing rent.

<Oh don’t worry about it.>

<I have a girlfriend now.>

I wrestled with the urge to roll my eyes. I owed it to him to not be so rude. I was desperate for his help after all, and he was such a nice guy. He kept saying so himself when he was begging me for a chance. Nice enough to hopefully understand that I didn’t care, not about his forgiveness, nor his girlfriend, about him moving on, about anything else in the world really, except for the furry orange ball on my lap that he hopefully would be genuinely nice to and help out for its treatment.

I sighed. “I’m happy for you. I hope the two of you last.”

“I’m sorry to bring this up, but my cat Muning is not doing so well right now.”

“She needs to get a surgery but it’s kinda expensive.”

“So if there’s anything you can give, any amount at all, I’d be forever grateful.”

“Please?” 

It took almost half an hour for that gray indictment below my last message to dawn upon me as the karma that he must think I have long owed him: Seen.

I blinked away the welling frustration. These wouldn’t have mattered even just last week. For so long, I strengthened my walls so nobody could tear me down. Weathered stormy seas without fair weather friends. I thought I had this.

The chunk of fur curled atop my legs reminded me of how I actually survived, and looking at her now, how I might not any longer. Muning’s back had turned bony and sickly from her refusal to eat anything this past week. She used to be so much chubbier. Happier. The vet gave her something for the night, but without a surgery by tomorrow…

He was barely able to get through the rest of his spiel with how loudly I started bawling like a goat right there and then.

And yet, even now, I braced myself for worse.

“Mama, hello…”

My oldest friend. My dearest flesh and blood. My giving tree, who nowadays loudly bemoaned cutting off so much of herself just to bring me into this world, just because I voted for someone else who wanted to build a different kind.

“Mama, I need your help.” 

I saw her name light up to signify she was online, and right away my heart flashed a bright wary red. Whatever happened, I’d come crawling back—her tiresome hex between the threats and insults we’d thrown each other since that distant election. I bit my lips.

“Can I borrow ten thousand pesos?”

It was not a small amount, but it was nothing I knew my mother would hesitate shelling out for a new bag, or whenever her favorite politician had a strong soundbite. It might mean a weekend with her friends she would now have to postpone. Chump change compared to everything else that a single mother had once needed to sacrifice.

“Muning is in a bad shape, ma. She needs surgery soon, but my salary isn’t until the end of the month.”

“I will pay you back as soon as I can.”

Desperation climbed my throat. Another thorny piece of the giving tree, that probably had visions of me lynched up high in its branches.

“Please, mama?”

<Why don’t you ask your president for help?>

I didn’t wait for the laughing emojis to arrive. The mockery in all caps. My karma. I simply dove and enveloped my face in the pillow that was my cat’s torso. The softest rock bottom. It took everything I had not to scream into her welcoming void and ruin what could be her last nap on Earth.

I didn’t deserve her. But I was glad to have her.

The engine inside her cushy body rumbled like nothing was wrong in the world. Her appetite again purred with greed, and her litter box emanated the same old benign stink. She was atop the highest of ledges in the coziest of boxes, under peaceful skies that dangled balls, feathers, and critters of the oddest most tantalizing shapes. Catnips fanned at her from every corner like what spoiled Egyptian deities were entitled to, while serenaded by tweeting birds she could easily reach if she just bothered to get up and pounce, but was in too much of a comfort getting her belly rubbed the right gentle way, not too timidly, nor too ticklish.

Muning seemed to be having the sweetest dream, and as I held the pillow just above her unconscious adorably whiskered face, I wondered if she would rather stay there than return to this cruel world that was willing to punish her for having such a bitch of an owner.

But then, what about me?

I sniffled. Tossed the pillow aside. I dried my eyes.

I went back to my phone and scrolled down my list, down down down, until I came across another name I knew I should’ve deleted long ago, but that now made me glad for not doing so just yet. I crossed my fingers.

“Hello! I’m sorry to bother you…”